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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT ( talk) 18:47, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
leave the sociology section alone and don't remove the source. Sociology does have a major overlap into Cultural Anthropology and it should be included in this article. Please leave it up to the professionals to make the edits on how both of these fields have major overlaps together.
whoever removed this section probably has no such experience with Sociology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Taishan88 ( talk • contribs) 13:54, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Is there anyone who has specialization in Sociology and Cultural Anthropology?
If there is, someone should create a new article on how similar sociology and cultural anthropology are. Sociology and Anthropology are so similar to each other especially with Cultural Anthropology.
I cannot believe that no one has created an article talking about their similarities and none of the Sociology and cultural Anthropology articles mention their very close relationship together.
If anyone has specialization in both fields or at least know them very well, please someone or people should create an article talking about how they are so similar to each other and how Cultural Anthropology is almost a duplicate study of Sociology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Canto2009 ( talk • contribs) 20:47, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
Cultural Anthropology studies human beings and the development and dynamics of their cultures. Sociology is a statistical study of human social issues (my layman's definition). And Social Psychology studies individual human thought and behavior in social settings.
Nope nope and nope... No arguments about Social psychology but Cultural anthropology and sociology are not distinguished by statics/cynamics. Traditional (and equally wrong) distinctions would have anthropology looking at whatever non-western and sociology looking at (yup) Western (euroamerican etc.) societies.
OK, so what is the difference between cultural anthropology and sociology, or do you think there is no difference? Do sociologists study non-Western societies? If not, then one might call sociology a branch of cultural anthropology. -- LMS
The opening paragraph makes the mistake of assuming that all anthropology and all anthropologists follow the "four subfield" rubric when in fact that is a sophomoric kind of distinction used in basic textbooks to teach undergraduates the basics. It would like saying "medicine is one of the fields used in the West to cure illness." Yep - but a poor opening sentence for an encyclopedic article. Like medicine, cultural anthropology is a dynamic field. Cultural anthropology is the systematic study, primarily through scientific observation and measurement, of human beings and their cultures, where ever they are and in all time periods. Levalley ( talk) 22:45, 26 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley
Is there anyone who has specialization in Sociology and Cultural Anthropology?
If there is, someone should create a new article on how similar sociology and Cultural anthropology are. Sociology and Anthropology are so similar to each other especially with Cultural Anthropology.
I cannot believe that no one has created an article talking about their similarities and none of the Sociology and Cultural Anthropology articles mention their very close relationship together.
If anyone has specialization in both fields or at least know them very well, please someone or people should create an article talking about how they are so similar to each other and how Cultural Anthropology is almost a duplicate study of Sociology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Canto2009 ( talk • contribs) 20:45, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
I wanted to comment a bit about 146.230.128.xxx 's addition of Oct. 29, which I think needs to be entirely rewritten.
I find that hard to believe--that "the pre-eminent scholars," every one of them, agreed completely on something that two people wrote, particularly the something defining the field. I guess we just need to know more abut the nature of the consensus.
Also, why does it matter that the sociologists agreed?
Who? What materialist conceptions? Your readers don't know what you're talking about. Moreover, how is the definition above-given not "materialist"? (I could have a materialist theory of "values, ideas, and other symbolic-meaningful systems.")
What strict sense? We haven't learned about that yet, have we?
Such as? Again, without background, we just don't know what you're talking about.
What "human aggregations" are meant here? Remember, we're trying to make this clear as an introduction to the field, for people who don't yet know what the field is about.
What is this doing in this article? Is cultural studies often regarded as a branch of cultural anthropology?
This probably most of your readers know a little more about, but can you indeed give some characterization of "the methods and categories of literary criticism"?
This is rather hard to follow: the article is using "cultural anthropology," "literary criticism," "sociology," and "cultural studies" as if they already had clear, well-understood meanings, when you're trying to explain what "cultural studies" and "cultural anthropology" mean!
Perhaps the discussion could use some examples.
Huh?
Another term that needs defining.
Well, no, it's not clear, not to this philosopher. If it's not clear to me, how can you expect it to be clear to most of the people who are simply interested in what cultural anthropology is?
The latter sentence makes zero sense to me.
Some indication on the part of whom? You, the author?
I suspect we should remove all but the clearest part of the above text. -- Larry Sanger
sociologists, and this development has been a major impetus in the development of cultural studies.
Speaking as an American-trained cultural anthropologist, socio-cultural anthropology has historically studied non-Western peoples, has used participant-observation and other qualitative methods in preference to quantitative methods used by sociologists or social psychologists, and is particularly concerned with the way that individuals are shaped by and use cultural models, rules, etc. These days many anthropologists study people in complex and Western societies and some use quantitative (or at least mixed) methods, but their theoretical orientation is rather different from sociologists. The question at hand, however, is whether the articles on social anthropology and cultural anthropology should be merged. "Social Anthropology" is more commonly used in Britain and refers to a particular theoretical strain within Western sociocultural anthropology. "Cultural anthropology" is more commonly used in the U.S. There is not a hard and fast distinction between the two, but their emphases are different and people trained in one or the other tend to read different theorists.
Also, in regards to the punctuation: period and comma within the quotation marks is a relatively new format introduced by the NY Times newspaper because it saves space and was felt to look more elegant. Period and comma outside the quotation marks is the older style and still the accepted standard in Britain.
This is just to inform people that I want Wikipedia to accept a general policy that BC and AD represent a Christian Point of View and should be used only when they are appropriate, that is, in the context of expressing or providing an account of a Christian point of view. In other contexts, I argue that they violate our NPOV policy and we should use BCE and CE instead. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate for the detailed proposal. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:55, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
To a European eye there is a bit too much US focus in this article, including the absence of Montesquieu, Condorcet and Rousseau and of the foundation of the Societe Ethnologique de Paris in 1839 or the Ethnological Society of London in 1843; I may try and sharpen it up in this respect. Most of all, the title of the article seems a problem (as some of the drafters of text seems to have noticed: socio-cultural anthropology would in fact be a better compromise between the British term and the US one). Mark O'Sullivan 09:43, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
I would think that many of these 18th- and 19th-century theorists would be better placed in History of anthropology than in Cultural anthropology or Social anthropology, or at least should be mentioned only briefly. Most current work in both British and US anthropology runs in a fairly direct line from, or reacts to, social theories developed in Britain, France, and the US between about 1890 and 1920 (those are not hard and fast dates, of course). Montesquieu, Condorcet, etc. are historically important, of course, but they are not much more specifically important to anthropology than to sociology, economics, history, philosophy or a number of other fields. I would suggest that the main articles should focus on sociocultural anthropology and its branches as contemporary fields, though referencing appropriate historical articles. Mccajor 23:45, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Anyone who has this page on their watchlist, can you go to Virago? A who is putting forward notions of racial and identifying them with a notion of gender-difference, and I are in a conflict. Fundamentally, I believe he is a racist' his claims about race contradict everything I have read by physical and cultural anthropologists and as far as I can tell, his claims about gender at best seriously distort the literature.
