Editing Anthropology (section)

== Key topics by field: sociocultural ==
===Art, media, music, dance and film===
{{Anthropology of art}}

==== Art ====
{{main|Anthropology of art}}

One of the central problems in the anthropology of art concerns the universality of 'art' as a cultural phenomenon. Several anthropologists have noted that the Western categories of 'painting', 'sculpture', or 'literature', conceived as independent artistic activities, do not exist, or exist in a significantly different form, in most non-Western contexts.<ref>Layton, Robert. (1981) ''The Anthropology of Art''.</ref> To surmount this difficulty, anthropologists of art have focused on formal features in objects which, without exclusively being 'artistic', have certain evident 'aesthetic' qualities. Boas' ''Primitive Art'', [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]]' ''The Way of the Masks'' (1982) or Geertz's 'Art as Cultural System' (1983) are examples in this trend of transforming the anthropology of 'art' into an anthropology of culturally specific 'aesthetics'.

==== Media ====
{{main|Media anthropology}}
[[File:Punu mask Gabon.JPG|thumb|upright=.7|left|A Punu tribe mask, Gabon, Central Africa]]
Media anthropology emphasizes ethnographic studies as a means of understanding producers, audiences, and other cultural and social aspects of mass media. The types of ethnographic contexts explored range from contexts of media production (e.g., ethnographies of newsrooms in newspapers, journalists in the field, film production) to contexts of media reception, following audiences in their everyday responses to media. Other types include [[cyber anthropology]], a relatively new area of [[internet research]], as well as ethnographies of other areas of research which happen to involve media, such as development work, [[social movement]]s, or health education. This is in addition to many classic ethnographic contexts, where media such as radio, [[newspaper|the press]], [[new media]], and television have started to make their presences felt since the early 1990s.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Spitulnik, Deborah |title=Anthropology and Mass Media|journal=Annual Review of Anthropology|volume=22|page=293|doi=10.1146/annurev.an.22.100193.001453|url=http://www.philbu.net/media-anthropology/Spitulnik_MediaAnthro.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.philbu.net/media-anthropology/Spitulnik_MediaAnthro.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|year=1993}}</ref>

==== Music ====
{{main|Ethnomusicology}}
Ethnomusicology is an academic field encompassing various approaches to the study of music (broadly defined), that emphasize its cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dimensions or contexts instead of or in addition to its isolated sound component or any particular repertoire.

Ethnomusicology can be used in a wide variety of fields, such as teaching, politics, cultural anthropology etc. While the origins of ethnomusicology date back to the 18th and 19th centuries, it was formally termed "ethnomusicology" by Dutch scholar [[Jaap Kunst]] {{circa|1950}}. Later, the influence of study in this area spawned the creation of the periodical ''[[Ethnomusicology (academic journal)|Ethnomusicology]]'' and the [[Society for Ethnomusicology|Society of Ethnomusicology]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Ethnomusicology|url=https://www.britannica.com/science/ethnomusicology|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en|access-date=2020-05-09|archive-date=18 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200918122551/https://www.britannica.com/science/ethnomusicology|url-status=live}}</ref>

==== Visual ====
{{main|Visual anthropology}}
Visual anthropology is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, [[new media]]. While the term is sometimes used interchangeably with [[ethnographic film]], visual anthropology also encompasses the anthropological study of visual representation, including areas such as performance, museums, art, and the production and [[reception theory|reception]] of [[anthropology of media|mass media]]. Visual representations from all cultures, such as sandpaintings, tattoos, sculptures and reliefs, cave paintings, scrimshaw, jewelry, hieroglyphs, paintings, and photographs are included in the focus of visual anthropology.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Chio |first=Jenny |date=2021-07-26 |title=Visual anthropology |url=https://www.anthroencyclopedia.com/entry/visual-anthropology |journal=Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology |doi=10.29164/21visual |language=en}}</ref>

=== Economic, political economic, applied and development ===
{{Economic anthropology}}

