Related Research Articles
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavior, while cultural anthropology studies cultural meaning, including norms and values. A portmanteau term sociocultural anthropology is commonly used today. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life. Biological or physical anthropology studies the biological development of humans.
Franz Uri Boas was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology". His work is associated with the movements known as historical particularism and cultural relativism.
Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining the behavior of the participants in a given social situation and understanding the group members' own interpretation of such behavior. Ethnography in simple terms is a type of qualitative research where a person puts themselves in a specific community or organization in attempt to learn about their cultures from a first person point-of-view.
Bronisław Kasper Malinowski was a Polish-British anthropologist and ethnologist whose writings on ethnography, social theory, and field research have exerted a lasting influence on the discipline of anthropology.
Sir Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard, Kt FBA FRAI was an English anthropologist who was instrumental in the development of social anthropology. He was Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford from 1946 to 1970.
Marshall David Sahlins was an American cultural anthropologist best known for his ethnographic work in the Pacific and for his contributions to anthropological theory. He was the Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago.
Sir Edward Burnett Tylor was an English anthropologist, and professor of anthropology.
George Peter ("Pete") Murdock, also known as G. P. Murdock, was an American anthropologist who was professor at Yale University and University of Pittsburgh. He is remembered for his empirical approach to ethnological studies and his study of family and kinship structures across differing cultures. His 1967 Ethnographic Atlas dataset on more than 1,200 pre-industrial societies is influential and frequently used in social science research.
Clifford James Geertz was an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology and who was considered "for three decades... the single most influential cultural anthropologist in the United States." He served until his death as professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.
History of anthropology in this article refers primarily to the 18th- and 19th-century precursors of modern anthropology. The term anthropology itself, innovated as a New Latin scientific word during the Renaissance, has always meant "the study of man". The topics to be included and the terminology have varied historically. At present they are more elaborate than they were during the development of anthropology. For a presentation of modern social and cultural anthropology as they have developed in Britain, France, and North America since approximately 1900, see the relevant sections under Anthropology.
Thomas Fredrik Weybye Barth was a Norwegian social anthropologist who published several ethnographic books with a clear formalist view. He was a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Boston University, and previously held professorships at the University of Oslo, the University of Bergen, Emory University and Harvard University. He was appointed a government scholar in 1985.
The Fang people, also known as Fãn or Pahouin, are a Bantu ethnic group found in Equatorial Guinea, northern Gabon, and southern Cameroon. Representing about 85% of the total population of Equatorial Guinea, concentrated in the Río Muni region, the Fang people are its largest ethnic group. The Fang are also the largest ethnic group in Gabon, making up about a quarter of the population. In other countries, in the regions they live, they are one of the most significant and influential ethnic groups notably in Cameroon, where the Fang are part of the Ekang, a tribe that dominates Cameroonian politics with, President Paul Biya belonging to this ethnic group.
Sidney Wilfred Mintz was an American anthropologist best known for his studies of the Caribbean, creolization, and the anthropology of food. Mintz received his PhD at Columbia University in 1951 and conducted his primary fieldwork among sugar-cane workers in Puerto Rico. Later expanding his ethnographic research to Haiti and Jamaica, he produced historical and ethnographic studies of slavery and global capitalism, cultural hybridity, Caribbean peasants, and the political economy of food commodities. He taught for two decades at Yale University before helping to found the Anthropology Department at Johns Hopkins University, where he remained for the duration of his career. Mintz's history of sugar, Sweetness and Power, is considered one of the most influential publications in cultural anthropology and food studies.
Field research, field studies, or fieldwork is the collection of raw data outside a laboratory, library, or workplace setting. The approaches and methods used in field research vary across disciplines. For example, biologists who conduct field research may simply observe animals interacting with their environments, whereas social scientists conducting field research may interview or observe people in their natural environments to learn their languages, folklore, and social structures.
Dan Sperber is a French social and cognitive scientist and philosopher. His most influential work has been in the fields of cognitive anthropology, linguistic pragmatics, psychology of reasoning, and philosophy of the social sciences. He has developed: an approach to cultural evolution known as the epidemiology of representations or cultural attraction theory as part of a naturalistic reconceptualization of the social; relevance theory; the argumentative theory of reasoning. Sperber formerly Directeur de Recherche at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique is Professor in the Departments of Cognitive Science and of Philosophy at the Central European University in Budapest.
