SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Social Anthropology

Social Anthropology

Social Anthropology was born in the era when European societies still had colonial empires. Although there has been much polemical debate about the ways in which the colonial context might have compromised anthropological research, at least one of the major aims of the founders of the discipline remains central to anthropology today: the comparative study of the different forms of human social life and cultural experience. (Eriksen, 2005)

Obviously the world we live in today has changed, and anthropology has changed with it. A communications and transport revolution has made the world a smaller place, and international migration has made 'western' societies multi-cultural. Yet 'globalisation' does not seem to be making the world we live in less culturally diverse. Whether we do our anthropology in Britain or in Papua New Guinea, Africa Asia, or Latin America, the study of different ways of living in and seeing the world seems just as important as it ever was. Indeed, it may actually have become more rather than less important.

Anthropology is sometimes seen as the study of the strange customs and beliefs of non-western peoples, but one of the principle goals of anthropology is, in fact, to make western beliefs and ways of doing things seem strange. People born in western societies, like anyone else, become accustomed to seeing their way of doing things as 'natural' and 'normal'. What anthropologists try to show is that we all need to reflect on our taken-for-granted cultural assumptions, particularly if 'we' belong to a dominant group which may seek to impose its will on others. (Sherratt, 2007)

Contemporary social anthropology is a critical discipline that tackles an enormous variety of topics, ranging from the social implications of the new reproductive and information technologies through the analysis of the social meanings of consumer behaviour to the study of violence, poverty and the means for resolving conflicts and alleviating human suffering. Although anthropological studies are now conducted everywhere, from middle class suburbs and inner cities, from boardrooms to migrant labour camps, and from Papua New Guinea to Peru, and from a European standpoint, what all our studies have in common is an awareness of human diversity. This is not simply an academic matter but also a practical one.

Social anthropology is the branch of anthropology that studies how currently living human beings behave in social groups. Practitioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long-term, intensive field studies (including participant observation methods), the social organization of a particular people: customs, economic and political organization, law and conflict resolution, patterns of consumption and exchange, kinship and family structure, gender relations, childrearing and socialization, religion, and so on. (Kuper, 2006)

Social anthropology also explores the role of meanings, ambiguities and contradictions of social life, patterns of sociality, violence and conflict, and the underlying logics of social behaviour. Social anthropologists are trained in the interpretation of narrative, ritual and symbolic behaviour not merely as text, but with communication examined in relation to action, practice, and the historical context in which it is ...