==== Economic ====
{{main|Economic anthropology}}
Economic anthropology attempts to explain human economic behavior in its widest historic, geographic and cultural scope. It has a complex relationship with the discipline of economics, of which it is highly critical. Its origins as a sub-field of anthropology begin with the Polish-British founder of anthropology, [[Bronisław Malinowski]], and his French compatriot, [[Marcel Mauss]], on the nature of gift-giving exchange (or [[Reciprocity (cultural anthropology)|reciprocity]]) as an alternative to market exchange. Economic Anthropology remains, for the most part, focused upon exchange. The school of thought derived from Marx and known as Political Economy focuses on production, in contrast.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hann|first=Chris|title=Economic Anthropology|year=2011|publisher=Polity Press|location=Cambridge|pages=55–71|author2=Hart, Keith |isbn=978-0-7456-4482-0}}</ref> Economic anthropologists have abandoned the primitivist niche they were relegated to by economists, and have now turned to examine corporations, banks, and the [[global financial system]] from an anthropological perspective.<ref>{{cite book|last=Heffernan|first=Timothy|title=Economic Anthropology in View of the Global Financial Crisis, in The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences|year=2022|publisher=Springer Nature|location=Singapore|pages=457–481|doi=10.1007/978-981-16-7255-2_14}}</ref>

====Political economy====
{{main|Political economy in anthropology}}
Political economy in anthropology is the application of the theories and methods of [[historical materialism]] to the traditional concerns of anthropology, including, but not limited to, non-capitalist societies. Political economy introduced questions of history and colonialism to ahistorical anthropological theories of social structure and culture. Three main areas of interest rapidly developed. The first of these areas was concerned with the "pre-capitalist" societies that were subject to evolutionary "tribal" stereotypes. Sahlin's work on hunter-gatherers as the "original affluent society" did much to dissipate that image. The second area was concerned with the vast majority of the world's population at the time, the peasantry, many of whom were involved in complex revolutionary wars such as in Vietnam. The third area was on colonialism, imperialism, and the creation of the capitalist [[world-system]].<ref name="Roseberry 1988 161–85">{{cite journal|last=Roseberry|first=William|title=Political Economy|journal=Annual Review of Anthropology|year=1988|volume=17|pages=161–185|doi=10.1146/annurev.an.17.100188.001113}}</ref> More recently, these political economists have more directly addressed issues of industrial (and post-industrial) capitalism around the world.

==== Applied ====
{{main|Applied anthropology}}
Applied anthropology refers to the application of the method and theory of anthropology to the analysis and solution of practical problems. It is a "complex of related, research-based, instrumental methods which produce change or stability in specific cultural systems through the provision of data, initiation of direct action, and/or the formulation of policy".<ref>{{cite book|last=Kedia, Satish|first=and Willigen J. Van|title=Applied Anthropology: Domains of Application|isbn=978-0-275-97841-9|year=2005|publisher=Praeger|location=Westport, Conn|pages=16, 150}}</ref> Applied anthropology is the practical side of anthropological research; it includes researcher involvement and activism within the participating community. It is closely related to [[development anthropology]] (distinct from the more critical [[anthropology of development]]).

====Development====
{{main|anthropology of development}}
Anthropology of development tends to view development from a ''critical'' perspective. The kind of issues addressed and implications for the approach involve pondering why, if a key development goal is to alleviate poverty, is poverty increasing? Why is there such a gap between plans and outcomes? Why are those working in development so willing to disregard history and the lessons it might offer? Why is development so externally driven rather than having an internal basis? In short, why does so much planned development fail?

