Armchair theorizing

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Armchair theory is an approach to providing new developments in a field that does not involve analysis of empirical (real-world) data. The term is typically pejorative, implying such scholarship is weak, frivolous, and disconnected from reality. [1]

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Armchair scholarship is often contrasted with the scientific method, which involves the active investigation of nature through data collection or testing and developing rigorous mathematical models. Anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski was a major critic whose views are often summarized in the saying "[come] off the verandah", encouraging fieldwork and participant observation. [2] :10–13 [3]

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Notes

  1. See, for example, Nadel (1956 :173), who defines armchair anthropology.
  2. Boon, James A. (1982), Other Tribes, Other Scribes: Symbolic Anthropology in the Comparative Study of Cultures, Histories, Religions and Texts, CUP Archive, ISBN   978-0-521-27197-4
  3. Gioia, Dennis A. (1 April 1999), "Practicability, Paradigms, and Problems in Stakeholder Theorizing" , Academy of Management Review, 24 (2): 228–232, doi:10.5465/amr.1999.1893931, ISSN   0363-7425

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