Truth emerges through engagement. If social institutions don t value it they will cease to support anthropology as a separate discipline, won t support any study. The discipline is threatened if it is not useful to the society that supports it. Tells us what facts will be relevant. A model is a simplification, but helps guide what to be looking at.
Theory defines data, therefore method.
When applied anthropologist engages a problem, it requires conceptual framing. Application opens new areas of inquiry that theorists would miss. It is true anthropology because we bring together anthropological theory and method to solve real problems that purely academic existing theories may not be able to address adequately. Most applied work is done in interdisciplinary teams. Borrowed theory is not necessarily bad anthropology transforms theory from other disciplines through its own lens, i.e., culture.