Dear colleagues,

Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The term sociocultural anthropology includes both cultural and social anthropology traditions.

Anthropologists have pointed out that through culture, people can adapt to their environment in non-genetic ways, so people living in different environments will often have different cultures. Much of anthropological theory has originated in an appreciation of and interest in the tension between the local (particular cultures) and the global (a universal human nature, or the web of connections between people in distinct places/circumstances).

Cultural anthropology has a rich methodology, including participant observation (often called fieldwork because it requires the anthropologist spending an extended period of time at the research location), interviews, and surveys. 

The concept of culture

One of the earliest articulations of the anthropological meaning of the term "culture" came from Sir Edward Tylor who writes on the first page of his 1871 book: "Culture, or civilization, taken in its broad, ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." The term "civilization" later gave way to definitions given by V. Gordon Childe, with culture forming an umbrella term and civilization becoming a particular kind of culture.

According to Kay Milton, former director of anthropology research at Queens University Belfast, culture can be general or specific. This means culture can be something applied to all human beings or it can be specific to a certain group of people such as African American culture or Irish American culture. Specific cultures are structured systems which means they are organized very specifically and adding or taking away any element from that system may disrupt it.

The critique of evolutionism

Anthropology is concerned with the lives of people in different parts of the world, particularly in relation to the discourse of beliefs and practices. In addressing this question, ethnologists in the 19th century divided into two schools of thought. Some, like Grafton Elliot Smith, argued that different groups must have learned from one another somehow, however indirectly; in other words, they argued that cultural traits spread from one place to another, or "diffused".

 

Methods

Modern cultural anthropology has its origins in, and developed in reaction to, 19th century ethnology, which involves the organized comparison of human societies. Scholars like E.B. Tylor and J.G. Frazer in England worked mostly with materials collected by others—usually missionaries, traders, explorers, or colonial officials—earning them the moniker of "arm-chair anthropologists".

We look forward to receiving your respected contributions.

Section Editor

Dr. Normurod Latipov

Actor–network theory; Cultural materialism; Culture theory; Feminist anthropology; Functionalism; Symbolic and interpretive anthropology ; Political economy in anthropology; Practice theory; Structuralism; Post-structuralism; Systems theory in anthropology; Economic anthropology; Medical anthropology; Political anthropology; Political economy in anthropology; Psychological anthropology; Public anthropology; Anthropology of religion; Urban anthropology.