Anthropology

==Post-World War II developments==
Before [[WWII]] British 'social anthropology' and American 'cultural anthropology' were still distinct traditions. After the war, enough British and American anthropologists borrowed ideas and methodological approaches from one another that some began to speak of them collectively as 'sociocultural' anthropology.

===Basic trends===
There are several characteristics that tend to unite anthropological work. One of the central characteristics is that anthropology tends to provide a comparatively more [[Holism|holistic]] account of phenomena and tends to be highly empirical.<ref name="Hylland Eriksen 2004 p. 79"/> The quest for holism leads most anthropologists to study a particular place, problem or phenomenon in detail, using a variety of methods, over a more extensive period than normal in many parts of academia.

In the 1990s and 2000s, calls for clarification of what constitutes a culture, of how an observer knows where his or her own culture ends and another begins, and other crucial topics in writing anthropology were heard. These dynamic relationships, between what can be observed on the ground, as opposed to what can be observed by compiling many local observations remain fundamental in any kind of anthropology, whether cultural, biological, linguistic or archaeological.<ref>Rosaldo, Renato (1993). ''Culture and Truth: The remaking of social analysis''. Beacon Press. Inda</ref><ref>Xavier, John and Rosaldo, Renato (2007). ''The Anthropology of Globalization''. Wiley-Blackwell.</ref>

Biological anthropologists are interested in both human variation<ref>Jurmain, Robert; Kilgore, Lynn; Trevathan, Wenda and Ciochon, Russell L. (2007). ''Introduction to Physical Anthropology''. 11th ed. Wadsworth. chapters I, III and IV. {{ISBN|0-495-18779-8}}.</ref><ref>Wompack, Mari (2001). ''Being Human''. Prentice Hall. pp.&nbsp;11–20. {{ISBN|0-13-644071-1}}</ref> and in the possibility of human universals (behaviors, ideas or concepts shared by virtually all human cultures).<ref>Brown, Donald (1991). ''Human Universals''. McGraw Hill.</ref><ref>Roughley, Neil (2000). ''Being Humans: Anthropological Universality and Particularity in Transciplinary Perspectives''. Walter de Gruyter Publishing.</ref> They use many different methods of study, but modern population [[genetics]], [[participant observation]] and other techniques often take anthropologists "into the field," which means traveling to a community in its own setting, to do something called "fieldwork." On the biological or physical side, human measurements, genetic samples, nutritional data may be gathered and published as articles or monographs.

Along with dividing up their project by theoretical emphasis, anthropologists typically divide the world up into relevant time periods and geographic regions. Human time on Earth is divided up into relevant cultural traditions based on material, such as the [[Paleolithic]] and the [[Neolithic]], of particular use in archaeology.{{Citation needed|date=November 2012}} Further cultural subdivisions according to tool types, such as [[Olduwan]] or [[Mousterian]] or [[Levallois technique|Levalloisian]] help archaeologists and other anthropologists in understanding major trends in the human past.{{Citation needed|date=November 2012}} Anthropologists and geographers share approaches to [[culture regions]] as well, since mapping cultures is central to both sciences. By making comparisons across cultural traditions (time-based) and cultural regions (space-based), anthropologists have developed various kinds of [[comparative method]], a central part of their science.

===Commonalities between fields===
Because anthropology developed from so many different enterprises (see [[History of anthropology]]), including but not limited to [[Fossil collecting|fossil-hunting]], [[Exploration|exploring]], documentary film-making, [[paleontology]], [[primatology]], antiquity dealings and curatorship, [[philology]], [[etymology]], [[genetics]], regional analysis, [[ethnology]], history, [[philosophy]], and [[religious studies]],<ref>Erickson, Paul A. and Liam D. Murphy (2003). ''A History of Anthropological Theory''. Broadview Press. pp.&nbsp;11–12. {{ISBN|1-4426-0110-8}}.</ref><ref>Stocking, George (1992) "Paradigmatic Traditions in the History of Anthropology", pp. 342–361 in George Stocking, ''The Ethnographer's Magic and Other Essays in the History of Anthropology''. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. {{ISBN|0-299-13414-8}}.</ref> it is difficult to characterize the entire field in a brief article, although attempts to write histories of the entire field have been made.<ref>Leaf, Murray (1979). ''Man, Mind and Science: A History of Anthropology.'' Columbia University Press.</ref>

Some authors argue that anthropology originated and developed as the study of "other cultures", both in terms of time (past societies) and space (non-European/non-Western societies).<ref>See the many essays relating to this in Prem Poddar and David Johnson, Historical Companion to Postcolonial Thought in English, Edinburgh University Press, 2004. See also Prem Poddar et al., Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures&nbsp;– Continental Europe and its Empires, Edinburgh University Press, 2008</ref> For example, the classic of [[urban anthropology]], [[Ulf Hannerz]] in the introduction to his seminal ''Exploring the City: Inquiries Toward an Urban Anthropology'' mentions that the "[[Third World]]" had habitually received most of attention; anthropologists who traditionally specialized in "other cultures" looked for them far away and started to look "across the tracks" only in late 1960s.<ref name=Hannerz>[[Ulf Hannerz|Hannerz, Ulf]] (1980) ''Exploring the City: Inquiries Toward an Urban Anthropology'', {{ISBN|0-231-08376-9}}, p. 1. Columbia University Press.</ref>

Now there exist many works focusing on peoples and topics very close to the author's "home".<ref name="Lewis">Lewis, Herbert S. (1998) ''[https://www.jstor.org/stable/682051 The Misrepresentation of Anthropology and its Consequences] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170403010337/http://www.jstor.org/stable/682051 |date=3 April 2017 }}'' ''[[American Anthropologist]]'' "100:" 716–731</ref> It is also argued that other fields of study, like History and [[Sociology]], on the contrary focus disproportionately on the West.<ref>[[Jack Goody|Goody, Jack]] (2007) ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=jo1UVi48KywC The Theft of History] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150319071011/http://books.google.com/books?id=jo1UVi48KywC |date=19 March 2015 }}''. Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|0-521-87069-0}}</ref>

In France, the study of Western societies has been traditionally left to [[sociologist]]s, but this is increasingly changing,<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Abélès | first1 = Marc | title = How the Anthropology of France Has Changed Anthropology in France: Assessing New Directions in the Field |journal = [[Cultural Anthropology (journal)|Cultural Anthropology]] | volume = 1999 | page = 407 | jstor = 08867356 }}</ref> starting in the 1970s from scholars like Isac Chiva and journals like ''[[Terrain (journal)|Terrain]]'' ("fieldwork") and developing with the center founded by [[Marc Augé]] (''[[École des hautes études en sciences sociales|Le Centre d'anthropologie des mondes contemporains]]'', the Anthropological Research Center of Contemporary Societies).

Since the 1980s it has become common for social and cultural anthropologists to set ethnographic research in the North Atlantic region, frequently examining the connections between locations rather than limiting research to a single locale. There has also been a related shift toward broadening the focus beyond the daily life of ordinary people; increasingly, research is set in settings such as scientific laboratories, social movements, governmental and nongovernmental organizations and businesses.<ref>Fischer, Michael M. J. (2003) ''Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice''. Duke University Press.</ref>