Social Anthropology vs Cultural Anthropology: What's the Difference | Off the Shelf 4

[@lucasfelipe5982]

As a propospecting student for Anthropology I am really glad I found out these videos. Thanks for the good content.

[@ArmchairAcademics]

Glad you like them!

[@chroniclesofashlee951]

Can you please do a video on the most commonly used anthropological theory currently? 😊 Thanks so much!

[@mdhcclothing4197]

This was amazing as someone studying sales and marketing understanding anthropology helps me understand customers by making inferences to their needs and pain points.

[@rahulnair5320]

Doing a great job man! Keep going!

[@ArmchairAcademics]

Appreciate it!

[@godless1828]

Great work! You are very understandable and . We need these type of explanatory videos plus academics who are funny

[@ArmchairAcademics]

Thanks so much, Lidia. The support means a lot right now. 🙂

[@lucasfelipe5982]

If I can make a suggestion could you make a video on the differences of the American and the French traditions? Based on the Works of Frans Boaz and Claude Levis Strauss for example.

[@ArmchairAcademics]

Thanks for the suggestion, Lucas. That's a lovely topic for a video. I'll put it on the list for next quarter.

[@sibusisiwenxongo1318]

This was fantastic! thank you

[@ArmchairAcademics]

Thrilled to hear it was helpful! Thanks for posting.

[@leidyzamora4861]

Watching from Colombia 🇨🇴 thank you

[@ArmchairAcademics]

Thanks for watching!

[@saulrar]

Thanks for this useful and simple explanation. Would be great if you could talk also about ethnology and its differences with social and cultural anthropology :)

[@ArmchairAcademics]

Thanks for the kinds words, Saul. I'll put your suggestion on the list for the coming quarter :)

[@saulrar]

@@ArmchairAcademics thank you!

[@sohretsevdaaltayertem2192]

Yup! That would be great! Thanks

[@felipeferrari5920]

Could you make a video about the difference between social evolutionist anthropology and the 20th century anthropology (culturalism, functionalism and the like)? Thanks! Really liked your video.

[@ArmchairAcademics]

That's a really good suggestion. Thanks, Felipe! I was considering a huge video about the history of anthropology from the early 19th century to today; but making a more condensed video about evolutionist thinking and it's impact on anthro is a much more manageable topic. I'll see if I can squeeze it in -- but it probably won't be until the end of the year. Thanks for posting!

[@marlone6497]

Watching from the Philippines 🇵🇭

[@valentinaman980]

Great video! Thanks

[@AngeloPapapavlos]

Great video!

[@DrSpaceJunk]

That was great, thank you!

[@prateekthakare7579]

thankyou. this video has helped me a lot.

[@ArmchairAcademics]

Glad it helped!

[@marlone6497]

Sir, i thought you have new video upload today.

[@wilmermejiacarrion5028]

Great explanation! Greetings from Perú.

[@ArmchairAcademics]

Awesome, thank you!

[@valentinasilveiranettodond5513]

Hello thank you for this video, helped a lot. Could you recomend a comentador of this history of cultural antropology that tell the history since Adolf Bastian? Usually I only find since Boas ( each seams pretty reductive to what he think as if he was a creator that didnt had influences form the movements of thinkers of his time) Thank you very much. Is light and easy going to wacth your video. Abracos de uma estudante de Antropologia do Brasil.

[@ArmchairAcademics]

Thanks for posting, Valentina. There are a few fairly accessible histories of the field that focus more on sociocultural anthropology. One that I've used in the classroom and can recommend is Alan Barnard's "History and Theory in Anthropology". I also own, but admittedly haven't thoroughly read, Thomas Eriksen and Finn Nielson's "A History of Anthropology", which seems solid and would also serve you very well in that respect. There is no shortage of brief intellectual historical overviews in various handbooks and edited volumes, but, on a whim, I would consider starting with one of those two and working my way up from there. Best of luck!

[@jacobshocklie2928]

Tell that to Einstein’s amazing brain we’re still studying

[@sandrameza1644]

Any women's view, all male authors?

[@ArmchairAcademics]

Thanks for the comment, Sandra. There are a significant number of excellent female authors and researchers in the field. From as early as the 1930s Margart Mead, for example, played a formative role in shaping the development of cultural anthropology in North American institutions. For the majority of the 20th century, however, like many other academic disciplines, sociocultural anthropology was a bit of a "boy's club", but that's changed enormously in the past four decades. Some of the most influential figures in the field today are women and critical feminist theory remains a vital theoretical perspective that we apply in our work.

[@fredwelf8650]

Your conclusion is wrong. Cultural anthropology and social anthropology are worlds apart. Read one page in Radcliffe-Brown's "African Systems of Kinship and Marriage" and the difference between positivistic social anthropology and anti-positivist cultural anthropology will be palpable. Social anthropology is more scientistic following normal science which holds positivist models as normative. Cultural anthropology, e.g. Clifford Geertz, resists the scientism of predictability, replicability, verifiability, and the generation of "laws." Social anthropology is closely aligned with economics and sociology in their quantitative and realist approaches as contrasted with cultural anthropology's anti-realist deep interpretations. The issue of naïveté is relevant.