You can see the difference here [1]
On the talk page, start here [2], and then just read the whole debate.
Comments from others needed. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 23:38, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I think the community template ought to be removed. Anthropologists, at least, typically use culture to refer to something radically different from community. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
On race and intelligence, please [3] Slrubenstein | Talk 13:11, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Try this—social culture is a shared pattern of ideas behaviors and beliefs: its causes, consequences and dynamics are the foci of Cultural Anthropology. Social structure is the shared pattern of roles and relationships within a society: the criteria for connectedness, social standing, rights and obligations, etc. are the concerns of Social Anthropology. I believe it was Clyde Kluckhohn (best check it out I would hate to misattribute such an elegant notion) who provided the perfect metaphor connecting the two. His take on the subject? Imagine a piece of carbon paper. It is a unitary object on the one hand, but on the other, it is comprised of two distinct objects: 1) a paper substrate, and 2) a transferable coating. Either part in the absence of the other has a completely different functionality. Similarly, anthropology is a single subject, but it too embodies two distinctly different "pieces." By Kluckhohn's reckoning, the substrate is the social structure and the transfer agent is the social culture. Together the two parts provide a functionality that neither can provide independently. Each discipline is unique but neither can be fully understood in the absence of the other. DBD 24.98.226.147 23:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
== Social and Cultural Anthropology ==ç There are major differences between Culutral Anthropology and Social Anthropology other than the history of the disciplines. I'll edit this in a bit more precise manner later with some references, but simplistically one could say that each views the other as a epiphenomena of their own position. The differences between the two has widened rather than narrowed over the past three decades. Social Anthropology continues to develop the central idea of sociality, its antecedents and its consequences. The organizational principle of 'sociality' is not widely contested, though certainly social theories contest many aspects of one another. The development of Social Anthropology is marked by emergence of consensus in some areas, which of course lead to new problems and disagreements.
Cultural Anthropology has been subjected to a major interrogation of its central concepts over the past three decades, almost all of which are presently contested with agreement only within factions. It would not be unfair to say that from surveying the literature of the past 20 years we 'know' less about culture today than we 'knew' before (other than an increased range of what culture might be and how it might be manifest). This may be a result of never having had an agreed definition of culture to develop. Instead since its inception early in the 20th century the 'culture concept' has done little other than fragment.
Socio-cultural anthropology is one of the solutions some factions of American anthropologists have chosen to diffuse the 'culture wars' in American Anthropology. It is a term increasingly used outside the US, but has a rather different meaning there, seen as a vehicle to bring culture into social theory in a limited manner. Culture remains a epiphenomena of social interaction and organization. The greater prominance of culture in social anthropology has served a useful purpose in recent decades, providing a means to better examine issues of globalization, regional politics, social change, ethnicity while retaining much of the foundation of social theory that had been developed with little reference to culture as a focal category.
In any case there is ample reason not to merge the two entries at all on the grounds of controversy, though I agree that I and my colleagues will have to develop the social anthropology entry more for it to earn its keep. Certainly, it should not be merged into Cultural Anthropology, although there might be a case for eventually merging Cultural Anthropology into Social Anthropology. However, there is probably a better case for keeping them distinct given the difficulties of trying to merge two long standing traditions within Anthropology together given their rather different objectives and histories. Mdfischer 17:05, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Pre-1970 | 1970s | 1980s | 1990- | Total | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
cultural anthropology | 633 | 524 | 836 | 1900 | 3893 |
social anthropolgy | 840 | 552 | 484 | 719 | 2595 |
sociocultural anthropology | 8 | 28 | 43 | 195 | 274 |
sociocultural | 469 | 759 | 848 | 1875 | 3951 |
Total | 1950 | 1863 | 2211 | 4689 | 10713 |
df= 9 p <= 0.001.
I am thrilled to see an established anthropologist who I hope is willing to work on this and related pages! Please review our core policies WP:NPOV and WP:ATT. Beacuse of the Wiki- and quasi-anarchic nature of Wikipedia, in addition to vandalism even the best editor will eventually confront others who will delete or radically change what they have written. Violation of NPOV and ATT are generally considered unimpeachable reasons for reverting an editor's work. If you know these policies and ensure that your edits to articles comply with them, your work will be respected and relatively safe. You and I may disagree about minor things although perhaps as we explain our own views in greater detail we will see that we do not really disagree all that much. Just to clarify about my initial point above, I think many American anthropologists have moved away from debates over determinism (e.g. Harris vs. Geertz) such that the word "epiphenomenal" just does not carry the weight it once did - it is not the primary locus of debates. Anyway, welcome and as you feel more confident about our policies I hope you will put mor of your good ideas in the articles themselves and not just on talk pages! Slrubenstein | Talk 10:42, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I did an MA in social anthropology a few years back - as far as I remember - social anthropology is the British spelling of cultural anthropology - separately the articles seem quite mediocre - a merger might improve the situation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danprzewoz ( talk • contribs) 20:20, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
There is a great deal of US POV in this article. The European traditions within Social Anthropology ought to be distinct, as per my edit of the lead sentence on March 2, 2007. Subsuming one under the other or calling them Social and Cultural as if they are one heading is not useful. These are very different approaches.
I think it is time to drop the suggestion that this article or section be merged into Cultural anthropology Douglas R. White 15:56, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
-- I second that we drop the proposed merge of Social Anthropology into Cultural Anthropology Mdfischer 18:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
would people who watch this page please review the article, Early infanticidal childrearing, which makes many claims about anthropology and about non-Western societies? I was once involved in a flame-war with another editor, and it would be inappropriate for me to do a speedy delete or nominate the page for deletion. More important, I think others need to comment on it. I engaged in a detailed exchange recently with one other editor here, on the talk page; you may wish to review the discussion but it is getting involuted and I ask that you comment separately. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 12:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
The articles Cultural anthropology, Ethnology and Social anthropology are wildly, almost unbelievably, redundant. I propose that they be merged and redirected to one (more fully sourced, articulate and complete) article, with short sections explaining the doctrinal, pedagogical and methodological differences between (American-led) cultural and (British-led) social anthropology, and how they relate to the overall view of ethnology from its origins to today, and integrating all the material. I don't care what article the final result lives at. The present state of the articles is very confusing to the reader, and gives the impression that all three of these are separate fields, when they absolutely are not, they are simply three different lenses from which to view precisely the same endeavo[u]r. I'm labeling this merge proposal "tentative" because I have not slapped up any merge tags; I think some discussion is in order as to what the merge target should be. Keeping these articles separate (other than as short articles limited to discussion of how the particular branch/variant differs from others, the way the Philology article relates to the Linguistics article) is silly and unhelpful to the reader. — SMcCandlish [ talk] [ cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:24, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
PS: Yes, I am of course aware that the issue has been (in part) discussed before (in part, because Ethnology was not included in the discussion). — SMcCandlish [ talk] [ cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:43, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
PPS: This would necessarily entail a merger (complete, or by moving the subtopics to be under Category:Ethnicity) of the relevant categories as well. I found that some of the articles were cross-categorized already (I fixed that), further strongly suggesting their redundancy. — SMcCandlish [ talk] [ cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:22, 23 July 2008 (UTC) PPPS: Talk:Social anthropology, Talk:Ethnicity, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthropology have all been notified of this discussion. — SMcCandlish [ talk] [ cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:26, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
a professor said to a distraught student, who asked 'why is it written so complicated', the reply of course 'because it is complicated' - the very endeavour of anthropology generally is unsuited to a medium such as wikipedia, which is ironic, considering anthropology was once considered the encyclopedic discipline par excellence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.30.50.145 ( talk) 05:23, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
I am not sold on the dissertation abstract as a reference for the contention that: "Also growing more popular are ethnographies of professional communities, such as laboratory researchers, Wall Street investors, law firms, or IT computer employees". I don't dispute the assertion, just the reference.
