Theory in Anthropology
1. Introduction to Anthropological Theory
Throughout the history of the subject, anthropology has been a deeply fragmented and conflicted academic field. This is due to the fact that although the subject’s primary aim is to understand, anthropologists can never seem to agree as to what it is that they are trying to understand. As a result, anthropology has developed a wide range of theories, which can be broadly split into ‘scientific’ and ‘humanistic’. This distinction is one that will be discussed in more depth later, but in brief, the former approach uses theories that subject the data to be understood to laws from which generalizations can be made, and the latter is an approach to understand different cultures from the point of view of the people studied.
Introduction to Anthropological Theory. The term ‘theory’ comes from the Greek word ‘theoria’, which means a looking at or viewing. It is a way of looking at the world and is composed of a set of concepts, definitions, and propositions. It deals with ultimate generalizations about the real world. Theories are explanations that help us understand and assume something. In anthropology, anthropological theory is a set of ideas that an anthropologist has which help to put and interpret data. This can be said in other words as theory is the tool of understanding data.
2. Key Concepts in Anthropological Theory
In the same light, the cross-cultural method of British structural functionalism can be seen as an attempt to create a grand theory of all humanity, though the method was rarely applied as intended and often led to misunderstanding of studied facts. For all its efforts, Lévi-Strauss acknowledged in his later works that anthropology was a science in crisis. He did not believe that it had not achieved the status of a true science, but rather it was unsure of how to reach that point.
In a more recent time, Claude Lévi-Strauss, the key proponent of structuralism in its anthropological form, aimed to establish universal mental structures through a study of myths which he deemed as mental constructs. His aim was to go beyond the mere description of culture to an understanding of the thought processes and principles which lay foundation to the surface of culture. Lévi-Strauss thought that it was impossible to study each culture as it had been studied during the 19th and early 20th centuries and made use of the anthropological literature on non-literate societies.
Structural functionalism, a now-defunct theory, brought together two key concepts in anthropology and gave them an applied methodology. Radcliffe-Brown, who is widely credited with giving the theory its form, looked to establish functionalism as a historic method in Durkheim’s sociology. This involved the assessment of how institutions functioned with relation to society as a whole.
In addressing the development of culture, both focused on the idea of progressive development with Tylor asserting that all societies passed through three stages of development to reach civilization. E.E. Evans-Pritchard has been a key figure in rejecting the notion that it is possible to construct a single theory of development that applies to all cultures. He demonstrated this through his work with the Azande of South Sudan, a people whose ‘prelogical’ thought he believed led to illogical actions.
A key concept in anthropology is culture. Defining culture and pinpointing its role in the development of human society has been the focus of anthropological debate for decades. During the 19th century, Edward Tylor and James Burnett Frazer attempted to identify universal laws of cultural development. To them, science – in this case, sociology – was a search for general laws. Neither believed that an adequate understanding of specific contemporary cultural practices could be gained from cross-cultural comparison, although Tylor’s aim was to identify cultural survivals which could then be used to reconstruct historical development.
3. Major Theoretical Approaches in Anthropology
The enormous number of theories in anthropology has made the theoretical realm of the field seem complex and fragmented. At the same time, theories are the means by which anthropologists express their philosophical and scientific views about humanity, and by which they are able to persuade others to share their interpretations. It is possible to categorize anthropological theories into a series of interlinked and contrasting dualisms, many of which reflect a continuation of the theoretical duel between culturalism and scientific explanation that has long been central to the field. While earlier dualities such as the distinction between nature and culture maintained a lasting influence on anthropological theory, by the late 20th century the guiding dualism became that between an emphasis on the unique and specific aspects of human culture, and a search for universal and general laws about human behavior. These differing theoretical orientations often assumed conflicting views about the nature and potential of anthropological explanation, and they frequently divided the discipline into separate schools of thought that in certain cases evolved dual paradigms each with its own definitions of the problem and its own solutions. Major theoretical trends can thus be best understood as a continuous contest between conflicting ideas and power relationships within the discipline, rather than a simple succession of different theories about the same problems. An understanding of the major theoretical trends in anthropology is crucial to comprehending the varied and complex history of the discipline.
4. Contemporary Debates in Anthropological Theory
This chapter will be organized, somewhat impressionistically, around the implications of the foregoing discussion for a series of related, contemporary debates in social theory as they relate to anthropological research. I shall argue that the various relativist positions and, to a lesser extent, the practice of ethnography, are contested terrains in anthropological theory not because any side consistently misunderstands how language or culture works, but because the stakes are so high. When practical and moral consequences of a given theoretical orientation are so clearly spelled out, it is to be expected that theory will be burdened with a significance that exceeds its explanatory power. This is good news for the continued vibrancy of a dialogic intellectual community, but less heartening for those who would want to test once and for all the relative merits of incommensurate perspectives. The plausibility of competing theories is often relatively equal and inversely proportionate to their scope, rendering any resolution unlikely. What follows is a series of debates and my appraisals of the possibilities for anthropology’s continued self-transformation and extension of its borders.
5. Future Directions in Anthropological Theory
Future Directions in Anthropological Theory provides a forum in which authors critically assess the state of theory in the discipline, both the history and current trends, and point to the future. It offers an arena for dialogue about theory in anthropology. This means, for example, that authors can engage each other as they discuss theoretical innovation or ideas about a theoretical tradition. And, because theory is an encompassing aspect of culture and social life, the series connects the production of theory with theory in action through the demonstration of how theory is employed to build an understanding of the world. Future Directions in Anthropological Theory is open to and will encompass a wide variety of theoretical perspectives and topics and it is global in scope. Published as a book, it encourages future readers to treat the collection as a text in its own right which one can analyze for its theoretical insights and in doing so give further scrutiny to the state and role of theory in anthropology.
