Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-mwwwr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-30T09:13:37.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Man in the Study and the Man in the Field Ethnography theory and comparison in social anthropology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Adam Kuper
Get access

Extract

Histories and critiques of anthropology usually deal mainly with what anthropologists say, including what they say they do. However, like their informants, anthropologists are accustomed to saying one thing and doing another. The emphasis in this paper is on the nature of anthropological data and methods, and thus on what anthropologists really do. The argument is that what anthropologists do is often productive and sensible, but that it has very little relationship to what many anthropologists say they should be doing. Indeed those anthropologists who take such theoretical directives seriously labour under a considerable, self-inflicted handicap.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , June 1980 , pp. 14 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Barnard, , Alan, (1978), Universal systems of kin categorisation, African Studies, 69–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnes, J. A. (1962), African models in the New Guinea highlands, Man LXII, 5–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bateson, , Gregory, (1936), Naven (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Beattie, J. (1964 a), Kinship and social anthropology, Man, 130: 101–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beattie, J. (1964 b), Other Cultures (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul).Google Scholar
Berghe, , van den, Pierre (1973), Power and Privilege at an African University (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul).Google Scholar
Bloch, Maurice (1977), The past and the present in the present, Man (n.s.), XII, 278–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Driver, , Harold, (1973), Cross-cultural Studies, in Honigmann, J. (ed.), Handbook of Social and Cultural Anthropology (Chicago, Rand McNally).Google Scholar
Eggan, F. (1954), Social anthropology and the method of controlled comparison, American Anthropologist, LVI, 743–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1937), Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande (Oxford, The Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1962), Essays in Social Anthropology (London, Faber and Faber).Google Scholar
Fortes, Meyer (1969), Kinship and the social order (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul).Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest (1957), Ideal language and kinship structure, Philosophy of Science, XXIV, 235–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gellner, Ernest (1960), The concept of kinship, Philosophy of Science, XXVII, 187–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gellner, Ernest (1963), Nature and society in social anthropology, Philosophy of Science, XXX, 236–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gellner, Ernest (1973), Cause and meaning in the social sciences (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul) (Including reprints of 1957, 1960 and 1963).Google Scholar
Hanson, F. Allen (1975), Meaning in Culture (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul).Google Scholar
Homans, George C., (1961), Social Behaviour: its elementary forms (New York, Harcourt, Brace and World).Google Scholar
Jarvie, I. C. (1964), The Revolution in Anthropology (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul).Google Scholar
Josselin de Jong, J. P. B. de (1935), De Maleische Archipel ah Ethnologisch Studieveld (Leiden, University Press).Google Scholar
Kuper, Adam (1977) (ed.), The Social Anthropology of Radcliffe-Brown (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul) (Including Radcliffe-Brown 1930–31, 1940, 1945, 1945 and 1951).Google Scholar
Leach, E. R. (1954), Political Systems of Highland Burma (London, Bell).Google Scholar
Leach, E. R. (1961 a), Rethinking Anthropology (London, Athlone Press).Google Scholar
Leach, E. R. (1961 b), Pul Eliya, a village in Ceylon (London, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Leach, E. R. (1966), Introduction to second edition of Bronislaw Mahnowski's Coral Gardens and their Magic (London, George Allen and Unwin).Google Scholar
Leach, E. R. (1976), Social Anthropology: natural science of society? (London, the British Academy).Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Ci. (1963), Structural Anthropology (New York, Basic Books).Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Ci. (1970), The Raw and the Cooked (London, Jonathan Cape).Google Scholar
Lukes, Steven (1973), Émtile Durkheim, his Life and Work (London, Allen Lane).Google Scholar
Lynd, Robert S. and Lynd, Helen (1929), Middletown (New York, Harcourt Brace).Google Scholar
Malinowski, Bronislaw (1922), Argonauts of the Western Pacific (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul).Google Scholar
Malinowski, Bronislaw (1935), Coral Gardens and their Magic (London, George Allen and Unwin).Google Scholar
Marett, R. R. (1927), The Diffusion of Culture (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Mauss, Marcel (1954), The Gift (London, Cohen and West).Google Scholar
Murdock, George Peter (1972), Anthropology's mythology. Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute for 1971, pp. 17–24.Google Scholar
Nadel, S. F. (1952), Witchcraft in four African Societies, an essay in comparison, American Anthropologist, LIV, 18–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Needham, Rodney (1971), Remarks on the analysis of kinship and marriage, in Needham, R. (ed.), Rethinking Kinship and Marriage (London, Tavistock).Google Scholar
Polanyi, Karl (ed.) (1957), Trade and Market in the Early Empires (Chicago, Free Press).Google Scholar
Polanyi, Karl (1968), Primitive, Archaic and Modern Economies (Garden City, Doubleday).Google Scholar
Radcliffe-Bhown, A. R. (1930–1931), The social organization of Australian tribes, Oceania, I, 34–63, 206–46, 322–41, 426–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (1940), On joking relationships, Africa, XIII, 195–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (1945), Religion and society, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, LXXV, 33–43.Google Scholar
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (1949), Functionalism: a protest, American Anthropologist, LI, 320–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (1951), The comparative method in social enthropology, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, LXXXI, 15–22.Google Scholar
Schapera, I. (1953), Some comments on comparative method in social anthropology, American Anthropologist, LIII, 353–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, David (1964), The nature kinship, Man, CCXVII, 180–1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, David (1965), Kinship biology, in Coale, A. J. et al. (eds.), Aspects of the Analysis of Family Structure (Princeton, Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Schneider, David (1968), American Kinship: a cultural account (Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall).Google Scholar
Schneider, David (1972), What is kinship all about? in Reining, P. (ed.), Kinship Studies in the Morgan Centennial year (Washington, the Anthropological Society of Washington).Google Scholar
Tax, Sol (1953) (ed., with others), An Appraisal of Anthropology Today (Chicago, Chicago University Press).Google Scholar
Urry, James (1973), Notes and queries on anthropology and the development field methods in British anthropology, Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute for 1972, pp. 45–57.Google Scholar
Wilson, Monica (1950), Witch-beliefs and social structure, American Journal Sociology, LVI, 307–13.Google Scholar