Any other opinions on this?? -- Digitalmischief ( talk) 03:45, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
intel have just constructed a completely anthropological lab, go read ars technica, or look at the microsoft research lab in cambridge. nuff said. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.30.50.145 ( talk) 05:24, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
After all uncited material was deleted - leaving only a stub - I did a major overhaul of Incest taboo. Hoping that it rises to our standards for good anthropology related articles, would people who watch this page mind looking it over, making any obvious improvements or commenting on the talk page? Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 19:43, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
Could please any expert have a look at this discussion? -- 193.170.52.132 ( talk) 19:21, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
Wow - it's just so thin and short. It seems to be about 1/4 the length of a typical biography on a person that is of average notability (like Dawkins). Is it really that hard to describe this type of anthropology (regional differences notwithstanding)? One way to approach it might be to focus on several different famous anthropologists (not just a handful) the way most encyclopedias or textbooks do. The first sentence should be a statement of what anthropology is, and then simply state that "cultural" anthropology is the part that tries to deal with the non-genetic aspects of human nature and life. The coevolution of genes and culture is in the domain of both biological and cultural anthropology, obviously and should be so stated in both articles. Geertz brought about the phenomenological "revolution" of the 70's (if one has to pick one influence), and while anthropology is hardly an expanding field, we still exist as professionals and have evolved new subfields and methods all the while. There should be links to all the famous names - and there should be lots of them. Marvin Harris's book would be a good first compendium and keep writers busy here for while. I've been watching wikipedia (as an anthropologist) for a good many years - and on this page, as on many, there are these substantial (but often irresolvable) arguments in 2005-2006, a waning of contributions thereafter (no wonder), and now - nothing. Wikipedia may not disappear soon - but it appears to be moribund. Culture as a topic that transcends anthropology, of course, and Wikipedia is weak in many, many areas relating to culture - much better on technology, science, pop music (that's culture of course, but easier to list bands and give bios than to describe or discuss many other aspects of culture).
I will take a look at the incest taboo page and any other pages people think should be linked to this anthropology page. There needs to be a WikiProject on Culture (which would include both anthropology and the newer field of cultural studies).
This article would be very much improved by mentioning that understanding culture (one's own or another's) seems to be a primal human interest; it is born of curiousity and in the early 20th century became both a profession and a separate academic discipline with "departments." The first were in Britain, not America and no, "cultural anthropology" is not primarily an American thing. Using the term may be "American," (we call lorries "trucks" here - but they are substantially the same item), but the process is very much the same. What I do, what most anthropologists do, is not all that different from what Radcliffe-Brown and E.E. Evans-Pritchard did. Malinowski was liminal, though employed in Britain, the fact that he wasn't British often became relevant in his personal and academic life - so anthropology has been "cross-cultural" from the early days of its professionalization.
Imagine if we had an article on baseball, in which we mainly argued whether it was cricket or not - and whether all games involving balls and sticks should be mentioned, and further, whether all games involving either sticks or balls should be mentioned, but never, ever consulted either baseball players or anyone with a rulebook...that would be one odd article, wouldn't it? Be easier to start with a commonly accepted view of the "beginnings of baseball" and move on, leaving all the rest to other pages and footnotes. Levalley ( talk) 23:18, 26 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley
Why, under Brief History, is ethnology in quotes? Is it a fictive field? It really existed, still exists, many people do it, it's part of every form of anthropology - why the quotes? Modern anthropology had its roots as much in Darwin and historical evolutionary thinking, btw - probably far more influential on going out and actually collecting data. Of course, ethnology was/is important too. Levalley ( talk) 23:27, 26 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley
I'm putting together a little timeline so I don't get confused. Boas comes first in terms of making fieldwork proposals and actually carrying them out, although Tylor had traveled and made informal investigations that were very useful in his work. I won't be able to mention every one, but I'll choose important early fieldworkers. Levalley ( talk) 04:51, 31 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley
While I understand the recent edit from "three" to "four or five" subfields, I suggest we either leave out the number of subfields (what other science decides to put an actual number on its subfields? Anthropology contains no particular number of subfields - I don't know any professional anthropologists (and I know many) who would try and count them. So, I suggest the article say "Cultural anthropology is a main subfield" or something like that. Levalley ( talk) 22:02, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
because it belongs here. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
I removed this section because it was poorly written, unsourced, and does not belong in this article. To the anonymous user who put it in: please go to WP:Five Pillars and learn more about how to edit an article. I thinkl you want to make a positive contribution but you are not doing so effectively. Read the policies and guidelines linked to the Five Pillars, and you will learn how to contribute effecively. Good luck, Slrubenstein | Talk 21:28, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
If people who watch this page are also interested in how Wikipedia is governed, be sure to check out this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Advisory_Council_on_Project_Development . Slrubenstein | Talk 16:29, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
I have removed this from the article so we can work on it and then put it back in:
This paragraph is misleading, since Boas was not criticizing Darwinian evolution which is the source of new theories (and Durkheim was not anthropologist.
More importantly, it is misleading to the reader and undue weight to have a section just on one person's reply to an article. What we need to do is put this in its context. I suggest that the contributor first provide a paragraph or two account of Nettle's article. Also, there are other anthropologists involved in this debate like Bloch and Viveiros de Castro. Let's provide a clear account of this debate.
