Anthropology As Comparative Anatomy

Reflecting on the Study of Material Culture During the Late 1800s and the Late 1900s

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2390892
AutoresFrances Larson (autor de correspondencia)
Año2007
Volumen12
Número1
Páginas89-112
Fecha de publicación2007-03-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Material Culture (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1359-1835 • E-ISSN: 1460-3586
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1359183507074563
OpenAlexW2070843204
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7
Referencias citadas17

Recent work by Alfred Gell echoes research methodologies used by anthropologists a century ago, when the new university discipline of anthropology was construed as a scientific subject. The early history of anthropology at Oxford University is explored with particular reference to Henry Balfour's work as curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the turn of the 20th century. Balfour and Gell both paid close attention to the formal qualities of things in an attempt to chart the linking threads of design and form which structure 'distributed objects'. Balfour was concerned with human origins, while Gell tracked shifting 'networks of transformational relationships' with no origin, but their methodologies show similarities because they both prioritized the physicality of things. Exploring the strengths and weaknesses of an earlier, scientific approach to people and things helps us to understand and reassess our own intellectual (and material) ancestry

Epistemology · Sociology · Strengths and weaknesses · Subject (documents · Anthropology · Computer Science · Philosophy · Race, Genetics, and Society