===Kinship, feminism, gender and sexuality===
{{Anthropology of kinship}}

==== Kinship ====
{{main|Kinship}}
''Kinship'' can refer both to ''the study of'' the patterns of social relationships in one or more human cultures, or it can refer to ''the patterns of social relationships'' themselves. Over its history, anthropology has developed a number of related concepts and terms, such as "[[kinship|descent]]", "[[descent group]]s", "[[lineage (anthropology)|lineages]]", "[[affinity (law)|affines]]", "[[cognatic kinship|cognates]]", and even "[[fictive kinship]]". Broadly, kinship patterns may be considered to include people related both by descent (one's social relations during development), and also relatives by marriage. Within kinship you have two different families. People have their biological families and it is the people they share DNA with. This is called [[consanguinity]] or "blood ties".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://content.inflibnet.ac.in/data-server/eacharya-documents/5717528c8ae36ce69422587d_INFIEP_304/66/ET/304-66-ET-V1-S1__file1.pdf |title=Types of Kinship- Consanguineal and Affinal |work=inflibnet.ac.in |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190214160656/http://content.inflibnet.ac.in/data-server/eacharya-documents/5717528c8ae36ce69422587d_INFIEP_304/66/ET/304-66-ET-V1-S1__file1.pdf |access-date=28 November 2023|archive-date=14 February 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{better source needed|date=November 2023}} People can also have a chosen family in which they chose who they want to be a part of their family. In some cases, people are closer with their chosen family more than with their biological families.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Pountney, Laura|title=Introducing anthropology|others=Maric, Tomislav|year= 2015|isbn=978-0-7456-9977-6|location=Cambridge, UK|oclc=909318382 |publisher=Polity Press}}</ref>

==== Feminist ====
{{main|Feminist anthropology}}
Feminist anthropology is a four field approach to anthropology ([[archaeology|archeological]], [[biological anthropology|biological]], [[cultural anthropology|cultural]], [[linguistic anthropology|linguistic]]) that seeks to reduce male bias in research findings, anthropological hiring practices, and the scholarly production of knowledge. Anthropology engages often with feminists from non-Western traditions, whose perspectives and experiences can differ from those of white feminists of Europe, America, and elsewhere. From the perspective of the [[Western world]], historically such 'peripheral' perspectives have been ignored, observed only from an outsider perspective, and regarded as less-valid or less-important than knowledge from the Western world.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Researching gender-based violence: embodied and intersectional approaches |date=2022 |publisher=New York University Press |isbn=978-1-4798-1221-9 |editor-last=Petillo |editor-first=April D. J. |location=New York |editor-last2=Hlavka |editor-first2=Heather R.}}</ref> Exploring and addressing that double bias against women from marginalized racial or ethnic groups is of particular interest in [[intersectional]] feminist anthropology.

Feminist anthropologists have stated that their publications have contributed to anthropology, along the way correcting against the systemic biases beginning with the "patriarchal origins of anthropology (and (academia)" and note that from 1891 to 1930 doctorates in anthropology went to males more than 85%, more than 81% were under 35, and only 7.2% to anyone over 40 years old, thus reflecting an age gap in the pursuit of anthropology by [[first-wave feminism|first-wave feminists]] until later in life.<ref>Cattell, Maria and Marjorie M. Schweitzer, editors. ''Women in Anthropology: Autobiographical Narratives and Social History.'' (Left Coast Press: Walnut Creek), pp. 15–40. {{ISBN|1-59874-083-0}}</ref> This correction of systemic bias may include mainstream [[feminist theory]], [[history]], [[linguistics]], [[archaeology]], and anthropology. Feminist anthropologists are often concerned with the construction of [[gender]] across societies. Gender constructs are of particular interest when studying [[sexism]].{{cn|date=September 2022}}

According to [[St. Clair Drake]], [[Vera Mae Green]] was, until "[w]ell into the 1960s", the only [[African-American|African American]] female [[anthropologist]] who was also a [[Caribbeanist]]. She studied ethnic and family relations in the [[Caribbean]] as well as the United States, and thereby tried to improve the way black life, experiences, and culture were studied.<ref>{{Cite journal | doi=10.1525/aa.1982.84.3.02a00080|title = Vera Mae Green, 1928–1982| journal=American Anthropologist| volume=84| issue=3| pages=633–635|date = September 1982|last1 = Cole|first1 = Johnnetta B.| doi-access=}}</ref> However, Zora Neale Hurston, although often primarily considered to be a literary author, was trained in anthropology by Franz Boas, and published ''Tell my Horse'' about her "anthropological observations" of voodoo in the Caribbean (1938).<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.2307/2901255|jstor=2901255 |title=Possessing the Self: Caribbean Identities in Zora Neale Hurston's Tell My Horse |last1=Trefzer |first1=Annette |journal=African American Review |date=28 November 2023 |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=299–312 }}</ref>

