1 - Visions of Anthropology

Summary

Especially in North America, anthropology is dominated by the ‘four-fields’ approach. This was introduced by German immigrant Franz Boas in the late nineteenth century, and it still dominates. The idea is that anthropology consist of these elements: biological, archaeological, linguistic, and cultural components. The cultural one is dominant, and this book is basically about cultural anthropology. Other important notions include the division into ethnography and theory; the idea of a paradigm; diachronic, synchronic, and interactive perspectives; and the emphases on society and on culture.