Talk:Social anthropology

Someone should create a new article
Is there anyone who has specialization in Sociology and Social/Cultural Anthropology?

If there is, someone should create a new article on how similar sociology and Social/Cultural anthropology are. Sociology and Anthropology are so similar to each other especially with Cultural Anthropology.

I cannot believe that no one has created an article talking about their similarities and none of the Sociology and Social/Cultural Anthropology articles mention their very close relationship together.

If anyone has specialization in both fields or at least know them very well, please someone or people should create an article talking about how they are so similar to each other and how Social/Cultural Anthropology is almost a duplicate study of Sociology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Canto2009 (talk • contribs) 20:48, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

ok, as a doctoral student of anthropology, i would suggest you read latour. this question is wrong, it shouldn't be what is what and what isn't what, but what is this whole system of assigning definitives about, what is its basis, and what are its outcomes? by this, i mean that, is there not an equally pertinent question why is there a debate as to what is socioogy and anthropolgy anyway - the endless creation of hybrids is masterfully explained in latour's we have never been modern, the point being, that yes, in ways they are similar, yes, in ways they are different, and yes, most practitioners are actually a bit of both - so why seperate them in the first place. it's quite clear what they study - people. from my academic perspective, quantitative sociology would be a course within a larger degree 'society' - an analytical term notwithstanding ingold's and strathern's valuable contributions to 'society does not exist' (university of manchester published forum) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.30.50.145 (talk) 05:16, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

So what is it?
Having read the article, I now know all about the history of social anthropology... but what exactly is it? What do they do? Mike Peel 08:48, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

--I actually visited the talk page to say the exact same thing. I couldn't figure out what it was after reading the article. hah. 66.119.27.235 21:42, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Added more substance
on what social anthropology is. This is a slightly amended extract from the UK Anthropology Benchmark Statement, which I have put in the references. I was on this panel, which represented all the Anthropology programmes in the UK, and I drafted most of this section, though it was amended and approved by the entire committee. Although the product of a committee, in this case should provide a pretty NPOV account. I will edit it more, particluarly the longer sections on Medical Anthropology and Ethnomusicology as these were extended to protect these small areas funding. They are, however, academically honest as they stand, so I may not be in a hurry to amend them. --Mdfischer 18:21, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The link seems to have moved. Mccajor 06:24, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Have replaced with the current link to Benchmark Statement -Mdfischer 14:46, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Propose end merger with Cultural Anthropology
I propose that we end consideration of merging social anthropology page into cultural anthropology. See talk:Cultural anthropology for arguments against merging. Mdfischer 18:34, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Seconded. Mccajor 06:23, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

no, they are very different, if we are to use bounded paradigms, let us use them correctly. social anthropology is systematic, like trying to work out how an engine works, cultural anthropology in the majority of cases is about categorising and understanding difference - hence why for entry to a british phd you require a british degree, such is the difference in teaching between social anthropology (british) and cultural anthropology (american) if 5 of the best universities in britain recognise a significant difference, surely wikipedia should also... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.30.50.145 (talk) 05:20, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Macfarlane Interviews?
I would suggest that the list of anthropologists interviewed for the Macfarlane Interviews be moved to a separate article. Currently it's longer than the whole rest of the article put together, and it doesn't contribute much more than the external link to the Interviews themselves. Mccajor 06:22, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I was about to post about this myself. The interviews are an amazing resource, but its completely over the top to list them here. This article should be about Social Anthropology, not dominated by an index to a resource for studying the history of that discipline (as good as that resource may be). By all means, lets provide a link to the list of interviews on his website from this article, but the proper place for any account of the scope of these interviews is in the article on Alan Macfarlane (although even there that kind of lengthy list would be inappropriate for a wikipedia article). Robotforaday 22:41, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