Feminist anthropology is inclusive of the anthropology of birth<ref>{{Cite book |doi=10.1007/0-387-29905-X_26 | chapter=Birth | title=Encyclopedia of Medical Anthropology | date=2004 | last1=Sargent | first1=Carolyn | pages=224–230 | isbn=978-0-306-47754-6 }}</ref> as a specialization, which is the anthropological study of [[pregnancy]] and [[childbirth]] within cultures and societies.

===Medical, nutritional, psychological, cognitive and transpersonal===
{{Medical anthropology}}

==== Medical ====
{{main|Medical anthropology}}

Medical anthropology is an interdisciplinary field which studies "human health and disease, health care systems, and biocultural adaptation".<ref name=McElroy1996>{{Cite book |year=1996 |author=McElroy, A |chapter=Medical Anthropology |editor1=D. Levinson |editor2=M. Ember |title=Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology |chapter-url=http://www.univie.ac.at/ethnomedicine/PDF/Medical%20Anthropologie.pdf |access-date=2 June 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121001162708/http://www.univie.ac.at/ethnomedicine/PDF/Medical%20Anthropologie.pdf |archive-date=1 October 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref> It is believed that William Caudell was the first to discover the field of medical anthropology. Currently, research in medical anthropology is one of the main growth areas in the field of anthropology as a whole. It focuses on the following six basic fields:<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Campbell|first=Dave|date=24 October 2016|title=Anthropology's Contribution to Public Health Policy Development|journal=McGill Journal of Medicine|volume=13|issue=1|page=76|issn=1201-026X|pmc=3277334|pmid=22363184}}</ref>

* The development of systems of medical knowledge and medical care
* The patient-physician relationship
* The integration of alternative medical systems in culturally diverse environments
* The interaction of social, environmental and biological factors which influence health and illness both in the individual and the community as a whole
* The critical analysis of interaction between psychiatric services and migrant populations ("critical ethnopsychiatry": Beneduce 2004, 2007)
* The impact of biomedicine and biomedical technologies in non-Western settings

Other subjects that have become central to medical anthropology worldwide are violence and social suffering (Farmer, 1999, 2003; Beneduce, 2010) as well as other issues that involve physical and psychological harm and suffering that are not a result of illness. On the other hand, there are fields that intersect with medical anthropology in terms of research methodology and theoretical production, such as ''cultural psychiatry'' and ''transcultural psychiatry'' or ''ethnopsychiatry''.

==== Nutritional ====
{{main|Nutritional anthropology}}

Nutritional anthropology is a synthetic concept that deals with the interplay between [[economic systems]], [[nutrition|nutritional status]] and [[food security]], and how changes in the former affect the latter. If economic and environmental changes in a community affect access to food, food security, and dietary health, then this interplay between culture and biology is in turn connected to broader historical and [[economic history|economic trends]] associated with globalization. Nutritional status affects overall health status, work performance potential, and the overall potential for economic development (either in terms of human development or traditional western models) for any given group of people.

