Anthropology concerns itself with humans as complex social beings with a capacity for language, thought and culture. The study of anthropology is about understanding biological and cultural aspects of life among peoples throughout the world. All humans are born with the same basic physical characteristics but, depending on where they grow up, each individual is exposed to different climates, foods, languages, religious beliefs, and so on. However, human beings are not simply shaped by their environment, they also actively shape the worlds in which they live. A key aim of anthropology is to understand the common constraints within which human beings operate as well as the differences which are evident between particular societies and cultures.

Given such concerns, the potential subject matter of anthropology is truly vast. Researchers nowadays tend to specialise in one or another branch of the discipline. Some, called physical or biological anthropologists, investigate such topics as how humans or human-like creatures evolved over thousands or millions of years, as well as our genetic and behavioural relationships with non-human primates. Others, called social or cultural anthropologists, study such things as the very varied ways in which different peoples organise themselves to ensure stable agricultural production or community life. They might study different assumptions people hold about how the world works as revealed in their religious beliefs and practices. They might study the many material forms that people produce such as their houses, dress, crafts and art. In this Guide we discuss both of these kinds of anthropology, although we say more about the social and cultural side of the discipline.

Some history .....

For many thousands of years, travel, trade and exploration have brought people of different languages and cultures into contact. These contacts generated tales of strange and exotic peoples and their customs. The Greek historian Herodotus might thus be seen as an early kind of anthropologist. In the fifth century BC he travelled around the Greek colonies of the Mediterranean and North Africa and described in considerable detail the indigenous peoples of those regions and their ways of life.

Herodotus's writings could be described as one of the earliest ethnographic descriptions but if we are to talk of anthropology as a discipline rather than a loose collection of traveller's tales, we must move forward to the nineteenth century when the scholarly study of human cultural and biological diversity began to take shape. At this time the western world was in the throes of some rapid and far-reaching developments. Across Europe and North America the expansion of new industries, mass migration from the countryside to the cities and the development of new systems of communication and transport had profound impacts on social life and the organisation of society and economy. This was also a time when western colonial expansion and domination were at their height. Social commentators and philosophers were keen to understand the changes that were happening around them. The foundations of the major academic disciplines as we know them today were laid down during this period.

One of the major questions asked during the nineteenth century was 'how did we get to where we are today?' Charles Darwin wrote an account of the way species develop through natural selection; this was his theory of evolution which first appeared in 1859. Darwin suggested that all life forms had developed gradually over long periods of time, with the more successful species displacing ones less well adapted to their environment. These ideas had a profound impact on scientific enquiry in the biological sciences and also had wider cultural repercussions. Many of the most influential social theorists of the nineteenth century adapted Darwin's model of biological evolution to understand changes that were happening at a social and cultural level.

Two important disciplines concerned with the study of humanity emerged at this time, namely anthropology and sociology. The branch of scholarship which was later to become sociology turned its attention to changes in the West. The branch of scholarship which was later to develop into anthropology established its focus on the 'primitive' and began a search for the precursors of modern civilisation. Societies which were non-literate, technologically simple, small-scale in terms of their economic and political organisation and usually far removed from western Europe became the focus of the emerging discipline of anthropology. Nineteenth century anthropologists believed that such societies provided a glimpse of humanity at an earlier stage of social evolution and that in time they too would develop modern ways of life. Such views, widespread in society at that time, have since been rejected as knowledge about our common humanity has developed.

By the early decades of the twentieth century ideas of social evolution were beginning to be questioned and so-called 'primitive' societies began to be studied not simply as evidence of earlier stages of social development but as societies in their own right. The job of the anthropologist was thus not to arrange such societies on a scale from high civilisation to technological simplicity but rather to understand each society according to its own particular logic. Strange myths, rituals, art forms, marriage practices and ways of living were treated as legitimate topics of study. Each society represented a unique expression of human cultural variation and physical adaptation. The attempts to understand non-western peoples on their own terms came to be known as cultural relativism. This approach to the study of cultural variation became a distinctive feature of north American cultural anthropology associated with such influential figures as Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict.

By contrast, the focus of British anthropology throughout most of this century has been on actual social relations rather than manifestations of culture. Classification and comparison of societies were based on the various ways in which parts of society, such as kinship practices, rules for property ownership and means of subsistence, fitted together to form a distinctive and stable set of social arrangements. The comparison of different societies was also based on the identification of institutions with apparently similar functions, for example, marriage or funeral rituals. This particular approach to anthropology was known as structural-functionalism and was prominent during the 1930s, 40s and 50s. The period produced a long list of studies, each dealing with the distinctive way of life of a particular group. The Nuer of the Sudan, the Trobriand Islanders of the Western Pacific, and the Tikopia of Polynesia are but a few of the many peoples who are now firmly lodged in world history as a result of the studies of anthropologists.