Otherwise this viollates both wp:WEIGHT and WP:POINT. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:04, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
You miss my point. I am not quibling with wording, I am saying that what you wrote does not provide enough context to understand what you wrote. You point to a debate between followers of Durkheim and Tarde that some say led social anthropologists away from evolutionary approaches - But evolutionary biologist promoted a version of evolutionary theory that fits in more with Durkheim's social science than Tarde's. TAhis needs explaining. Also, Nettle argues that evolutionary theory and Boas/Durkheimian social science are actually not in conflict - you need to explain this, before we can understand Dunbar's approach. If you want the WP article to address these issues you have to write more so we can understand them. It is not my job to add views - if you want to add these views, do it properly. If you leave it to me I say that the views are so marginal in anthropology they do not belong in the article. But if you want us to consider including them, write encyclopedically; provide the context and detail so readers will understand the debates. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:52, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
Your never mentioning him is an example of your ignorance of the debate you wish to address. In any case, Nettle's article is more of an explanation to evolutionary psychologists why so much of human behavior is accetable to evolutionists and a critique of Dawkins' idea of memes. If you want to talk about any conflict between Durkheimian social science and mwmes or EP, you have to explain Tarde. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:19, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
We shouldn't be working on articles to make points, we should be here to provide accurate accounts of significant views from reliable sources. You do not seem to be able to do that. You do not show any comprehension of the article you want to cherry-pick from. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:40, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
As scholars commenting on the article show, this does not make them any less important. But okay, Aristotle is clearly more important, you certainly should explain that too. The fact remains, this article is an explanation of why EP must accept social science, not the other way around (as the article makes plain, Boas and social scinentists always accepted evolution). Slrubenstein | Talk 21:25, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
References
See this removal [4]. The stated reason was "FRINGE - we do not have sections on specific articles". Obviously we can cite articles as sources. This is a current dispute in anthropology and therefore Wikipedia should mention it. Miradre ( talk) 18:03, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
An article is a source - but you want to make a whole section of this article about one journal article. If we created a section for each published journal article do you know how long this article would be? That is not how we write encyclopedia articles. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:49, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
I couldn't find the chapter. Here are the chapter headings::
Mathsci ( talk) 14:29, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
WP:UNDUE. That is the point. Now here are the chapter heading of the other book:
Mathsci ( talk) 15:04, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
So we have cultural anthropology textbooks stating that evolutionary explanations is a "contemporary trend" and anthropology articles stating that evolutionary explanations should be more prominent. I can add outside views also if needed. Miradre ( talk) 16:51, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Searching in Google Scholar for "Cultural anthropology" and "Evolutionary psychology" gives 182 articles just since 2010. Most seems to advocate various integrations. Like this example: [5] Many are not from anthropology journals but if our articles on evolutionary psychology can have criticisms by anthropologists I think other fields also can have views on anthropology. Miradre ( talk) 20:02, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
This is not the point. The point is that you lied about the sources, and you cannot string together two coherent sentences on the topic. These are not personal attacks, these are statements of fact explaining why your editing is tendentious. Look at all the talk you have babbled here without anything coherent. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:48, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
The phrase "just as an indicator" is surely not so hard to understand. Meanwhile, please wait for that list of secondary sources to be compiled. That is a major deficiency of the article and matters of balance cannot be discussed until there is such a list. So my advice to is to be patient. You could for example look at this paper on jstor [6] and use it for improving one of the other articles you're editing at present. (In the review there was the following quote, "If evolutionary biology is a soft science, then evolutionary psychology is its flabby underbelly.") But meanwhile patience, patience. Mathsci ( talk) 11:23, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
How about we use the fact that we have multiple people studying textbooks in cultural anthropology to improve the article. Its not thyat good - the history section is more like an oversized iverview section - its not even chronological. We could build the article structure on the outline of the textbooks. ·ʍaunus· snunɐw· 03:19, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
I agree with that completely. It is not standard practise on wikipedia on major articles, for example Europe, for single users who have entered into dispute against consensus to place neutrality templates on articles. That is tendentious editing. In this case the user seems to be wishing to add content that, as discussed above, does not match secondary sources and is designed to skew the article to their own particular point of view, contradicting at least one of the few secondary sources where the particular issue is disccused at all. Best policy in writing wikipedia articles is to find a comprehensive list of secondary sources, see what they write about cultural anthropology and then summarise that briefly in the article, paying careful attention to the weight that various topics receive in the secondary sources. Mathsci ( talk) 09:33, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
Now we have a new article Poles in mythology, Please see and include suitable improvements , if any, in article Poles in mythology.
Rgds Mahitgar ( talk) 09:03, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
The first sentence mentions, but does not define nor link to, “the anthropological constant”. This might cause a typical non-expert, such as me, not to understand the distinction being made. JDAWiseman ( talk) 19:00, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
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I would like to work on the methods section of the Cultural Anthropology page. I plan to contribute more depth about methods used and how they are critiqued. I also plan to talk about how these methods transfer into writing about the subjects of an anthropological study. I would note which methods are most popular, and which are most controversial. I am also open to other ideas and would love some criticism from my peers.
Some sources I have found so far are: Handbook of Methods in Cultural Anthropology by HR Bernard, CC Gravlee Assessing Cultural Anthropology by R Borofsky Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology by A Bernard, J Spencer individual.utoronto.ca/boyd/anthro4.htm - Research Methods of Cultural Anthropology etc... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ewootten5280 ( talk • contribs) 03:03, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
- ESW — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ewootten5280 ( talk • contribs) 02:57, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
I would also like to work on revising and adding to the methods section, specifically focusing on the subsection about participant observation. I'd like to add more clear and specific descriptions of what each of the listed methods involves, possibly by using examples, and expand a bit on what is meant by self-analysis, and how it might affect the other methods. Would it be possible to add citations for some of the information that is already there? It might also be beneficial to remove the part of the opening sentence of the section which names other disciplines, since the focus of the article is cultural anthropology. Emmacampbell98 ( talk) 00:12, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
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Using "a subset of the anthropological constant" is meaningless gibberish to most readers. We need to be linking to something(s) here, but I'm not sure we have an article that addresses this idea. Anthropological constant is definitely a redlink. I'm skeptical that this wording should be retained at all, and suspect it would be better to replace it with something in plainer English. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 15:11, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
This article is also confusing ethnology and ethnography, starting from the first paragraph of the "Theoretical foundations" section near the top. It would probably be wise to distinguish these in the lead: cultural anthropology (the study of cultural variation) arose from and partly in reaction against ethnology (comparative study of cultures), while ethnography (study of particular cultures in detail) is a sub-discipline of cultural anthropology and also provides the raw materials for modern ethnology. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 15:17, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
This article needs to cover the distinction of cultural anthropology from ethnology; the latter article makes this distinction (and from social anthropology). That third article distinguishes from cultural anthropology but not really from ethnology. Only the ethnology article is clear. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 15:28, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
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leave the sociology section alone and don't remove the source. Sociology does have a major overlap into Cultural Anthropology and it should be included in this article. Please leave it up to the professionals to make the edits on how both of these fields have major overlaps together.
whoever removed this section probably has no such experience with Sociology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Taishan88 ( talk • contribs) 13:54, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
Is there anyone who has specialization in Sociology and Cultural Anthropology?