External links section
The external links section for this article is a bit odd, when you look at it in the context of other articles about academic disciplines. The external links section for Geology does not list departments offering "programs". Neither does the external links section for sociology, economics, cultural studies, or neurology. The external links section should surely link to such things as sites for further reading, professional associations etc. Robotforaday 22:48, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Article of concern
would people who watch this page please review the article, Early infanticidal childrearing, which makes many claims about anthropology and about non-Western societies? I was once involved in a flame-war with another editor, and it would be inappropriate for me to do a speedy delete or nominate the page for deletion. More important, I think others need to comment on it. I engaged in a detailed exchange recently with one other editor here, on the talk page; you may wish to review the discussion but it is getting involuted and I ask that you comment separately. Thanks, Slrubenstein  |  Talk 12:32, 31 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Hello, you might want to raise this at WikiProject Anthropology, where it should reach the people who could be of help here. Robotforaday (talk) 12:53, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Merge discussion notice copied from Talk:Cultural anthropology
The articles Cultural anthropology, Ethnology and Social anthropology are wildly, almost unbelievably, redundant. I propose that they be merged and redirected to one (more fully sourced, articulate and complete) article, with short sections explaining the doctrinal, pedagogical and methodological differences between (American-led) cultural and (British-led) social anthropology, and how they relate to the overall view of ethnology from its origins to today, and integrating all the material. I don't care what article the final result lives at. The present state of the articles is very confusing to the reader, and gives the impression that all three of these are separate fields, when they absolutely are not, they are simply three different lenses from which to view precisely the same endeavo[u]r. I'm labeling this merge proposal "tentative" because I have not slapped up any merge tags; I think some discussion is in order as to what the merge target should be. Keeping these articles separate (other than as short articles limited to discussion of how the particular branch/variant differs from others, the way the Philology article relates to the Linguistics article) is silly and unhelpful to the reader. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 23:25, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Please do not reply here, but centralize the discussion, at Talk:Cultural anthropology.

Centralizing discussion assumes already that they are the same thing. See above: they are not, and cannot be merged. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 18:04, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

This is a good idea - I have a degree in Social Anthropology - it was a while ago, but as far as I remember social anthropology is basically the British school of cultural anthropology - there may be a few theoretical and historical distinctions but essentially one good article would surfice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Danprzewoz (talk • contribs) 20:12, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

a request for people who watch this page
After all uncited material was deleted - leaving only a stub - I did a major overhaul of Incest taboo. Hoping that it rises to our standards for good anthropology related articles, would people who watch this page mind looking it over, making any obvious improvements or commenting on the talk page? Thanks, Slrubenstein  |  Talk 19:43, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

LEAVE THE SOCIOLOGY SECTION ALONE
This Social Anthropology does have a significant overlap into Sociology and I even provided a source. PLEASE LEAVE THE SOCIOLOGY SECTION ALONE.

Whoever is removing this section either has no knowledge experience whatsoever with Sociology or either has a negative bias against Sociology.

There needs to be an agreement in the discussion before anymore decisions are made. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Canto2009 (talk • contribs) 23:50, 27 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Almost all disciplines in the social sciences and humanities have areas of overlap. But you are just trying to use this article to plug sociology.  I have no bias against sociology, if I did I would spend my time at the sociology article adding information about the many criticisms against sociology.  But I do not do that.  I simply believe that each article should be about whatever the article is about.  This is an article on anthropology.  Information on sociology belongs in sociology.  Anyone who wants to learn about sociology can go to that article.  Butyou are trying to hijack Wikipedia to soap-box: you want to make this argument that sociology is highly relevant to social anthropology.  On what basis?  Social anthropologists are as likely to engage work by philosophers, historians, literary theorists, or geographers.  Please tell me what percentage of sociologists in the past five years published articls in sociology journals?  Please tell me what percentage of books or articles cited in books and articls by social anthropoloists were written by sociologists?  I think you will find the ercentage very small, and no greater than geographers, historians, or philosophers.  And please tell me how many sociologists today cite works by anthropologists in their books and articls? How many sociologists today publish articles in anthropology journals?  I know more about academia than you, and I think most anthropologists would agree that they speak a different language than sociologists.  It is true that the two disciplines are often put in the same department, but this is the logic of administrators, it is seldom because sociologists and anthropologists wish to be in the same department.  You are pushing your own argument, and that is a violation of WP:NOR


 * The bottom line is this: this is an article on social anthropology and the contents of the article should be about social anthropology. This article desperately needs more work on social anthropology and if you wish to contribute to it, why not do some research and explain how social anthropology evolved from a discipline dominated by Evans Pritchard and Fortas to a discipline dominated by Needham and Leach to a discipline dominated by Gellner and Strathern?  That would be informative! It would also require you knowing something about anthropology.  If you want to write about sociology, though, please go to the sociology article and write there. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 11:58, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I have found proof of both Sociology and Social Anthropology having the most significant overlaps and I have added the reference. So leave the Sociology section alone now. So do you approve of it since there is now a reference or will you admit that you have no experience with Sociology or have a negative bias against it? User:Canto2009  |  Talk 6:39 29 November (UTC)