Feminist anthropology is a four-field approach to anthropology that seeks to transform research findings, anthropological hiring practices, and the scholarly production of knowledge, using insights from feminist theory. Simultaneously, feminist anthropology challenges essentialist feminist theories developed in Europe and America. While feminists practiced cultural anthropology since its inception, it was not until the 1970s that feminist anthropology was formally recognized as a subdiscipline of anthropology. Since then, it has developed its own subsection of the American Anthropological Association – the Association for Feminist Anthropology – and its own publication, Feminist Anthropology. Their former journal Voices is now defunct.
Clinical ethnography is a term first used by Gilbert Herdt and Robert Stoller in a series of papers in the 1980s. As Herdt defines it, clinical ethnography
is the intensive study of subjectivity in cultural context...clinical ethnography is focused on the microscopic understanding of sexual subjectivity and individual differences within cross-cultural communities. What distinguishes clinical ethnography from anthropological ethnography in general is (a) the application of disciplined clinical training to ethnographic problems and (b) developmental concern with desires and meanings as they are distributed culturally within groups and across the course of life.
An ethnographic film is a non-fiction film, often similar to a documentary film, historically shot by Western filmmakers and dealing with non-Western people, and sometimes associated with anthropology. Definitions of the term are not definitive. Some academics claim it is more documentary, less anthropology, while others think it rests somewhere between the fields of anthropology and documentary films.
Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In the United States, social anthropology is commonly subsumed within cultural anthropology or sociocultural anthropology.
Robert Alan Levine is an American anthropologist best known for his multidisciplinary and cross-cultural work on child development. He spent much of his academic career at Harvard University in the Graduate School of Education, where he has been emeritus professor since 1998.
References
- Ackerman, R. (1993). "Review: [Untitled]". Anthropos. 88 (1/3): 236–238. JSTOR 40462776.
- Alexandre, P. (1979). "Review: [Untitled]". Africa: Journal of the International African Institute. 49 (2): 207–208. doi:10.2307/1158699. JSTOR 1158699.
- Barnard, A. (2004). Interpretive and postmodernist approaches. In History and Theory In Anthropology. Vol. 49. Cambridge: Cambridge University press. pp. 172–173.
- Conrad, D. (1988). "Review: [Untitled]". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 21 (3): 515–517. doi:10.2307/219458. JSTOR 219458.
- Fernandez, J. (1961). "Christian Acculturation and Fang Witchcraft". Cahiers d'Études Africaines. 2 (6): 244–270. doi:10.3406/cea.1961.2972. JSTOR 4390798.
- Fernandez, J. (1965). "Symbolic Consensus in a Fang Reformative Cult". American Anthropologist. 67 (4): 902–929. doi: 10.1525/aa.1965.67.4.02a00030 . JSTOR 668773.
- Fernandez, J. (1966). "Principles of Opposition and Vitality in Fang Aesthetics". The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. 25 (1): 53–64. doi:10.2307/428884. JSTOR 428884.
- Fernandez, J.; Fernandez, R. (1975). "Fang Reliquary Art: Its Quantities and Qualities". Cahiers d'Études Africaines. 15 (60): 723–746. doi:10.3406/cea.1975.3371. JSTOR 4391434.
- Fernandez, J. (1983). "Consciousness and Class in Southern Spain". American Ethnologist. 10 (1): 165–173. doi: 10.1525/ae.1983.10.1.02a00100 . JSTOR 644710.
- Fernandez, J. (1986). Persuasions and performances: the play of tropes in culture. Bloomington: Indiana University press.
- Fernandez, J. (1988). "Andalusia on Our Minds: Two Contrasting Places in Spain as Seen in a Vernacular Poetic Duel of the Late 19th Century". Cultural Anthropology. 3 (1): 21–35. doi:10.1525/can.1988.3.1.02a00030. JSTOR 656306.
- Fernandez, J. (June 2006). "Curriculum Vitae". University of Chicago. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
- Moore, J. D. (2009). James Fernandez: The Play of Tropes. In Visions of culture: An introduction to anthropological theories and theorists. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press. pp. 295–307.
- Ruel, M. (1990). "FERNANDEZ, James W., Persuasions and Performances: The play of tropes in culture". Journal of Religion in Africa. 20 (3): 279–280. doi:10.1163/157006690X00196 . Retrieved May 8, 2020.
- Schoffeleers, M. (1986). "Review: [Untitled]". Africa: Journal of the International African Institute. 56 (3): 352–356. doi:10.2307/1160689. JSTOR 1160689.
- University of Chicago (2020). "James W. Fernandez". University of Chicago. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
- John Simon Guggenheim Foundation (2003). "James W. Fernandez". Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved 13 May 2020.