If there is, someone should create a new article on how similar sociology and cultural anthropology are. Sociology and Anthropology are so similar to each other especially with Cultural Anthropology.
I cannot believe that no one has created an article talking about their similarities and none of the Sociology and cultural Anthropology articles mention their very close relationship together.
If anyone has specialization in both fields or at least know them very well, please someone or people should create an article talking about how they are so similar to each other and how Cultural Anthropology is almost a duplicate study of Sociology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Canto2009 ( talk • contribs) 20:47, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
Cultural Anthropology studies human beings and the development and dynamics of their cultures. Sociology is a statistical study of human social issues (my layman's definition). And Social Psychology studies individual human thought and behavior in social settings.
Nope nope and nope... No arguments about Social psychology but Cultural anthropology and sociology are not distinguished by statics/cynamics. Traditional (and equally wrong) distinctions would have anthropology looking at whatever non-western and sociology looking at (yup) Western (euroamerican etc.) societies.
OK, so what is the difference between cultural anthropology and sociology, or do you think there is no difference? Do sociologists study non-Western societies? If not, then one might call sociology a branch of cultural anthropology. -- LMS
The opening paragraph makes the mistake of assuming that all anthropology and all anthropologists follow the "four subfield" rubric when in fact that is a sophomoric kind of distinction used in basic textbooks to teach undergraduates the basics. It would like saying "medicine is one of the fields used in the West to cure illness." Yep - but a poor opening sentence for an encyclopedic article. Like medicine, cultural anthropology is a dynamic field. Cultural anthropology is the systematic study, primarily through scientific observation and measurement, of human beings and their cultures, where ever they are and in all time periods. Levalley ( talk) 22:45, 26 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley
Is there anyone who has specialization in Sociology and Cultural Anthropology?
If there is, someone should create a new article on how similar sociology and Cultural anthropology are. Sociology and Anthropology are so similar to each other especially with Cultural Anthropology.
I cannot believe that no one has created an article talking about their similarities and none of the Sociology and Cultural Anthropology articles mention their very close relationship together.
If anyone has specialization in both fields or at least know them very well, please someone or people should create an article talking about how they are so similar to each other and how Cultural Anthropology is almost a duplicate study of Sociology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Canto2009 ( talk • contribs) 20:45, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
I wanted to comment a bit about 146.230.128.xxx 's addition of Oct. 29, which I think needs to be entirely rewritten.
I find that hard to believe--that "the pre-eminent scholars," every one of them, agreed completely on something that two people wrote, particularly the something defining the field. I guess we just need to know more abut the nature of the consensus.
Also, why does it matter that the sociologists agreed?
Who? What materialist conceptions? Your readers don't know what you're talking about. Moreover, how is the definition above-given not "materialist"? (I could have a materialist theory of "values, ideas, and other symbolic-meaningful systems.")
What strict sense? We haven't learned about that yet, have we?
Such as? Again, without background, we just don't know what you're talking about.
What "human aggregations" are meant here? Remember, we're trying to make this clear as an introduction to the field, for people who don't yet know what the field is about.
What is this doing in this article? Is cultural studies often regarded as a branch of cultural anthropology?
This probably most of your readers know a little more about, but can you indeed give some characterization of "the methods and categories of literary criticism"?
This is rather hard to follow: the article is using "cultural anthropology," "literary criticism," "sociology," and "cultural studies" as if they already had clear, well-understood meanings, when you're trying to explain what "cultural studies" and "cultural anthropology" mean!
Perhaps the discussion could use some examples.
Huh?
Another term that needs defining.
Well, no, it's not clear, not to this philosopher. If it's not clear to me, how can you expect it to be clear to most of the people who are simply interested in what cultural anthropology is?
The latter sentence makes zero sense to me.
Some indication on the part of whom? You, the author?
I suspect we should remove all but the clearest part of the above text. -- Larry Sanger
sociologists, and this development has been a major impetus in the development of cultural studies.
Speaking as an American-trained cultural anthropologist, socio-cultural anthropology has historically studied non-Western peoples, has used participant-observation and other qualitative methods in preference to quantitative methods used by sociologists or social psychologists, and is particularly concerned with the way that individuals are shaped by and use cultural models, rules, etc. These days many anthropologists study people in complex and Western societies and some use quantitative (or at least mixed) methods, but their theoretical orientation is rather different from sociologists. The question at hand, however, is whether the articles on social anthropology and cultural anthropology should be merged. "Social Anthropology" is more commonly used in Britain and refers to a particular theoretical strain within Western sociocultural anthropology. "Cultural anthropology" is more commonly used in the U.S. There is not a hard and fast distinction between the two, but their emphases are different and people trained in one or the other tend to read different theorists.
Also, in regards to the punctuation: period and comma within the quotation marks is a relatively new format introduced by the NY Times newspaper because it saves space and was felt to look more elegant. Period and comma outside the quotation marks is the older style and still the accepted standard in Britain.
This is just to inform people that I want Wikipedia to accept a general policy that BC and AD represent a Christian Point of View and should be used only when they are appropriate, that is, in the context of expressing or providing an account of a Christian point of view. In other contexts, I argue that they violate our NPOV policy and we should use BCE and CE instead. See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate for the detailed proposal. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:55, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
To a European eye there is a bit too much US focus in this article, including the absence of Montesquieu, Condorcet and Rousseau and of the foundation of the Societe Ethnologique de Paris in 1839 or the Ethnological Society of London in 1843; I may try and sharpen it up in this respect. Most of all, the title of the article seems a problem (as some of the drafters of text seems to have noticed: socio-cultural anthropology would in fact be a better compromise between the British term and the US one). Mark O'Sullivan 09:43, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
I would think that many of these 18th- and 19th-century theorists would be better placed in History of anthropology than in Cultural anthropology or Social anthropology, or at least should be mentioned only briefly. Most current work in both British and US anthropology runs in a fairly direct line from, or reacts to, social theories developed in Britain, France, and the US between about 1890 and 1920 (those are not hard and fast dates, of course). Montesquieu, Condorcet, etc. are historically important, of course, but they are not much more specifically important to anthropology than to sociology, economics, history, philosophy or a number of other fields. I would suggest that the main articles should focus on sociocultural anthropology and its branches as contemporary fields, though referencing appropriate historical articles. Mccajor 23:45, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Anyone who has this page on their watchlist, can you go to Virago? A who is putting forward notions of racial and identifying them with a notion of gender-difference, and I are in a conflict. Fundamentally, I believe he is a racist' his claims about race contradict everything I have read by physical and cultural anthropologists and as far as I can tell, his claims about gender at best seriously distort the literature.
