cultural anthropology summary

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Below is the article summary. For the full article, see cultural anthropology.

cultural anthropology, Branch of anthropology that deals with the study of culture. The discipline uses the methods, concepts, and data of archaeology, ethnography, folklore, linguistics, and related fields in its descriptions and analyses of the diverse peoples of the world. Called social anthropology in Britain, its field of research was until the mid 20th century largely restricted to the small-scale (or “primitive”), non-Western societies that first began to be identified during the age of discovery. Today the field extends to all forms of human association, from village communities to corporate cultures to urban gangs. Two key perspectives used are those of holism (understanding society as a complex, interactive whole) and cultural relativism (the appreciation of cultural phenomena within their own context). Areas of study traditionally include social structure, law, politics, religion, magic, art, and technology.

Georges Duby Summary

Georges Duby was a member of the French Academy, holder of the chair in medieval history at the Collège de France in Paris, and one of the 20th century’s most prolific and influential historians of the Middle Ages. Although a Parisian by birth, Duby became enthralled at an early age with the

Zora Neale Hurston Summary

Zora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist and writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance who celebrated African American culture of the rural South. Although Hurston claimed to be born in 1901 in Eatonville, Florida, she was, in fact, 10 years older and had moved with her family to

ethnography Summary

Ethnography, descriptive study of a particular human society or the process of making such a study. Contemporary ethnography is based almost entirely on fieldwork and requires the complete immersion of the anthropologist in the culture and everyday life of the people who are the subject of his

Sir Edward Burnett Tylor Summary

Sir Edward Burnett Tylor was an English anthropologist regarded as the founder of cultural anthropology. His most important work, Primitive Culture (1871), influenced in part by Darwin’s theory of biological evolution, developed the theory of an evolutionary, progressive relationship from primitive