 * You know, I responded to your edits wth an explanation for why I reverted your edit. And you have not responded to any of my comments.  I also suggested what I thought would be far more valuable work in developing the article, and you did not respond to that, either.  This shows that you have no interest in consensus based editing, you do not care what other editrs think and do not want to use this page to discuss how best to improve the article.  That makes you a troll.  This is not the place to push your personal point of view. Of course you can find sources that are examples of overlap, you can also find sources that show an averlap with history, with geography, and with philosophy.  That does not mean we should add blurbs about history, geography and philosophy to this article.  If someone wants to learn about history, geography, or philosophy they can go to the articles on those subjects.  Wikipedia has an article on sociology, why do you want to turn this into a second article on sociology?  You are just pushing your personal agenda. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 11:56, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

For goodness sakes!!!!!! Slrubenstein, all other academic articles in wikipedia include some of the perspectives from other academics to include their overlaps, why don't you look at the Social Psychology/Social psychology (sociology) articles. We all know that Sociology and Social Anthropology belong to two different academic fields, but their overlaps are truly significant. The topics studied in both of these fields are almost identical, but just from different perspectives.

Is there truly anything wrong in including info in an academic article that has convergences? I totally understand removing info with no reliable source, but I re-added the Sociology section this time with verifiable resources and you still refuse to accept it. Isn't the purpose of having info in wikipedia articles is to have verifiable sources and include any other info that have relationships to it as long as if there are verifiable references?! This is the case with Social Anthropology and Sociology including that there are verifiable sources and I am not pushing my personal view. HOW IS IT MY PERSONAL VIEW BEING PUSHED INTO THIS ARTICLE WHEN I HAVE THE VERIFIABLE SOURCES?!!!!!! THE OVERLAPS ARE MORE SIGNIFICANT THAN OTHER SOCIAL SCIENCES!!!!!!

AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN OTHER EDITORS?!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE ONLY EDITOR WHO DOESN'T APPROVE OF THIS IS YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I HAVE NOT SEEN ANY EDITORS COMPLAINING OR EXPRESSING THEIR OPINIONS ON MY EDITS ABOUT IT EXCEPT FOR YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I SUGGESTED THAT THERE SHOULD BE AGREEMENTS BEFORE MAKING NEW DECISIONS, BUT DID YOU DO THAT?!!!!!!!!! NO YOU DIDN'T!!!!!!!! HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT I DIDN'T LOOK AT A CONSENSUS WHEN THE CONSENSUS NEVER HAPPENED BECAUSE YOU MADE THE DECISIONS BEFORE GIVING THIS DISCUSSION BOARD A CHANCE TO ALLOW OTHER EDITORS HAVE THEIR OPINIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tomsega MAY HAVE SAID HIS DISAGREEMENTS ABOUT MY EDITS AND I WILL ADMIT THAT HE IS RIGHT I DO ADD A LITTLE TOO MUCH INFO THAN WHAT THE SOURCES HAS AND HE IS RIGHT THAT I SHOULD NOT HAVE ADDED INFO WITHOUT THE REFERENCES, BUT AT LEAST HE AGREES THAT IF THERE IS ADDITIONAL INFO THAT HAS ANY RELATIONSHIP TO THE WIKIPEDIA TOPIC AND HAS SOURCES TO BACK IT UP, THEY CAN BE ACCEPTABLE AND THAT'S WHAT I HAVE DONE. YOU ON THE OTHER HAND ARE HAVING YOUR OWN PERSONAL VIEWS. OTHER THAN YOU AND Tomsega, NO OTHER EDITORS HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE CHANCE TO EXPRESS THEIR OPINIONS IN THIS DISCUSSION FOR A CONSENSUS BECAUSE YOU MONOPOLIZED THE CONSENSUS DISCUSSION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WHY DON'T YOU JUST ADMIT YOU DON'T KNOW JACK ABOUT SOCIOLOGY OR YOU DO KNOW ABOUT SOCIOLOGY, BUT HAVE PERSONAL HATEFUL VIEWS/BIAS AGAINST SOCIOLOGY?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I AM PUTTING IT BACK!!!!!!!! AND THIS TIME GIVE THE DISCUSSION BOARD A CHANCE FOR OTHER EDITORS TO EXPRESS THEIR OPINIONS BEFORE MAKING NEW DECISIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

