Antropologi budaya
Other ethnologists argued that different groups had the capability of creating similar beliefs and practices independently. Some of those who advocated "independent invention", like [[Lewis Henry Morgan]], additionally supposed that similarities meant that different groups had passed through the same stages of [[cultural evolution]] (See also [[classical social evolutionism]]). Morgan, in particular, acknowledged that certain forms of society and culture could not possibly have arisen before others. For example, industrial farming could not have been invented before simple farming, and metallurgy could not have developed without previous non-smelting processes involving metals (such as simple ground collection or mining). Morgan, like other 19th century social evolutionists, believed there was a more or less orderly progression from the primitive to the civilized.
20th-century anthropologists largely reject the notion that all human societies must pass through the same stages in the same order, on the grounds that such a notion does not fit the empirical facts. Some 20th-century [[ethnologists]], like [[Julian Steward]], have instead argued that such similarities reflected similar adaptations to similar environments (see [[cultural evolution]]).
Others, such as [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]] (who was influenced both by American cultural anthropology and by French [[Émile Durkheim Durkheimian]] [[sociology]]), have argued that apparently similar patterns of development reflect fundamental similarities in the structure of human thought (see [[structuralism]]). By the mid-20th century, the number of examples of people skipping stages, such as going from hunter-gatherers to post-industrial service occupations in one generation, were so numerous that 19th-century evolutionism was effectively disproved.
In the 20th century, most cultural (and social) anthropologists turned to the crafting of [[ethnography ethnographies]]. An ethnography is a piece of writing about a people, at a particular place and time. Typically, the anthropologist lives among people in another society for a considerable period of time, simultaneously [[participant observation participating in and observing]] the social and cultural life of the group.
Numerous other ethnographic techniques have resulted in ethnographic writing or details being preserved, as cultural anthropologists also curate materials, spend long hours in libraries, churches and schools poring over records, investigate graveyards, and decipher ancient scripts. A typical ethnography will also include information about physical geography, climate and habitat. It is meant to be a holistic piece of writing about the people in question, and today often includes the longest possible timeline of past events that the ethnographer can obtain through primary and secondary research.
[[Bronisaw Malinowski]] (who conducted [[fieldwork]] in the [[Trobriand Islands]] and taught in England) developed this method, and [[Franz Boas]] (who conducted fieldwork in [[Baffin Island]] and taught in the [[United States]]) promoted it. Boas's students drew on his conception of culture and [[cultural relativism]] to develop cultural anthropology in the United States. Simultaneously, Malinowski and [[Alfred Radcliffe-Brown A.R. Radcliffe Brown]] s students were developing [[social anthropology]] in the United Kingdom. Whereas cultural anthropology focused on symbols and values, social anthropology focused on social groups and institutions. Today socio-cultural anthropologists attend to all these elements.
Although 19th-century ethnologists saw "diffusion" and "independent invention" as mutually exclusive and competing theories, most ethnographers quickly reached a consensus that both processes occur, and that both can plausibly account for cross-cultural similarities. But these ethnographers also pointed out the superficiality of many such similarities. They noted that even traits that spread through diffusion often were given different meanings and function from one society to another.
Accordingly, these anthropologists showed less interest in comparing cultures, generalizing about human nature, or discovering universal laws of cultural development, than in understanding particular cultures in those cultures' own terms. Such ethnographers and their students promoted the idea of "[[cultural relativism]]", the view that one can only understand another person's beliefs and behaviors in the context of the culture in which he or she lived or lives.
In the early 20th century, socio-cultural anthropology developed in different forms in [[Europe]] and in the United States. European "social anthropologists" focused on observed social behaviors and on "social structure", that is, on [[interpersonal relationship relationships]] among social [[role]]s (for example, husband and wife, or parent and child) and social [[institution]]s (for example, [[anthropology of religion religion]], [[economic anthropology economy]], and [[political anthropology politics]]).
American "cultural anthropologists" focused on the ways people expressed their view of themselves and their world, especially in [[symbol]]ic forms, such as [[art]] and [[Mythology myths]]. These two approaches frequently converged and generally complemented one another. For example, [[kinship]] and [[leadership]] function both as symbolic systems and as social institutions. Today almost all socio-cultural anthropologists refer to the work of both sets of predecessors, and have an equal interest in what people do and in what people say.
Ethnography dominates socio-cultural anthropology. Nevertheless, many contemporary socio-cultural anthropologists have rejected earlier models of ethnography as treating local cultures as bounded and isolated. These anthropologists continue to concern themselves with the distinct ways people in different locales experience and understand their [[personal life lives]], but they often argue that one cannot understand these particular ways of life solely from a local perspective; they instead combine a focus on the local with an effort to grasp larger political, economic, and cultural frameworks that impact local lived realities. Notable proponents of this approach include [[Arjun Appadurai]], [[James Clifford]], [[George Marcus]], [[Sidney Mintz]], [[Michael Taussig]] and [[Eric Wolf]].
A growing trend in anthropological research and analysis is the use of multi-sited ethnography, discussed in George Marcus's article, "Ethnography In/Of the World System: the Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography"]. Looking at culture as embedded in macro-constructions of a global social order, multi-sited ethnography uses traditional methodology in various locations both spatially and temporally. Through this methodology, greater insight can be gained when examining the impact of world-systems on local and global communities.
Also emerging in multi-sited ethnography are greater interdisciplinary approaches to fieldwork, bringing in methods from cultural studies, media studies, science and technology studies, and others. In multi-sited ethnography, research tracks a subject across spatial and temporal boundaries. For example, a multi-sited ethnography may follow a "thing," such as a particular commodity, as it is transported through the networks of global capitalism.