Throughout the early part of this century the project of British social anthropology was in some ways akin to butterfly collecting. However, during the century anthropology developed into a discipline that was far more than the collection of rare and exotic specimens which it was the task of the anthropologist to locate and describe in rich and colourful detail. The job of anthropological theory was to establish patterns which were generalisable across the evident diversity of ways of human life. In addition it began to be recognised that 'primitive' societies were in fact rather complex and far from static in terms of their development. Consequently, new avenues of anthropology began to develop which moved beyond simple studies of structure and function. Attention began to focus on the interaction between small-scale traditional societies and large-scale economies and state structures. What were previously presented as isolated, stable and unchanging societies were located in wider historical processes such as the spread of colonialism and capitalism. Seeing societies in this light marked a major shift in the scope and possibilities for anthropological enquiry: it might be said that anthropologists began to be less concerned with collecting butterflies and more concerned with the eco-systems in which they lived. Other areas of enquiry which began to open up during the sixties and seventies included the study of language and meaning and a new awareness of the importance of gender in understanding society and culture. This was also a period in which the focus of anthropological research began to encompass western society and its institutions. Western anthropologists no longer confined themselves to observing distant and 'exotic' societies but were to be found studying in their own backyards and often highlighted surprising aspects of taken-for-granted-everyday life. Industry, governments and international organisations were all regarded as subjects for enthnographic research.

The final phase in this very brief history of anthropology represents one of the most exciting to date. Anthropology is rooted in a tradition which began by studying societies very different and distant from those in the West. Whilst contemporary anthropology has retained its attention to the detail of social and cultural processes, it has grown into a discipline with much wider and all-encompassing interests and applications. Many of the old distinctions between 'primitive' and modern are no longer sustainable. Likewise, disciplinary distinctions between sociology and anthropology are no longer a matter of West-versus-the-rest. High levels of mobility and migration combined with the extraordinary potential for global communications have brought about extensive mixing of peoples and cultures. What is sometimes called a post-modern approach to culture attempts to take account of the ways in which identities are no longer rooted in clearly definable places or traditions. Ethnic identities and cultural traditions persist but in very different circumstances than previously. For example, the same television programme might be watched by rural villagers in India, nomads in North Africa as well as people living in tower blocks in Sheffield, Warsaw or Mexico City. In each instance a powerful technology with global implications meets with local circumstances to produce distinct and novel reactions and responses. Building on established traditions of understanding society and culture, anthropologists increasingly apply their knowledge and expertise to such contemporary circumstances and the issues they raise.

What do anthropologists do?

When prospective students come for an interview to an anthropology department, they are frequently asked an obvious question: 'Why do you want to study anthropology?' A typical response from students is: 'I want to study people'. Although no doubt genuine, such a reply does not really tell the interviewer very much. After all, there are plenty of other subjects such as sociology, psychology and history, that are also concerned with 'people'. Anthropology does overlap with these disciplines in a number of ways. However, from what we have said so far, we hope you are beginning to gain a sense of what makes anthropology a distinctive subject in its own right. It is a discipline concerned with all aspects of the way people live -- everyday activities as well as 'special' ones such as rituals and ceremonies. It is also concerned to be comparative, that is, to see how behaviours and beliefs vary or have close parallels in different cultures. Often it attempts to put the insights gained to practical use, for example, by helping people from very different cultural backgrounds to work together on, say, a development project. One anthropologist, David Pocock, describes eloquently the broad scope and engaging nature of his own branch of the discipline:

Social anthropology is concerned with the whole of life, and not just something you do until six o'clock. The study of social anthropology encourages you to have a new kind of consciousness of life; it is a way of looking at the world, and in that sense it is a way of living.

Given the all-embracing character of anthropology, it is not surprising that as a subject of study it is appealing on a personal as well as an intellectual level. Many people are brought into the discipline as a result of travel, reading accounts of other cultures or meeting with anthropologists who convey the excitement of trying to understand the many ways in which humanity is expressed. The British anthropologist Sir Edmund Leach, writing towards the end of a long and distinguished career, described it as his 'personal obsession'. His sentiments echo those of many people who engage with anthropology for some part of their lives. The discipline is not generally taught in schools, so that its students come to it after being educated in other, sometimes apparently unrelated, disciplines. It is a subject that combines many different ways of viewing the world, and so it often attracts people interested in both the arts and the sciences. One of the editors of this Guide, for instance, started off his university career studying chemistry, and now researches family patterns in the UK; the other came to university determined to dig up the bones of ancient humans, and has ended up working on religious beliefs and rituals!

Anthropology is still a subject that is relatively little-known amongst the public at large, and many misconceptions about it still exist. Its contemporary practitioners do not, as is often assumed, have to journey to far-off places in order to carry out research, although many do. Nowadays an anthropologist might well be interested in the religious rituals of a group of people living in the Amazonian rain forest, but could equally be fascinated by the rituals of a Christian congregation located in London or Liverpool.