You can see the difference here [1]
On the talk page, start here [2], and then just read the whole debate.
Comments from others needed. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 23:38, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I think the community template ought to be removed. Anthropologists, at least, typically use culture to refer to something radically different from community. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
On race and intelligence, please [3] Slrubenstein | Talk 13:11, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Try this—social culture is a shared pattern of ideas behaviors and beliefs: its causes, consequences and dynamics are the foci of Cultural Anthropology. Social structure is the shared pattern of roles and relationships within a society: the criteria for connectedness, social standing, rights and obligations, etc. are the concerns of Social Anthropology. I believe it was Clyde Kluckhohn (best check it out I would hate to misattribute such an elegant notion) who provided the perfect metaphor connecting the two. His take on the subject? Imagine a piece of carbon paper. It is a unitary object on the one hand, but on the other, it is comprised of two distinct objects: 1) a paper substrate, and 2) a transferable coating. Either part in the absence of the other has a completely different functionality. Similarly, anthropology is a single subject, but it too embodies two distinctly different "pieces." By Kluckhohn's reckoning, the substrate is the social structure and the transfer agent is the social culture. Together the two parts provide a functionality that neither can provide independently. Each discipline is unique but neither can be fully understood in the absence of the other. DBD 24.98.226.147 23:59, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
== Social and Cultural Anthropology ==ç There are major differences between Culutral Anthropology and Social Anthropology other than the history of the disciplines. I'll edit this in a bit more precise manner later with some references, but simplistically one could say that each views the other as a epiphenomena of their own position. The differences between the two has widened rather than narrowed over the past three decades. Social Anthropology continues to develop the central idea of sociality, its antecedents and its consequences. The organizational principle of 'sociality' is not widely contested, though certainly social theories contest many aspects of one another. The development of Social Anthropology is marked by emergence of consensus in some areas, which of course lead to new problems and disagreements.
Cultural Anthropology has been subjected to a major interrogation of its central concepts over the past three decades, almost all of which are presently contested with agreement only within factions. It would not be unfair to say that from surveying the literature of the past 20 years we 'know' less about culture today than we 'knew' before (other than an increased range of what culture might be and how it might be manifest). This may be a result of never having had an agreed definition of culture to develop. Instead since its inception early in the 20th century the 'culture concept' has done little other than fragment.
Socio-cultural anthropology is one of the solutions some factions of American anthropologists have chosen to diffuse the 'culture wars' in American Anthropology. It is a term increasingly used outside the US, but has a rather different meaning there, seen as a vehicle to bring culture into social theory in a limited manner. Culture remains a epiphenomena of social interaction and organization. The greater prominance of culture in social anthropology has served a useful purpose in recent decades, providing a means to better examine issues of globalization, regional politics, social change, ethnicity while retaining much of the foundation of social theory that had been developed with little reference to culture as a focal category.
In any case there is ample reason not to merge the two entries at all on the grounds of controversy, though I agree that I and my colleagues will have to develop the social anthropology entry more for it to earn its keep. Certainly, it should not be merged into Cultural Anthropology, although there might be a case for eventually merging Cultural Anthropology into Social Anthropology. However, there is probably a better case for keeping them distinct given the difficulties of trying to merge two long standing traditions within Anthropology together given their rather different objectives and histories. Mdfischer 17:05, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Pre-1970 | 1970s | 1980s | 1990- | Total | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
cultural anthropology | 633 | 524 | 836 | 1900 | 3893 |
social anthropolgy | 840 | 552 | 484 | 719 | 2595 |
sociocultural anthropology | 8 | 28 | 43 | 195 | 274 |
sociocultural | 469 | 759 | 848 | 1875 | 3951 |
Total | 1950 | 1863 | 2211 | 4689 | 10713 |
df= 9 p <= 0.001.
I am thrilled to see an established anthropologist who I hope is willing to work on this and related pages! Please review our core policies WP:NPOV and WP:ATT. Beacuse of the Wiki- and quasi-anarchic nature of Wikipedia, in addition to vandalism even the best editor will eventually confront others who will delete or radically change what they have written. Violation of NPOV and ATT are generally considered unimpeachable reasons for reverting an editor's work. If you know these policies and ensure that your edits to articles comply with them, your work will be respected and relatively safe. You and I may disagree about minor things although perhaps as we explain our own views in greater detail we will see that we do not really disagree all that much. Just to clarify about my initial point above, I think many American anthropologists have moved away from debates over determinism (e.g. Harris vs. Geertz) such that the word "epiphenomenal" just does not carry the weight it once did - it is not the primary locus of debates. Anyway, welcome and as you feel more confident about our policies I hope you will put mor of your good ideas in the articles themselves and not just on talk pages! Slrubenstein | Talk 10:42, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I did an MA in social anthropology a few years back - as far as I remember - social anthropology is the British spelling of cultural anthropology - separately the articles seem quite mediocre - a merger might improve the situation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danprzewoz ( talk • contribs) 20:20, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
There is a great deal of US POV in this article. The European traditions within Social Anthropology ought to be distinct, as per my edit of the lead sentence on March 2, 2007. Subsuming one under the other or calling them Social and Cultural as if they are one heading is not useful. These are very different approaches.
I think it is time to drop the suggestion that this article or section be merged into Cultural anthropology Douglas R. White 15:56, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
-- I second that we drop the proposed merge of Social Anthropology into Cultural Anthropology Mdfischer 18:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
would people who watch this page please review the article, Early infanticidal childrearing, which makes many claims about anthropology and about non-Western societies? I was once involved in a flame-war with another editor, and it would be inappropriate for me to do a speedy delete or nominate the page for deletion. More important, I think others need to comment on it. I engaged in a detailed exchange recently with one other editor here, on the talk page; you may wish to review the discussion but it is getting involuted and I ask that you comment separately. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 12:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
The articles Cultural anthropology, Ethnology and Social anthropology are wildly, almost unbelievably, redundant. I propose that they be merged and redirected to one (more fully sourced, articulate and complete) article, with short sections explaining the doctrinal, pedagogical and methodological differences between (American-led) cultural and (British-led) social anthropology, and how they relate to the overall view of ethnology from its origins to today, and integrating all the material. I don't care what article the final result lives at. The present state of the articles is very confusing to the reader, and gives the impression that all three of these are separate fields, when they absolutely are not, they are simply three different lenses from which to view precisely the same endeavo[u]r. I'm labeling this merge proposal "tentative" because I have not slapped up any merge tags; I think some discussion is in order as to what the merge target should be. Keeping these articles separate (other than as short articles limited to discussion of how the particular branch/variant differs from others, the way the Philology article relates to the Linguistics article) is silly and unhelpful to the reader. — SMcCandlish [ talk] [ cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:24, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
PS: Yes, I am of course aware that the issue has been (in part) discussed before (in part, because Ethnology was not included in the discussion). — SMcCandlish [ talk] [ cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:43, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
PPS: This would necessarily entail a merger (complete, or by moving the subtopics to be under Category:Ethnicity) of the relevant categories as well. I found that some of the articles were cross-categorized already (I fixed that), further strongly suggesting their redundancy. — SMcCandlish [ talk] [ cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:22, 23 July 2008 (UTC) PPPS: Talk:Social anthropology, Talk:Ethnicity, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthropology have all been notified of this discussion. — SMcCandlish [ talk] [ cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:26, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
a professor said to a distraught student, who asked 'why is it written so complicated', the reply of course 'because it is complicated' - the very endeavour of anthropology generally is unsuited to a medium such as wikipedia, which is ironic, considering anthropology was once considered the encyclopedic discipline par excellence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.30.50.145 ( talk) 05:23, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
I am not sold on the dissertation abstract as a reference for the contention that: "Also growing more popular are ethnographies of professional communities, such as laboratory researchers, Wall Street investors, law firms, or IT computer employees". I don't dispute the assertion, just the reference.
