Cognitive anthropogists emphases our need to organize a frightening chaotic reality into neatly defined and interrelated mental categories. Social determinists stress the need for social and moral order. Cultural materialists are concerned with basic survival problems and the need for acquiring food and other subsistence resources through the application of technology to the environment. Different theoretical orientations produce different emphases on subject matter. Anthropologists interested in culture as an intellectural order frequently focus on ideology and belief systems, which are most often embedded in the subject area of religion.
Social anthropologists concentrate on politics, social structure, and economic organization.
Cultural materialists are most concerned subsistence technology and environmental conditions and have a secondary interest in the exchange of products among social units. Each subfield has created its own set of analytical terms for describing, classifying, and explaining cultural institutions within its own area of concern and expertise. You may want to return to this map as you proceed through the course in order to orient your understanding and progress through the modules in terms of a general overview.