User:Canto2009  |  Talk 30 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Canto2009, I don't think you needed to find proof that sociology and social anthropology overlap significantly. That's just truism. What you would need to find, and would you won't find, is "proof" that social anthropology is any more the "sister study" of sociology than social philosophy or political science. Slrubenstein's phrase "personal agenda" is pretty much spot on. --Tomsega (talk) 18:07, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I notice, though, the entire point has been removed. One of the references Canto2009 provided was actually okay, and there is certainly room for 1-2 sentences on the way social anthropology has moved closer to sociology. What there isn't room for is one entire dodgy section or a long overly optimistic paragraph. --Tomsega (talk) 18:17, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
 * If you judge by Bruno Latour (some say he is hot, some say he is a charlatan, but he is definitely a famous sociologist) it is sociology that is moving closer to anthropology. If we are going to discuss this let's look for the most notable sources.  Marylyn Strathern was one of the top social anthropologists until she recently retired - did she say she was moving closer to sociology?  What about other notable social anthropologists? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 00:20, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Canto2009, if you think Slrubenstein is the only person who disagree's with you, you are very much mistaken, unless you simply haven't been reading the discussion on the main sociology page - which wouldn't surprise me. There are a good 3-4 editors who have been undoing your unjustifiable edits, which, bearing in mind how few people work on social science articles for some reason, is quite a large number. We can tell that you are pushing this as a 'personal agenda' because (a) every edit you have ever made to either the sociology or social anthropology page has consisted of it, and (b) you've gone around adding 'anthropology' to sociology articles like social action and structure and agency, which was not appropriate. Your use of capital letters and your tone is not appropriate here.

Perhaps most crucially, the reference you have provided does not support your claims. One small author might have released a book on 'the sociology of primitive societies', but we also have political sociology (leading sociology just as close to political science), cultural sociology (leading sociology just as close to cultural studies), and the sociology of science (leading sociology just as close to science and technology studies, etc etc.

Again, I'd say there is room for a 1-2 sentence point, but not a whole section. There was reference from google scholar you provided a week or so ago which was actually much more credible than the current one.--Tomsega (talk) 08:37, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Propose Merger With Cultural Anthropology
The arguments against a merger are weak. Every major institution treats them as the same.

If we keep them separate, where does it end? For example, do we identify forensic anthropology as its own branch? There is a wikipedia page for it. How about medical anthropology? How about separating biological and evolutionary?

Cultural and Social anthropology are essentially the same thing, inextricably linked (the way biological and evolutionary are). They should be identified as the same discipline.

I challenge anyone to show me ONE major institution that divides the two in its department, ONE major textbook that divides the two, etc.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.138.130.156 (talk) 17:49, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

The guy above is correct. Anyone suggesting a merger is correct. No strong arguments to keep it separate.

Combine it, for the love of God
It is absurd to cite the number of references to terms like "cultural anthropology" and "social anthropology". Anyone who has ever actually studied either, knows they should be merged. I am so disgusted with this conversation, I am actually nauseated. It is crap like this (the separation of the two) that keeps Wikipedia from being taken seriously.

Open a freaking textbook. Every anthropology textbook says there are 4 fields. These idiots here on Wikipedia are trying to set a trend NOT accepted by the mainstream.

Why does this meta-analysis APPEAR to work? Because cultural anthropology is the most oft-studied field, and depending on the location of the authors of a journal article, they will refer to it as either cultural or social.

Keeping the two separate is like saying an AB is a different degree than a BA.

You are all fools. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.138.129.142 (talk) 04:20, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Clear distinctions between Social and Cultural Anthropology
Fool I may be, but having been trained in, taught and done research integrating Social, Cultural, Linguistic and Biological Anthropology for over 25 years, I still find these quite distict in important ways. Having been trained in the US, and undertaken most of my career in the UK I have had to deal with these differences rather more explicitly than do most anthropologists.

