Anthropology
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Anthropology (from Greek: ἀνθρωπος, anthropos, "human being"; and λόγος, logos, "knowledge") is the study of humanity. Anthropology has origins in the natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences. Ethnography is both one its primary methods, and the text that is written as a result of the practice of anthropology.
Since the work of Franz Boas and Bronisław Malinowski in the late 19th- and early 20th-centuries, cultural and social anthropology has been distinguished from other social science disciplines by its emphasis on in-depth examination of context, cross-cultural comparisons (socio-cultural anthropology is by nature a comparative discipline), and the importance it places on long-term, experiential immersion in the area of research, often known as participant-observation. Cultural-Social anthropology in particular has emphasized cultural relativity and the use of their findings to frame cultural critiques. This has been particularly prominent in America, from Boas's arguments against 19th-century racial ideology, through Margaret Mead's advocacy for gender equality and sexual liberation, to current criticisms of post-colonial oppression and promotion of multiculturalism.
See also
- Culture
- Émile Durkheim
- Fetishism
- Sociology of culture
- College of Sociology
- Marcel Mauss
- Visual anthropology
- Ethnology
- Mondo films
Titles
- The symbolical language of ancient art and mythology; an inquiry (1818) by Richard Payne Knight.
- The Golden Bough (1890) - James George Frazer
- The Mothers (1927) - Robert Briffault
- The Accursed Share (1949) by Georges Bataille
- The Naked Ape (1967) - Desmond Morris
- Scatalogic Rites of All Nations (1891) - John G. Bourke