Political anthropology is a subfield of sociocultural anthropology, but like anthropology as a whole, it remains immune to precise delimitation. The core of political anthropology is the comparative, fieldwork-based examination of politics in a broad range of historical, social, and cultural settings.
Herman Max Gluckman was a South African and British social anthropologist. He is best known as the founder of the Manchester School of anthropology.
Adam Jonathan Kuper is a South African anthropologist most closely linked to the school of social anthropology. In his works, he often treats the notion of "culture" skeptically, focusing as much on how it is used as on what it means.
James Clyde Mitchell was a British sociologist and anthropologist.
Clyde Kluckhohn, was an American anthropologist and social theorist, best known for his long-term ethnographic work among the Navajo and his contributions to the development of theory of culture within American anthropology.
Meyer Fortes was a South African-born anthropologist, best known for his work among the Tallensi and Ashanti in Ghana.
The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biological anthropology, evolutionary anthropology, social anthropology, cultural anthropology, visual anthropology and medical anthropology, as well as sub-specialisms within these, and interests shared with neighbouring disciplines such as human genetics, archaeology and linguistics. It seeks to combine a tradition of scholarship with services to anthropologists, including students.
Ronald Frankenberg was a British anthropologist and sociologist, known for his study of conflict and decision-making in a Welsh village. He also contributed to the development of medical anthropology.
Thayer Scudder, an American social anthropologist, is an Anthropology Professor Emeritus at the California Institute of Technology. Educated at Harvard University, he did a postdoctorate in African Studies, Anthropology and Ecology at the London School of Economics, followed by positions with the Rhodes-Livingston Institute for Social Research in Northern Rhodesia 1956-1957 and again in 1962–1963, and a post at the American University in Cairo in 1961–1962. He joined the Caltech faculty in that year. His work on socioeconomic issues and infrastructure development associated with river basin development, forced relocation, and refugee reintegration has made him a world leader in these fields. Large dams are one of the world's most controversial, divisive and expensive development issues, and Scudder is the world's leading expert on dams and relocation effects. His 2005 book "The Future of Large Dams" covers aspects of large dams and development including economics, politics, environmental risk, energy, agriculture, and human displacement and resettlement. He has undertaken studies on sustainable resource use in Africa, India, Nepal, Jordan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and the United States, and served on a number of independent review panels for dam projects in Africa and Asia. He is a former commissioner on the World Commission on Dams.
Isaac Schapera, was a social anthropologist at the London School of Economics specialising in South Africa. He was notable for his contributions of ethnographic and typological studies of the indigenous peoples of Botswana and South Africa. Additionally, he was one of the founders of the group that would develop British social anthropology.
Legal anthropology, also known as the anthropology of laws, is a sub-discipline of anthropology which specializes in "the cross-cultural study of social ordering". The questions that Legal Anthropologists seek to answer concern how is law present in cultures? How does it manifest? How may anthropologists contribute to understandings of law?
Godfrey Wilson was a British anthropologist who studied social change in Africa.
Hilda Beemer Kuper was a social anthropologist most notable for her extensive work on Swazi culture.
The Rhodes-Livingstone Institute (RLI) was the first local anthropological research facility in Africa; it was founded in 1938 under the initial directorship of Godfrey Wilson. Designed to allow for easier study of the local cultures of Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, it became the base of operations for a number of leading anthropologists of the time.
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 Commonwealth 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.
John Arundel Barnes M.A. D.Phil. DSC FBA was an Australian and British social anthropologist. Until his death in 2010, Barnes held the post of Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Fellow of Churchill College. From 1969 to 1982, he held the post of Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. Previous positions include faculty posts in social anthropology at the University of Sydney and the Australian National University in Canberra, He also was associated with Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, University College London, St John's College, Cambridge, Balliol College, Oxford and the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute. Barnes was a student of Max Gluckman in the Manchester School.
Elizabeth Spillius was a Canadian-English anthropologist, sociologist, and Kleinian psychoanalyst.
Richard P. Werbner is an American anthropologist who specializes in the Zimbabwe and Botswana region, including ritual, personal and historical narrative, politics, law, regional analysis. He has taught at the University of Manchester since 1961.
Elizabeth Florence Colson was an American social anthropologist and professor emerita of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. She was best known for the classic long-term study of the Tonga people of the Gwembe Valley in Zambia and Zimbabwe, which she began in 1956 with Thayer Scudder, 11 years after she obtained her doctorate and while Scudder was a second-year graduate student. Dr. Colson focused her research on the consequences of forced resettlement on culture and social organization, the effects of economic pressure on familial relationships, rituals, religious life, and even drinking patterns.
Mary Gluckman (1917–1990) was an Italian linguist and anthropologist. She was the wife of Professor Max Gluckman at Manchester University and worked at her husband's side for many years. After his death in 1975, she served with Voluntary Service Overseas for over two years in Sierra Leone.
