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Social Anthropology
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Social Anthropology is an academic discipline that in many respects straddles the social sciences and humanities. It both draws from and contributes to such disciplines as philosophy, linguistics and literature, as well as sociology and history.
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Radcliffe-Brown was influential in spreading social anthropology to universities in the English-speaking world. In the development of modern anthropology in the United States, Franz Boas played a role similar to that of Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski in British anthropology. Like them, he rejected conjectural history and stressed the need for detailed fieldwork. However, he emphasized the key importance of culture, and advocated cultural relativism (the doctrine that each culture is constructed according to a logic of its own, and must be understood in terms of this logic).
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Keisha-Khan Perry, assistant professor of anthropology and African studies at Brown University was interviewed on NPR for a piece on the fight for social change across the African Diaspora. The piece explores parallels between African activism movements and the US Civil Rights Movement.
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Students may study Social Anthropology as a two-subject programme only. The structure of the programme ensures that all students have a degree that gives them a strong grounding in core anthropological subjects whilst permitting specialisation. Students may combine Social Anthropology with any other programme (timetable constraints permitting). Students who wish to study for a degree in Anthropology should register for a combined honours degree in Biological Anthropology and Social Anthropology. Students will be awarded a degree in Anthropology if they graduate with any of the following:
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Key texts of social anthropology apart from those listed above include A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, Structure and Function in Primitive Society (1952, reissued 1968), a characteristic selection of Radcliffe-Brown's essays and addresses; E.E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People (1940, reissued 1974), a classic study that anticipates the shift from more concrete to more abstract ideas of structure; and E.R. Leach, Rethinking Anthropology (1961, reissued 1971), iconoclastic essays that in part attack Radcliffe-Brown's intellectual legacy. Marilyn Strathern, The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia (1988), is an extremely imaginative critique of, among many other things, social anthropology's concern with “society.” Alfred Gell, The Art of Anthropology: Essays and Diagrams, ed. by Eric Hirsch (1999), is a posthumous collection of shorter pieces by the most creative social anthropologist of the 1980s and '90s.
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New library pages: The library has created a new section for social anthropology. Librarian Astrid Anderson provides guidance regarding literature searches every Monday 13-15 on the 2nd floor in the library (Georg Sverdrups Hus).
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Social Anthropology