==== Psychological ====
{{main|Psychological anthropology}}
Psychological anthropology is an interdisciplinary subfield of anthropology that studies the interaction of [[cultural anthropology|cultural]] and [[psychology|mental processes]]. This subfield tends to focus on ways in which humans' development and [[enculturation]] within a particular cultural group&nbsp;– with its own history, language, practices, and conceptual categories&nbsp;– shape processes of human [[cognition]], [[emotion]], [[perception]], [[motivation]], and [[mental health]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=LeVine, R. A., Norman, K.|date=2001|title=The infant's acquisition of culture: Early attachment reexamined in anthropological perspective|journal=Publications – Society for Psychological Anthropology|volume=12|pages=83–104}}</ref> It also examines how the understanding of cognition, emotion, motivation, and similar psychological processes inform or constrain our models of cultural and social processes.<ref name="D'Andrade">{{cite book | last=D'Andrade | first=R. | chapter=The Sad Story of Anthropology: 1950–1999 | editor-first=E.L. | editor-last=Cerroni-Long | title=Anthropological Theory in North America | isbn=978-0-89789-685-6 | location=Westport | publisher=Berin & Garvey | year=1999 | chapter-url-access=registration | chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/anthropologicalt0000unse | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/anthropologicalt0000unse }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | editor = Schwartz, T. |editor2=G.M. White |display-editors=etal | date = 1992 | title = New Directions in Psychological Anthropology | location = Cambridge, UK | publisher = Cambridge University Press}}</ref>

==== Cognitive ====
{{main|Cognitive anthropology}}
Cognitive anthropology seeks to explain patterns of shared knowledge, cultural [[innovation]], and transmission over time and space using the methods and [[theories]] of the [[cognitive sciences]] (especially [[experimental psychology]] and [[evolutionary biology]]) often through close collaboration with historians, ethnographers, archaeologists, linguists, musicologists and other specialists engaged in the description and [[interpretation (logic)|interpretation]] of cultural forms. Cognitive anthropology is concerned with what people from different groups know and how that implicit knowledge changes the way people perceive and relate to the world around them.<ref name="D'Andrade"/>

==== Transpersonal ====
{{main|Transpersonal anthropology}}
Transpersonal anthropology studies the relationship between [[altered states of consciousness]] and culture. As with [[transpersonal psychology]], the field is much concerned with altered states of consciousness (ASC) and [[transpersonal experience]]. However, the field differs from mainstream transpersonal psychology in taking more cognizance of cross-cultural issues – for instance, the roles of [[Mythology|myth]], [[ritual]], [[diet (nutrition)|diet]], and [[Literature|text]] in evoking and interpreting extraordinary experiences.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Schroll, M. A., & Schwartz, S. A.|date=2005|title=Whither Psi and Anthropology? An Incomplete History of SAC's Origins, Its Relationship with Transpersonal Psychology and the Untold Stories of Castaneda's Controversy|journal=Anthropology of Consciousness|volume=16|pages=6–24|doi=10.1525/ac.2005.16.1.6}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | last1=Young | first1=David E. | first2=J.G. | last2=Goulet | date=1994 | title=Being Changed by Cross-cultural Encounters: The Anthropology of Extraordinary Experiences | publisher=Peterborough: Broadview Press}}</ref>

===Political and legal===
{{Political anthropology}}

==== Political ====
{{main|Political anthropology}}
Political anthropology concerns the structure of [[Form of government|political systems]], looked at from the basis of the structure of societies. Political anthropology developed as a discipline concerned primarily with politics in stateless societies, a new development started from the 1960s, and is still unfolding: anthropologists started increasingly to study more "complex" social settings in which the presence of states, bureaucracies and markets entered both ethnographic accounts and analysis of local phenomena. The turn towards complex societies meant that political themes were taken up at two main levels. Firstly, anthropologists continued to study [[political organization]] and political phenomena that lay outside the state-regulated sphere (as in patron-client relations or tribal political organization). Secondly, anthropologists slowly started to develop a disciplinary concern with states and their institutions (and on the relationship between formal and informal political institutions). An anthropology of the state developed, and it is a most thriving field today. Geertz's comparative work on "Negara", the Balinese state, is an early, famous example.

====Legal====
{{main|Legal anthropology}}
Legal anthropology or anthropology of law specializes in "the cross-cultural study of social ordering".<ref>{{cite book | author = Greenhouse, Carol J. | title = Praying for Justice: Faith, Order, and Community in an American Town |isbn=978-0-8014-1971-3| location = Ithaca | publisher = Cornell UP | year = 1986 | page = 28}}</ref> Earlier legal anthropological research often focused more narrowly on conflict management, crime, sanctions, or formal regulation. More recent applications include issues such as [[human rights]], [[legal pluralism]],<ref>{{cite book|title=Political theologies: public religions in a post-secular world|year=2006|publisher=Fordham University Press|location=New York|editor1=Hent de Vries |editor2=Lawrence E. Sullivan }}</ref> and political uprisings.

