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> Anthropologists are dedicated to the study of human culture, which is related to but no the same as the study of human history This doesn’t seem quite right
by jacobolus 7y ago
> Anthropologists are dedicated to the study of human culture, which is related to but no the same as the study of human history
This doesn’t seem quite right to me, as the child of a professional anthropologist and historian. My general impression is that the difference between anthropology vs. history (not to mention sociology & political science) has more to do with methodology than subject. Think of ethnography vs. archival research. The subject is often heavily overlapping.
- manfredo 7y agoThey are different subjects. Anthropology is the study of human cultures and societies. Framing this as "ethnography vs. archival research" is a roundabout way of saying the same thing: >Ethnography: The scientific description of peoples and cultures with their customs, habits, and mutual differences. https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/ethnography https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/ethnography
- jacobolus 7y agoEthnography means you embed yourself in a group, do a bunch of interviews, etc. It is a very hands-on and 1:1 kind of method. Your definition does not really adequately describe it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnography#Features_of_ethnographic_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnography#Features_of_ethnog... (Wikipedia isn’t a perfect source here, but gives some idea.) This is a very different approach than sitting in an archive and reading old documents or running statistical analysis on government databases or .... But it is possible to investigate the same types of subjects using these different methods.