The Probert Encyclopaedia of Science & Technology

ANTHROPOLOGY

Anthropology is the study of humanity, divided into two main areas of interest: the physical structure and evolution of mankind, and the social organizations and cultural systems of human groups. In the 19th century, anthropology was concerned with theories of both physical and social evolution, so-called 'primitive' people being regarded as representative of earlier stages of mankind. Both physical and social differences were considered together in theories of race. In the early 20th century, the study of social and cultural differences became a separate discipline, known as social anthropology in the UK and cultural anthropology in the USA. At the same time, anthropologists started to become more involved in fieldwork research. Early anthropologists like Frazer had had little or no experience of the different societies they were writing about, but Malinowski was one of the first anthropologists to observe a society by living with the people, studying their language as well as their cultural system, and writing about them in an ethnography, an analysis based on such fieldwork.

In the USA, cultural anthropology traces its origins to Franz Boas, who studied various North-west Indian groups, and whose many notable students included Mead. Until the Second World War, most anthropological studies were of 'primitive' people, usually in European colonies, and the dominant theoretical influence in the UK was functionalism. After the Second World War, more studies began to be carried out in societies with long traditions of written history in Europe and Asia, and new theoretical approaches, such as the structuralism of Levi-Strauss, appeared. Modern anthropologists study people in all settings, from industrial cities to remote rain forests. By living within a society and participating in its activities, learning its language, and observing its daily life, the anthropologist builds up a knowledge of that society' s kinship system, social organization, culture, law, rituals, and myths. By comparing this cultural system with others, the anthropologist attempts to understand the variety of human social experience as much as possible through the eyes of different people all over the world.
Research Anthropology