====Public====
{{main|Public anthropology}}
Public anthropology was created by Robert Borofsky, a professor at Hawaii Pacific University, to "demonstrate the ability of anthropology and anthropologists to effectively address problems beyond the discipline – illuminating larger social issues of our times as well as encouraging broad, public conversations about them with the explicit goal of fostering social change".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.publicanthropology.org/|title=Center for a Public Anthropology|access-date=8 May 2020|archive-date=23 May 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200523175028/https://www.publicanthropology.org/|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Nature, science, and technology ===
{{Cyber anthropology}}

====Cyborg====
{{main|Cyborg anthropology}}
Cyborg anthropology originated as a sub-focus group within the [[American Anthropological Association]]'s annual meeting in 1993. The sub-group was very closely related to [[science and technology studies|STS]] and the [[Society for the Social Studies of Science]].<ref>Dumit, Joseph. Davis-Floyd, Robbie (2001). "Cyborg Anthropology". in ''Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women''. Routledge. {{ISBN|0-415-92092-2}}.</ref> [[Donna Haraway]]'s 1985 ''[[Cyborg Manifesto]]'' could be considered the founding document of cyborg anthropology by first exploring the philosophical and sociological ramifications of the term. Cyborg anthropology studies humankind and its relations with the technological systems it has built, specifically modern technological systems that have reflexively shaped notions of what it means to be human beings.{{cn|date=September 2022}}

==== Digital ====
{{main|Digital anthropology}}
Digital anthropology is the study of the relationship between humans and digital-era technology and extends to various areas where anthropology and [[technology]] intersect. It is sometimes grouped with [[cultural anthropology|sociocultural anthropology]], and sometimes considered part of [[material culture]]. The field is new, and thus has a variety of names with a variety of emphases. These include techno-anthropology,<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.studyguide.aau.dk/programmes/postgraduate/53203/ | title=Techno-Anthropology course guide | publisher=Aalborg University | access-date=14 March 2013 | archive-date=2 April 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130402105317/http://www.studyguide.aau.dk/programmes/postgraduate/53203/ | url-status=live }}</ref> digital ethnography, cyberanthropology,<ref>{{cite book | url=http://xirdalium.net/category/anthropology/cyberanthropology/ | title=Cyberanthropology | publisher=Peter Hammer Verlag Gmbh | year= 2011 | access-date=14 March 2013 | author=Knorr, Alexander | isbn=978-3-7795-0359-0 | archive-date=8 May 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130508145701/http://xirdalium.net/category/anthropology/cyberanthropology/ | url-status=live }}</ref> and virtual anthropology.<ref>{{cite book | title=Virtual Anthropology: A guide to a new interdisciplinary field | publisher=Springer |author1=Weber, Gerhard |author2=Bookstein, Fred | year=2011 | isbn=978-3-211-48647-4}}</ref>