To understand what a social anthropologist does you will need to imagine for a moment what would happen if you were suddenly transported to a very different culture in a different part of the world, and told you had to stay there for a year or more. To begin with, you would probably feel somewhat bewildered, unable to understand the language spoken, eat the food without longing for home cooking, or enter someone's home without unwittingly doing something that appeared rude to your hosts. After a few months, you would begin to understand how to avoid social pitfalls, and after a year you might even be able to speak the language with a certain degree of fluency. Gradually, mutual understanding and trust would develop and you would begin to experience the world through the medium of another culture.

This process of familiarisation is similar to the experience of many anthropologists who go abroad to study another culture. The anthropologist's approach to enquiry is thus clearly very different to working in a laboratory: the researcher should not seek to control the behaviour of the people being studied, but rather immerse him or herself in their lives as much as possible. Nor can anthropological researchers simply leave the office and forget all about 'work' after five o'clock, as they are living in the culture they are studying. On returning, however, they will be in a very good position to 'translate' or explain the behaviour and assumptions of the people they have studied to colleagues and students at home. The job of anthropology is frequently to make the apparently strange and 'exotic' seem comprehensible once put into the context of another culture. Conversely, anthropologists may wish to make 'natural' or 'commonsensical' behaviours seem in need of just as much explanation as any custom carried out by people in a foreign culture. Imagine trying to explain the point of playing a football or cricket match to someone who didn't know what a sport was, for instance!

A biological or physical anthropologist might well work in a laboratory, for example, on blood or bone samples. However, they could equally well work in different cultural contexts which require knowledge and sensitivity to local cultural norms and values. Thus, in understanding the causes of illness within a given population it is necessary to develop a detailed understanding of how physical contact and well-being are shaped by social and cultural factors. For example, it is not enough for a biological anthropologist to discover that a local diet results in deficiencies of vitamin A and therefore increases the possibility of blindness. They would also need to take into account the symbolic and ritual significance of certain foodstuffs before assuming that changes in diet could easily be effected.

Introductory texts

As you will have gathered, the scope of anthropology is very wide indeed. Any text claiming to provide an introduction will usually take the reader on a whistle-stop tour of anthropology and whet the appetite for more detailed enquiry into the subject. Introductory texts also tend to reflect the period in which they were written. For example, during the 1960s and 1970s, a number of leading British anthropologists produced overviews of the discipline that strongly reflected the structural-functionalist interests of that time (for example Beattie 1964). In these, the organisation of small-scale, non-western societies is divided into pre-defined categories such as kinship, social control, economic and property relations, religion and ritual. They also tend to conclude with a chapter on the ways in which apparently static societies did in fact undergo social change. For example, they discuss changes prompted by encounters with societies in which very different economic or political systems prevailed. Thus, Beattie analyses the impact of colonial bureaucratic systems on traditional forms of government and authority. He notes, for instance, how chiefs and tribal elders become salaried civil servants under new regimes.

A much-used text book is Ioan Lewis's Social Anthropology in Perspective (1985). Its appeal lies in its simple language, extensive use of ethnographic examples and case studies and its attempts to incorporate western experiences and insights within the scope of anthropology. For instance, Lewis describes forms of gift-giving among non-western peoples and then compares them to British customs at Christmas.

A number of North American introductory texts are widely available in the UK. These books reflect the cultural anthropological tradition as taught in American universities and generally have a fairly standard format. Accounts of the society and culture of contemporary peoples are accompanied by material drawn from linguistics, archaeology and physical/biological anthropology. Many students like these textbooks because they are well illustrated and provide useful summaries and ethnographic examples throughout (for example see Haviland 1996; Keesing and Strathern 1998). Some are also accompanied by instructor's manuals which provide exercises and novel ideas for curriculum delivery (Bohannan 1992).

The scope and content of introductory texts in anthropology have changed significantly over the years. One of the more important changes has been the presentation of anthropology as a subject which is not simply about distant, exotic societies viewed like natural science specimens. People in the West have their own customs, beliefs and social practices and are thus fair game for the inquisitive gaze of the anthropologist. For most people coming to anthropology for the first time the prospect of using knowledge of other societies as a tool to understand one's own is both exciting and liberating. Increasingly, this has become the message of introductory level texts. Bohannan (1992), for example, makes the idea that the reader's culture is alien and problematic the central theme of his text book. In the same vein, a famous article by Horace Miner from the 1950s called 'Body Ritual Among the Nacirema' turned an ethnographic eye upon his own culture:

The daily body ritual performed by everyone includes a mouth-rite. Despite the fact that these people are so punctilious about care of the mouth, this rite involves a practice which strikes the uninitiated stranger as revolting. It was reported to me that the ritual consists of inserting a small bundle of hog hairs into the mouth, along with certain magical powders, and then moving the bundle in a highly formalised series of gestures.