Any other opinions on this?? -- Digitalmischief ( talk) 03:45, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
intel have just constructed a completely anthropological lab, go read ars technica, or look at the microsoft research lab in cambridge. nuff said. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.30.50.145 ( talk) 05:24, 15 July 2010 (UTC)
After all uncited material was deleted - leaving only a stub - I did a major overhaul of Incest taboo. Hoping that it rises to our standards for good anthropology related articles, would people who watch this page mind looking it over, making any obvious improvements or commenting on the talk page? Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 19:43, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
Could please any expert have a look at this discussion? -- 193.170.52.132 ( talk) 19:21, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
Wow - it's just so thin and short. It seems to be about 1/4 the length of a typical biography on a person that is of average notability (like Dawkins). Is it really that hard to describe this type of anthropology (regional differences notwithstanding)? One way to approach it might be to focus on several different famous anthropologists (not just a handful) the way most encyclopedias or textbooks do. The first sentence should be a statement of what anthropology is, and then simply state that "cultural" anthropology is the part that tries to deal with the non-genetic aspects of human nature and life. The coevolution of genes and culture is in the domain of both biological and cultural anthropology, obviously and should be so stated in both articles. Geertz brought about the phenomenological "revolution" of the 70's (if one has to pick one influence), and while anthropology is hardly an expanding field, we still exist as professionals and have evolved new subfields and methods all the while. There should be links to all the famous names - and there should be lots of them. Marvin Harris's book would be a good first compendium and keep writers busy here for while. I've been watching wikipedia (as an anthropologist) for a good many years - and on this page, as on many, there are these substantial (but often irresolvable) arguments in 2005-2006, a waning of contributions thereafter (no wonder), and now - nothing. Wikipedia may not disappear soon - but it appears to be moribund. Culture as a topic that transcends anthropology, of course, and Wikipedia is weak in many, many areas relating to culture - much better on technology, science, pop music (that's culture of course, but easier to list bands and give bios than to describe or discuss many other aspects of culture).
I will take a look at the incest taboo page and any other pages people think should be linked to this anthropology page. There needs to be a WikiProject on Culture (which would include both anthropology and the newer field of cultural studies).
This article would be very much improved by mentioning that understanding culture (one's own or another's) seems to be a primal human interest; it is born of curiousity and in the early 20th century became both a profession and a separate academic discipline with "departments." The first were in Britain, not America and no, "cultural anthropology" is not primarily an American thing. Using the term may be "American," (we call lorries "trucks" here - but they are substantially the same item), but the process is very much the same. What I do, what most anthropologists do, is not all that different from what Radcliffe-Brown and E.E. Evans-Pritchard did. Malinowski was liminal, though employed in Britain, the fact that he wasn't British often became relevant in his personal and academic life - so anthropology has been "cross-cultural" from the early days of its professionalization.
Imagine if we had an article on baseball, in which we mainly argued whether it was cricket or not - and whether all games involving balls and sticks should be mentioned, and further, whether all games involving either sticks or balls should be mentioned, but never, ever consulted either baseball players or anyone with a rulebook...that would be one odd article, wouldn't it? Be easier to start with a commonly accepted view of the "beginnings of baseball" and move on, leaving all the rest to other pages and footnotes. Levalley ( talk) 23:18, 26 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley
Why, under Brief History, is ethnology in quotes? Is it a fictive field? It really existed, still exists, many people do it, it's part of every form of anthropology - why the quotes? Modern anthropology had its roots as much in Darwin and historical evolutionary thinking, btw - probably far more influential on going out and actually collecting data. Of course, ethnology was/is important too. Levalley ( talk) 23:27, 26 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley
I'm putting together a little timeline so I don't get confused. Boas comes first in terms of making fieldwork proposals and actually carrying them out, although Tylor had traveled and made informal investigations that were very useful in his work. I won't be able to mention every one, but I'll choose important early fieldworkers. Levalley ( talk) 04:51, 31 March 2009 (UTC)LeValley
While I understand the recent edit from "three" to "four or five" subfields, I suggest we either leave out the number of subfields (what other science decides to put an actual number on its subfields? Anthropology contains no particular number of subfields - I don't know any professional anthropologists (and I know many) who would try and count them. So, I suggest the article say "Cultural anthropology is a main subfield" or something like that. Levalley ( talk) 22:02, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
because it belongs here. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
I removed this section because it was poorly written, unsourced, and does not belong in this article. To the anonymous user who put it in: please go to WP:Five Pillars and learn more about how to edit an article. I thinkl you want to make a positive contribution but you are not doing so effectively. Read the policies and guidelines linked to the Five Pillars, and you will learn how to contribute effecively. Good luck, Slrubenstein | Talk 21:28, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
If people who watch this page are also interested in how Wikipedia is governed, be sure to check out this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Advisory_Council_on_Project_Development . Slrubenstein | Talk 16:29, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
I have removed this from the article so we can work on it and then put it back in:
This paragraph is misleading, since Boas was not criticizing Darwinian evolution which is the source of new theories (and Durkheim was not anthropologist.
More importantly, it is misleading to the reader and undue weight to have a section just on one person's reply to an article. What we need to do is put this in its context. I suggest that the contributor first provide a paragraph or two account of Nettle's article. Also, there are other anthropologists involved in this debate like Bloch and Viveiros de Castro. Let's provide a clear account of this debate.