==== Ecological ====
{{main|Ecological anthropology}}
Ecological anthropology is defined as the "study of [[cultural adaptation]]s to environments".<ref name="Kottak">{{cite book|last=Kottak|first=Conrad Phillip|title=Anthropology : appreciating human diversity|year=2010|publisher=McGraw-Hill|location=New York|isbn=978-0-07-811699-5|pages=579–584|edition=14th}}</ref> The sub-field is also defined as, "the study of relationships between a population of humans and their [[biophysical environment]]".<ref name="Townsend">{{cite book|last=Townsend|first=Patricia K.|title=Environmental anthropology : from pigs to policies|year=2009|publisher=Waveland Press|location=Prospect Heights, Ill.|isbn=978-1-57766-581-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/environmentalant0000town/page/104 104]|edition=2nd|url=https://archive.org/details/environmentalant0000town/page/104}}</ref> The focus of its research concerns "how cultural [[beliefs]] and practices helped human populations adapt to their environments, and how their environments change across space and time.<ref name="Kottak CP 1999">{{cite journal|last1=Kottak|first1=Conrad P.|jstor=683339|title=The New Ecological Anthropology|journal=American Anthropologist|volume=101|issue=1|pages=23–35|year=1999|doi=10.1525/aa.1999.101.1.23|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227632647|hdl=2027.42/66329|hdl-access=free|access-date=10 November 2016|archive-date=29 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170929001011/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227632647|url-status=live}}</ref> The contemporary perspective of environmental anthropology, and arguably at least the backdrop, if not the focus of most of the ethnographies and cultural fieldworks of today, is [[political ecology]]. Many characterize this new perspective as more informed with culture, politics and power, globalization, localized issues, century anthropology and more.<ref name="Pyke G 1984">{{cite journal|last1=Pyke|first1=G H|title=Optimal Foraging Theory: A Critical Review|journal=Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics|volume=15|page=523|year=1984|issue=1 |doi=10.1146/annurev.es.15.110184.002515|bibcode=1984AnRES..15..523P |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/243636746|access-date=10 November 2016|archive-date=3 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170403005941/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/243636746|url-status=live}}</ref> The focus and data interpretation is often used for arguments for/against or creation of policy, and to prevent corporate exploitation and damage of land. Often, the observer has become an active part of the struggle either directly (organizing, participation) or indirectly (articles, documentaries, books, ethnographies). Such is the case with environmental justice advocate Melissa Checker and her relationship with the people of Hyde Park.<ref name="Checker M 2005">{{cite book|author=Melissa Checker|title=Polluted promises: environmental racism and the search for justice in a southern town|url=https://archive.org/details/pollutedpromises0000chec|url-access=registration|year=2005|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-0-8147-1657-1}}</ref>

==== Environment ====
Social sciences, like anthropology, can provide interdisciplinary approaches to the environment. Professor Kay Milton, Director of the Anthropology research network in the School of History and Anthropology,<ref>{{cite web|title=Milton, Kay 1951|url=http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n93016959/|url-status=live|access-date=2 November 2021|website=OCLC WorldCat Identities|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211102211940/http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n93016959/ |archive-date=2 November 2021 }}</ref> describes anthropology as distinctive, with its most distinguishing feature being its interest in non-industrial indigenous and traditional societies. Anthropological theory is distinct because of the consistent presence of the concept of culture; not an exclusive topic but a central position in the study and a deep concern with the human condition. Milton describes three trends that are causing a fundamental shift in what characterizes anthropology: dissatisfaction with the cultural relativist perspective, reaction against cartesian dualisms which obstructs progress in theory (nature culture divide), and finally an increased attention to globalization (transcending the barriers or time/space).

Environmental discourse appears to be characterized by a high degree of globalization. (The troubling problem is borrowing non-indigenous practices and creating standards, concepts, philosophies and practices in western countries.) Anthropology and environmental discourse now have become a distinct position in anthropology as a discipline. Knowledge about diversities in human culture can be important in addressing environmental problems - anthropology is now a study of human ecology. Human activity is the most important agent in creating environmental change, a study commonly found in human ecology which can claim a central place in how environmental problems are examined and addressed. Other ways anthropology contributes to environmental discourse is by being theorists and analysts, or by refinement of definitions to become more neutral/universal, etc. In exploring environmentalism - the term typically refers to a concern that the environment should be protected, particularly from the harmful effects of human activities. Environmentalism itself can be expressed in many ways. Anthropologists can open the doors of environmentalism by looking beyond industrial society, understanding the opposition between industrial and non-industrial relationships, knowing what ecosystem people and biosphere people are and are affected by, dependent and independent variables, "primitive" ecological wisdom, diverse environments, resource management, diverse cultural traditions, and knowing that environmentalism is a part of culture.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Milton|first=Kay|title=Environmentalism and Cultural Theory; Exploring the Role of Anthropology in Environmental Discourse.|publisher=Routledge Press|year=1996|location=New York.}}</ref>