In a tongue-in-cheek way, Miner is using anthropological language to describe a form of mouth-washing that is practised within a so-called 'tribe', the true identity of which can be discovered simply by reversing the name of 'Nacirema'!

While there are broad similarities between many introductory texts, some seek to put forward explanations of anthropology which closely follow a person's particular vision of anthropology. Examples include Leach's (1982) synthesis of British structural-functionalism and French structuralism; Cheater's (1989) account of anthropology as examining the relationship between the material circumstances of third world peoples and capitalist development; and finally, Carrithers' attempt (1992) to explain human diversity, social behaviour and other basic features of our humanity by means of a synthesis between anthropology, social psychology and biology.

Encyclopedias and dictionaries

Anthropology has over many years developed its own specialist vocabulary. Running into a large number of specialist terms can be extremely daunting for anyone approaching the discipline for the first time. Standard dictionaries are unfortunately not much help in this regard as the meanings that anthropologists attribute to key terms are subtle and complex. Even some relatively ordinary words, like 'culture' or 'symbol', take on particular meanings in anthropological texts. The relish with which anthropologists have employed particular labels and terms stems from the fact that one of their primary tasks is to make sense of societies and cultures other than their own. However, the extent to which any one language can stretch to encompass the meanings and concepts of another is inevitably limited. For example, in the West there are deeply ingrained ideas about family and marriage. These mainly derive from a western Christian tradition in which it is expected that marriage will involve one husband and one wife (monogamy). However, in many African societies, a man may have several wives (polygyny) whereas in some Asian societies a woman may have several husbands (polyandry) who might also be brothers (fraternal polyandry). Such variations are not simply deviations from the western model but represent fundamentally different methods of organising marriage and domestic arrangements for which the everyday vocabulary of a European or North American is wholly inadequate. Specialist encyclopaedias and dictionaries can be useful for giving ready access to these vocabularies. They also provide potted accounts of the ideas which underpin these vocabularies and the people associated with their development.

Field methods in anthropology

During the nineteenth century social anthropologists relied on second-hand information such as travellers' tales and missionaries' reports for their understanding of non-western societies. This evidence was often unreliable and showed considerable bias or ethnocentricism. The emergence of modern anthropology was dependent on far more rigorous ways of assembling data. The evidence which anthropologists nowadays use to construct their accounts of peoples and cultures is collected using a variety of techniques. Quantitative information might be derived from surveys and censuses. Other perspectives can be derived from historical evidence gathered from literary sources such as government records and reports. However, anthropologists are interested in a much more detailed picture of the day-to-day life of a group or community than these methods generally allow. They are keen to develop an understanding of the world as seen from an insider's perspective, and, in order to do this, other methods are necessary. These more intensive methods are generally referred to as qualitative research.

One of the more distinctive ways in which anthropologists collect their data is known as participant-observation. This method was pioneered by a Polish scholar named Bronislaw Malinowski who taught for much of his career at the London School of Economics. During his field research in the Trobriand Islands, in the South Pacific (1915-18), Malinowski underwent a long immersion in the day-to-day lives of the Islands' inhabitants. The approach he developed assumes that the anthropologist will become competent in the local language and, as much as is possible, participate in the normal everyday routines of the host community. Such a method is not only appropriate to exotic societies but also has applications in the study of any ongoing and structured system of interactions. Hospitals, schools, playgrounds, businesses and religious communities are just some of the settings in which participant-observation research has been used to throw light on the way that a society, community or organisation operates in practice. Unlike other social science research traditions, the personal experience of the participant-observer plays a central role and indeed becomes the primary means whereby the social and cultural practices of others are understood and communicated. To obtain a more evocative sense of the anthropological encounter it is worthwhile reading some of the autobiographical accounts of those who have undertaken field research in their own and other cultures (Campbell 1995; Smith-Bowen 1956; Jackson 1986).

Biological anthropologists are generally interested in testing hypotheses using quantitative methods. The first biological (or physical) anthropologists measured and classified human types, often using skeletal or fossil remains. The discipline is now much wider and includes those who, in their search to understand biological variation, collect data on a wide range of biological variables in human and non-human populations. For example, biological anthropologists may take physical measurements in relation to genetic variation, diet, physical activity, growth, nutritional status or hormonal variation. They have also developed techniques to observe and quantify behaviour, for example of the social organisation of primates in their natural environment.

1. What is anthropology?

Some history .....

What do anthropologists do?

Introductory texts

Suggested Readings

Encyclopedias and dictionaries

Suggested Readings

Field methods in anthropology

Suggested Readings