Anthropos: Anthropos, 59.1964

Anthropos, 59.1964

Bibliographic Data

Journal

Structure Type:: Journal

Works URN (URL):: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

Persistent identifier:: BV043334262

Title:: Anthropos

Sub Title:: internationale Zeitschrift für Völker- u. Sprachenkunde

Place of Publication:: Fribourg

Publisher:: Ed. St. Paul

Year of Publication:: 1906

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

Domain:: Social and cultural anthropology > General overview

Journal Volume

Structure Type:: Journal Volume

Works URN (URL):: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711746

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711746

Persistent identifier:: 1510143432746

Title:: Anthropos, 59.1964

Year of Publication:: 1964

Call Number:: LA 1118

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

Journal Issue

Structure Type:: Journal Issue

Title:: Bd. 59, 1964, Heft 1-2

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

Bibliography

Structure Type:: Bibliography

Title:: Bibliographia

Collection:: Journals and Newspapers > Journals of Ethnology

Bibliographia of Bohannan Paul. Social Anthropology, x-421 pp. in 8°. With 18 fig. and 16 tab' New York 1963. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Price ; $ 6.00. Social Anthropology abounds in introductory statements. There have also been attempts to write “text books” which would serve to give the subject some semblance of maturity together with a central core of orthodoxy. Alas ! The history of the subject i- s fraught with radically different postures begotten of quite dissimilar aims and purposes and the teacher still has to select and recommend for a first year student three or four these introductions - and then caution the tyro with introductory lectures or classes of bi s own. Moreover, as the subject advances few of these introductions do not become outdated- It is inherent in a developing subject. But with his "Social Anthropology” Paul BohaNNaN renders a signal service. For here is a book to which one may lecture. If it is strewn faults which only become visible when viewed in one or other particular perspective, it lb still a book from which both teacher and student may take a sound departure eitb ef to criticize or to build on. Two main points inform the book. First, Bohannan makes it abundantly clear that he regards Social Anthropology as a branch of Anthropology. A traditionally A® erl canist point of view, when so many are being lured by the siren notes of sociology, area studies and psychology, when the tendentious is so much more in evidence than balanced, and when the latter is mistaken for eclecticism, it is good to have someone com 6 out and proclaim the unity of Anthropology as such. Second, Bohannan is concerned t° emphasize that so soon as Social Anthropology comes to a generally acceptable conchas! 011 ’ this conclusion becomes not so much a part of orthodox teaching as of general cornm 011 sense. So that, implicitly, it becomes impossible to write a textbook of Social Anthrop 0 ^ ogy as such. “Anthropology”, writes Bohannan (p. 398), “in its major application b ab been and always will be a device through which it is possible for men to examine thexn se ^ ves by examining others, and to explain their own societies and cultures on a par 'W 1 those of other people so that ultimately the modes of cultural, social humanity can b e understood as natural phenomena”. The first three chapters, making up Part 1 of the book, are probably the best- emphasizing both the essential unity of Anthropology as well as the internal specialize tions, they explain clearly and concisely the quite different kinds of abstractions f r0ll j the living reality that make each branch of the subject a quite separate intellect 11 discipline. But this of course is the rub. Is a "subject” a field or intellectual mode ? And a a “scientist” Bohannan plumps for field. If Bohannan tends to overstress the fact that “man is a mammal”, his purpose doing so is simply, I think, to stress the kind of abstraction that is being made in relab 0 ^ to particular clusters of problems and, thereby, to insist on the unity of Anthropology such. It is not a biological reductionism. Thus though Part 2 (6 chapters) is entitled 1 biological network” it deals with problems of marriage, kinship and descent without taking the cultural as proceeding from the biological. Rather are biological facts the com 111 on

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