Otherwise this viollates both wp:WEIGHT and WP:POINT. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:04, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
You miss my point. I am not quibling with wording, I am saying that what you wrote does not provide enough context to understand what you wrote. You point to a debate between followers of Durkheim and Tarde that some say led social anthropologists away from evolutionary approaches - But evolutionary biologist promoted a version of evolutionary theory that fits in more with Durkheim's social science than Tarde's. TAhis needs explaining. Also, Nettle argues that evolutionary theory and Boas/Durkheimian social science are actually not in conflict - you need to explain this, before we can understand Dunbar's approach. If you want the WP article to address these issues you have to write more so we can understand them. It is not my job to add views - if you want to add these views, do it properly. If you leave it to me I say that the views are so marginal in anthropology they do not belong in the article. But if you want us to consider including them, write encyclopedically; provide the context and detail so readers will understand the debates. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:52, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
Your never mentioning him is an example of your ignorance of the debate you wish to address. In any case, Nettle's article is more of an explanation to evolutionary psychologists why so much of human behavior is accetable to evolutionists and a critique of Dawkins' idea of memes. If you want to talk about any conflict between Durkheimian social science and mwmes or EP, you have to explain Tarde. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:19, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
We shouldn't be working on articles to make points, we should be here to provide accurate accounts of significant views from reliable sources. You do not seem to be able to do that. You do not show any comprehension of the article you want to cherry-pick from. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:40, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
As scholars commenting on the article show, this does not make them any less important. But okay, Aristotle is clearly more important, you certainly should explain that too. The fact remains, this article is an explanation of why EP must accept social science, not the other way around (as the article makes plain, Boas and social scinentists always accepted evolution). Slrubenstein | Talk 21:25, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
References
See this removal [4]. The stated reason was "FRINGE - we do not have sections on specific articles". Obviously we can cite articles as sources. This is a current dispute in anthropology and therefore Wikipedia should mention it. Miradre ( talk) 18:03, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
An article is a source - but you want to make a whole section of this article about one journal article. If we created a section for each published journal article do you know how long this article would be? That is not how we write encyclopedia articles. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:49, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
I couldn't find the chapter. Here are the chapter headings::
Mathsci ( talk) 14:29, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
WP:UNDUE. That is the point. Now here are the chapter heading of the other book:
Mathsci ( talk) 15:04, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
So we have cultural anthropology textbooks stating that evolutionary explanations is a "contemporary trend" and anthropology articles stating that evolutionary explanations should be more prominent. I can add outside views also if needed. Miradre ( talk) 16:51, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
Searching in Google Scholar for "Cultural anthropology" and "Evolutionary psychology" gives 182 articles just since 2010. Most seems to advocate various integrations. Like this example: [5] Many are not from anthropology journals but if our articles on evolutionary psychology can have criticisms by anthropologists I think other fields also can have views on anthropology. Miradre ( talk) 20:02, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
This is not the point. The point is that you lied about the sources, and you cannot string together two coherent sentences on the topic. These are not personal attacks, these are statements of fact explaining why your editing is tendentious. Look at all the talk you have babbled here without anything coherent. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:48, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
The phrase "just as an indicator" is surely not so hard to understand. Meanwhile, please wait for that list of secondary sources to be compiled. That is a major deficiency of the article and matters of balance cannot be discussed until there is such a list. So my advice to is to be patient. You could for example look at this paper on jstor [6] and use it for improving one of the other articles you're editing at present. (In the review there was the following quote, "If evolutionary biology is a soft science, then evolutionary psychology is its flabby underbelly.") But meanwhile patience, patience. Mathsci ( talk) 11:23, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
How about we use the fact that we have multiple people studying textbooks in cultural anthropology to improve the article. Its not thyat good - the history section is more like an oversized iverview section - its not even chronological. We could build the article structure on the outline of the textbooks. ·ʍaunus· snunɐw· 03:19, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
I agree with that completely. It is not standard practise on wikipedia on major articles, for example Europe, for single users who have entered into dispute against consensus to place neutrality templates on articles. That is tendentious editing. In this case the user seems to be wishing to add content that, as discussed above, does not match secondary sources and is designed to skew the article to their own particular point of view, contradicting at least one of the few secondary sources where the particular issue is disccused at all. Best policy in writing wikipedia articles is to find a comprehensive list of secondary sources, see what they write about cultural anthropology and then summarise that briefly in the article, paying careful attention to the weight that various topics receive in the secondary sources. Mathsci ( talk) 09:33, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
Now we have a new article Poles in mythology, Please see and include suitable improvements , if any, in article Poles in mythology.
Rgds Mahitgar ( talk) 09:03, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
The first sentence mentions, but does not define nor link to, “the anthropological constant”. This might cause a typical non-expert, such as me, not to understand the distinction being made. JDAWiseman ( talk) 19:00, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
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I would like to work on the methods section of the Cultural Anthropology page. I plan to contribute more depth about methods used and how they are critiqued. I also plan to talk about how these methods transfer into writing about the subjects of an anthropological study. I would note which methods are most popular, and which are most controversial. I am also open to other ideas and would love some criticism from my peers.
Some sources I have found so far are: Handbook of Methods in Cultural Anthropology by HR Bernard, CC Gravlee Assessing Cultural Anthropology by R Borofsky Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology by A Bernard, J Spencer individual.utoronto.ca/boyd/anthro4.htm - Research Methods of Cultural Anthropology etc... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ewootten5280 ( talk • contribs) 03:03, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
- ESW — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ewootten5280 ( talk • contribs) 02:57, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
I would also like to work on revising and adding to the methods section, specifically focusing on the subsection about participant observation. I'd like to add more clear and specific descriptions of what each of the listed methods involves, possibly by using examples, and expand a bit on what is meant by self-analysis, and how it might affect the other methods. Would it be possible to add citations for some of the information that is already there? It might also be beneficial to remove the part of the opening sentence of the section which names other disciplines, since the focus of the article is cultural anthropology. Emmacampbell98 ( talk) 00:12, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
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Using "a subset of the anthropological constant" is meaningless gibberish to most readers. We need to be linking to something(s) here, but I'm not sure we have an article that addresses this idea. Anthropological constant is definitely a redlink. I'm skeptical that this wording should be retained at all, and suspect it would be better to replace it with something in plainer English. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 15:11, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
This article is also confusing ethnology and ethnography, starting from the first paragraph of the "Theoretical foundations" section near the top. It would probably be wise to distinguish these in the lead: cultural anthropology (the study of cultural variation) arose from and partly in reaction against ethnology (comparative study of cultures), while ethnography (study of particular cultures in detail) is a sub-discipline of cultural anthropology and also provides the raw materials for modern ethnology. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 15:17, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
This article needs to cover the distinction of cultural anthropology from ethnology; the latter article makes this distinction (and from social anthropology). That third article distinguishes from cultural anthropology but not really from ethnology. Only the ethnology article is clear. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 15:28, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
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