Anthropologists are anthropologists. The specialities they may undertake reflect different research problems and methods for undertaking these. Many anthropologists have more than one speciality, and a common combination is Social and Cultural anthropology, but no means exclusively. However the research questions and approaches for these are quite different. Admittedly, anthropology is a small discipline in the scope of things, and if space were constrained it would be possible to write a combined entry that included both, but there is no joint name they could be given, the entry would have to be entitled Social and Cultural Anthropology, or Cultural and Social Anthropology. There are no perspectives where one is a subset of the other, much less equivalents. But this is Wikipedia, and there are no space constraints, so the only question is can they be meaningfully differentiated. I think so, the difference is very real to me on every research project I undertake.

For example, take my latest project, Human Adaptation to Ecosystem Change, within which I am working with three ecologists, a sociologist, two cultural anthropologists and an agricultural economist. I am providing expertise in social, cultural and biological anthropology together with the use of computational modelling to integrate our different perspectives and results into a common account.

The social anthropology input to the project involves understanding the social organisation of agriculture and other land use in an Indian community in Western Ghatts. Specifically, now people organise themselves into social groups, maintain relationships, hierarchical power relations and how these are perpetuated over time, how these are being challenged and how land use fits into this set of relations. In particular, this builds the foundation for the rest of the project.

The cultural anthropology focus is on agicultural knowledge, its organisation, distribution and internal structure, how knowledge is reproduced, and the mechanisms for change in knowledge. The foundation provided by the social analysis will help address some of these issues, but by no means all. Likewise, this will help to address some problems in the analysis aof social relations, but by no means all. The methods for collecting data on each of these is distinct, and they will not be undertaken together for the most part in the field.

This example aside, there is a pretty clear historical difference that is not just a matter of naming. Until around 1990 there were very few professional anthropologists in the UK who undertook research with a significant cultural dimension, though these few were prominant (e.g. Edmund Leach, Roy Ellen, Mary Evans). None were exclusively cultural anthropologists. Since 1990 recourse to including cultural aspects of different peoples has expanded. Since the same time in the USA cultural anthropology has been tearing itself apart, with probably a slight majority of those who would have called themselves cultural anthropologists two decades ago now doubting the existance or significance of culture at all. Research priorities in social anthropology on both continents have changed over 20 years, but not to become more like cultural anthropology but to accomodate greater emphasis on emergence and complexity, something anthropology has in common with most sciences over that time. Cultural and Social Anthrology have not been converging, but if anything diverging to a greater degree, one having made the transition into dealing with complexity, the other having been largely broken on the rocks in its attempts.

I'll have to come back to this later to finish. Mdfischer (talk) 18:51, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Introducing Fredrik Barth
I was wondering whether someone could assess whether one could add Fredrik Barth, the Norwegian social anthropologist, to the list of persons associated with social anthropology. Since I noticed that in your main article about "Social anthropology", you have that list of persons under the title of "Anthropologists associated with social anthropology", I must mention that I am not sure if Mr. Barth was an anthropologist to start with, possibly a sociologist, or whether he had other basis of initial education. I actually think that the title of that list of persons you have in that main article should be reformulated, because these days not only anthropologists may be interested in or associated with Social anthropology, it could be just as well sociologists, politologists, etc. In any case here is information about Mr. Fredrik Barth obtained from wikipedia itself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredrik_Barth, http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredrik_Barth,

Thank you for taking this into consideration.

161.4.82.7 (talk) 09:55, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

secton removed from for work
I have removed this from the article so we can work on it and then put it back in:
 * Evolutionary and empirical considerations
 * Evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar has argued that social anthropology should adapt recent evolutionary insights and more empirical hypothesis testing. Social anthropology, as well as social sciences more generally, at the time of Franz Boas and Émile Durkheim rightly abandoned the then current evolutionary theories. However, anthropology would gain much by incorporating recent great advances within biology and evolutionary theory and also a greater emphasis on empirical testing of hypotheses.

This is a confused paragraph, because Boas was not a social anthropologist - and also, Boas did not reject Darwinian evolution.

But the real problem is, it is misleading to the reader and undue weight to have a section just on one person's reply to an article. What we need to do is put this in its context. I suggest that the contributor first provide a paragraph or two account of Nettle's article. Also, there are other anthropologists involved in this debate like Bloch and Viveiros de Castro. Let's provide a clear account of this debate.