===Historical===
{{main|Ethnohistory}} {{See also|Historical anthropology}}
Ethnohistory is the study of ethnographic cultures and [[Indigenous peoples|indigenous]] customs by examining [[History|historical records]]. It is also the study of the history of various [[ethnic group]]s that may or may not exist today. Ethnohistory uses both historical and ethnographic data as its foundation. Its historical methods and materials go beyond the standard use of documents and manuscripts. Practitioners recognize the utility of such source material as maps, music, paintings, photography, [[folklore]], oral tradition, site exploration, archaeological materials, museum collections, enduring customs, language, and place names.<ref name="Axtell1979">{{cite journal | last1 = Axtell | first1 = J. | year = 1979 | title = Ethnohistory: An Historian's Viewpoint | journal = Ethnohistory | volume = 26 | issue = 1| pages = 3–4 | doi = 10.2307/481465 | jstor = 481465 }}</ref>

=== Religion ===
{{Anthropology of religion}}
{{main|Anthropology of religion}}
The anthropology of religion involves the study of religious institutions in relation to other social institutions, and the comparison of religious beliefs and practices across cultures. Modern anthropology assumes that there is complete continuity between [[magical thinking]] and religion,<ref name="Cassirer1944">[[Ernst Cassirer|Cassirer, Ernst]] (1944) [https://books.google.com/books?id=pe9fWSv-iLsC&pg=PA102 ''An Essay On Man''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150319070726/http://books.google.com/books?id=pe9fWSv-iLsC&pg=PA102 |date=19 March 2015 }}, pt.II, ch.7 ''Myth and Religion'', pp.&nbsp;122–123.</ref>{{refn|group=n|"It seems to be one of the postulates of modern anthropology that there is complete continuity between magic and religion. [note 35: See, for instance, RR Marett, Faith, Hope, and Charity in Primitive Religion, the Gifford Lectures (Macmillan, 1932), Lecture II, pp. 21 ff.]&nbsp;... We have no empirical evidence at all that there ever was an age of magic that has been followed and superseded by an age of religion."<ref name="Cassirer1944"/>}} and that every religion is a cultural product, created by the human [[community]] that worships it.<ref name="Guthrie2000p225">Guthrie (2000) ''Guide to the Study of Religion''. Bloomsbury Academic. [https://books.google.com/books?id=wlNJQoZlGC4C&pg=PA225 pp.&nbsp;225–226] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151025182211/https://books.google.com/books?id=wlNJQoZlGC4C&pg=PA225 |date=25 October 2015 }}. {{ISBN|0-304-70176-9}}.</ref>

=== Urban ===
{{main|Urban anthropology}}
Urban anthropology is concerned with issues of [[urbanization]], poverty, and [[neoliberalism]]. [[Ulf Hannerz]] quotes a 1960s remark that traditional anthropologists were "a notoriously [[agoraphobic]] lot, anti-urban by definition". Various social processes in the [[Western World]] as well as in the "[[Third World]]" (the latter being the habitual focus of attention of anthropologists) brought the attention of "[[#Focus on the "other cultures"|specialists in 'other cultures']]" closer to their homes.<ref name=Hannerz/> There are two main approaches to urban anthropology: examining the types of cities or examining the social issues within the cities. These two methods are overlapping and dependent of each other. By defining different types of cities, one would use social factors as well as economic and political factors to categorize the cities. By directly looking at the different social issues, one would also be studying how they affect the dynamic of the city.<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1177/1466138110370412 |jstor=24047982|title=Chinese consumers: The Romantic reappraisal|journal=Ethnography|volume=11|issue=3|pages=331–357|year=2010|last1=Griffiths|first1=M. B.|last2=Chapman|first2=M.|last3=Christiansen|first3=F.|s2cid=144152261|url=https://www.academia.edu/7368130}}</ref>