Because of its attention to variation and complexity, anthropology is related to almost every academic discipline. People trained in anthropology contribute to a range of other academic perspectives. In the U.S., most economics departments mainly study economic patterns in developed market economies. By contrast, economic anthropologists, although interested in such conventional topics as production, consumption, and exchange, also examine economic thought in non-market societies, ancient civilizations, and societies in transition from one type of economy to another.
Political science studies how public and private power is obtained, used, and contested.
Political anthropologists are studying important contemporary issues such as ethnic violence and state disintegration in Ireland and the former Soviet Union, and the way that global phenomena such as Christianity, nationalism, and democracy vary in meaning and function across cultures and historical periods. Sociologists study the organization of people into groups, from smaller ones like the family to larger ones like the corporation. Cultural anthropologists also study social organization, but place greater emphasis on extensive fieldwork and the method of participant-observation. Anthropologists almost always work directly with the people they study, speaking their native language, and often living in their homes. Fieldwork is frequently, but not always, done in a culture different from that of the anthropologist.