Otherwise this viollates both wp:WEIGHT and WP:POINT. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 14:02, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Nettle's view is not different from Dunbar's. Feel free to add views if there are any missing.Miradre (talk) 14:07, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I will clarify regarding Boas. Miradre (talk) 14:12, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Proposal: "Professor of Behavioural Science David Nettle has argued for overcoming the perceived dichotomy between cultural/social and evolutionary explanations for human behavior. He argues that this would not remove the methods anthropologists already use but add to them by also considering possibly evolutionary reasons for observed phenomena. Evolutionary biologists have also created many methods for empirically testing their hypothesis that could be adopted to new fields. Conversely, evolutionary researchers have much to learn from anthropologists.


 * Evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar in a comment argued that social anthropology, as well as social sciences more generally, at the time of Franz Boas and Émile Durkheim rightly abandoned some of the then current evolutionary theories. However, anthropology would now gain much by incorporating recent great advances within biology and evolutionary theory and a greater emphasis on empirical testing of hypotheses.
 * Miradre (talk) 15:10, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

You miss my point. I am not quibling with wording, I am saying that what you wrote does not provide enough context to understand what you wrote. You point to a debate between followers of Durkheim and Tarde that some say led social anthropologists away from evolutionary approaches - But evolutionary biologist promoted a version of evolutionary theory that fits in more with Durkheim's social science than Tarde's. TAhis needs explaining. Also, Nettle argues that evolutionary theory and Boas/Durkheimian social science are actually not in conflict - you need to explain this, before we can understand Dunbar's approach. If you want the WP article to address these issues you have to write more so we can understand them. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 17:50, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Tarde? Never mentioned him. So no need to explain him. Nettle certainly argues that there is some conflict with some current views in social anthropology such as those that reject all innate tendencies.Miradre (talk) 17:55, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Your never mentioning him is an example of your ignorance of the debate you wish to address. In any case, Nettle's article is more of an explanation to evolutionary psychologists why so much of human behavior is accetable to evolutionists and a critique of Dawkins' idea of memes. If you want to talk about any conflict between Durkheimian social science and mwmes or EP, you have to explain Tarde. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 19:20, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * If you want to add that material, fine. Please do do. However, more important is the argument that anthropology should incorporate more of modern, current evolutionary theories as well as the empirical methods used within evolutionary biology.Miradre (talk) 19:27, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

We shouldn't be working on articles to make points, we should be here to provide accurate accounts of significant views from reliable sources. You do not seem to be able to do that. You do not show any comprehension of the article you want to cherry-pick from. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 20:40, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Durkheim and Boas are only mentioned in couple of paragraphs in 17 pages long paper by Nettle. They are only mentioned in a single sentence by Dunbar. They are not an important focus of either paper.Miradre (talk) 20:46, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

As scholars commenting on the article show, this does not make them any less important. But okay, Aristotle is clearly more important, you certainly should explain that too. The fact remains, this article is an explanation of why EP must accept social science, not the other way around (as the article makes plain, Boas and social scinentists always accepted evolution). Slrubenstein  |  Talk 21:26, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * If you want to add what other scholars have stated regarding the paper, please do so. Does not change that Durkheim and Boas are only briefly mentioned by Nettle and are not a major focus. The same with Aristotle. Nettle argues for that both sides have much learn from one another.Miradre (talk) 21:34, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Added a new version to the article which also mentions Nettle.Miradre (talk) 17:12, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The new content is identical to that added to the article cultural anthropology. Since Slrubenstein and Maunus have raised objections there which apply equally here, the discussion should continue there. (Both users are well informed on the general subject of anthropology, so there is no reason at all to question their judgement.) Mathsci (talk) 05:22, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Quantum_anthropology help
Hi! I wrote an article about emerging field of anthropology and it is threaten by deletion (probably from people who are interested in another fields). So if somebody has a time for a quick view and discussion (keep or delete) the article will be glad! Wikiditor (talk) 08:53, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

make page: Sociometaphysics: social metaphysics
The study of the social metaphysical beliefs. Metaphysics is wider than religion because it includes more beliefs and notions.

Distinction from ethnology
This article needs to cover the distinction of social anthropology from ethnology; the latter article makes this distinction (and from cultural anthropology). That third article distinguishes from social anthropology but not really from ethnology. Only the ethnology article is clear. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:28, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Gender and Culture
— Assignment last updated by Alyssagarcia.422 (talk) 22:18, 8 October 2023 (UTC)