In my experience, when anthropologists make a sharp distinction between anthropology and ethnography, processing this identity conflict is the main source at play. Hence, when I told him I was an anthropologist, he figured he would ask me. Even if it is at best a historical oversimplification, a common narrative I will hear within anthropology is about how several decades ago, ethnography was the primary domain of anthropologists, but now it seems to be taking on a life of its own, with many others from other fields using it.
Discussions within anthropology of the similarities and differences between anthropology and ethnography — or between so-called anthropological ways of thinking vs ethnographic ways of thinking, anthropological approaches vs ethnographic approaches, or anthropologists vs ethnographers — have become a major staging ground for processing this seeming recent increase in the popularity of ethnography outside of anthropology.
Several notable perspectives have ranging from these discussions, ranging from promoting other methodologies within the discipline either in addition to or instead of ethnographic inquiries e. Arturo Escobar or emphasizing what uniquely anthropologists bring to ethnographic research that others who do ethnography supposedly cannot e.
Tim Ingold. Among the anthropologists I have talked to at least, I have found the latter to be the most common response: arguing that training in anthropology brings a superior way of thinking about society, cultures, and various social phenomena, which allows trained anthropologists to conduct ethnography better. I suspect that two major factors drive this narrative:.
Whatever factors reinforce this type of defensive response, I believe we anthropologists should instead celebrate the increasing flowering of ethnography and embrace how others might reformulate the methodology to meet their needs as an opportunity to crosspollinate and enliven what it means to do ethnography. For example, Morten Axel Pedersen has argued for a reimagining of what ethnography is in a way that could incorporate data science and machine learning techniques into the ethnographic toolkit something I have argued for here , here , and here as well.
I plan to write another article analyzing his arguments in detail, but suffice to say for now, I believe this reassessment of traditional ethnography has a lot of potential for innovative, outside-the-box anthropological research. Even though I have found these types of discussions to be the most fruitful thread in the anthropology-vs-ethnography discussion, the former chest-pumping explanations of why non-anthropological ethnographies are inferior to anthropological ethnographic research has unfortunately dominated the discussions I have witnessed on the topic, drowning them out.
I can certainly see how non-anthropologists seeking to understand and maybe employ ethnography could become confused when they encounter these debates among anthropologists. To anyone who has been so confused, I wrote this article. On the other hand, ethnology is the study of the characteristics of different peoples. The key difference between anthropology and ethnology is that while anthropology can be viewed as an overarching field of study, ethnology is only a subfield of it. Through this article let us examine the difference between anthropology and ethnology.
The anthropologist studies the genetic makeup of the human being, culture, religion, politics, language, and also the adaptation to different environmental settings. They also study the ceremonies, rituals and practices of people.
When speaking of anthropology, there are various branches of it. They are,. As a discipline, anthropology can be considered as a fusion of social science and natural science. This is because the influence of both sciences can be viewed in anthropology. Specifically, when speaking of the genetic makeup of individuals, the approach is one of the natural sciences. Many of the readings for this course and your own research project have been ethnographic in nature.
Each group member should be responsible for a different area. If there are only four members of your group, you will not cover all five geographic areas. Click here for a current list of culture names and geographic regions covered in eHRAF. Next, using the on-line eHRAF World Cultures database students will select a specific socio-cultural group on which to focus the individual paper. Each member of the group will research and write a page, typed, double-spaced paper.
You may have to be flexible in the selection of a specific population based on availability of ethnographic material on a particular subject. For instance, if there is not enough material on sickness among the Bemba in Africa, try the Azande.
Keep in mind that these topics should be broadly interpreted, i. As a group, you should decide whether you want to develop a narrow or a broad focus for your topic in light of the material that you find in doing your research.
Provide a copy of your draft paper for each member of your group. As a group, meet with a Macalester Center for Academic Excellence tutor to discuss the papers and generate ideas for the cross-cultural group presentation. Failure to turn in the draft on time will result in a substantial deduction of points from your final assignment grade. The Final Draft of your paper will be evaluated on the basis of substance, effective paper development, and good writing mechanics.
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