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Outline Of Social Sciences
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to social science: Social science – main branch of science comprising scientific fields concerned with societies, human behaviour, and social relationships. Definition Social science can be described as all of the following: * A science – systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe."... modern science is a discovery as well as an invention. It was a discovery that nature generally acts regularly enough to be described by laws and even by mathematics; and required invention to devise the techniques, abstractions, apparatus, and organization for exhibiting the regularities and securing their law-like descriptions." —p.vii, J. L. Heilbron, (2003, editor-in-chief). ''The Oxford Companion to the History of Modern Science''. New York: Oxford University Press. . * Major category of academic disciplines ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthropology Of Religion
Anthropology of religion is the study of religion in relation to other social institutions, and the comparison of religious beliefs and practices across cultures. The anthropology of religion, as a field, overlaps with but is distinct from the field of Religious Studies. The history of anthropology of religion is a history of striving to understand how other people view and navigate the world. This history involves deciding what religion is, what it does, and how it functions. Today, one of the main concerns of anthropologists of religion is defining religion, which is a theoretical undertaking in and of itself. Scholars such as Edward Tylor, Emile Durkheim, E.E. Evans Pritchard, Mary Douglas, Victor Turner, Clifford Geertz, and Talal Asad have all grappled with defining and characterizing religion anthropologically. History In the 19th century cultural anthropology was dominated by an interest in cultural evolution; most anthropologists assumed a simple distinction between " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linguistic Anthropology
Linguistic anthropology is the interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life. It is a branch of anthropology that originated from the endeavor to document endangered languages and has grown over the past century to encompass most aspects of language structure and use.Duranti, Alessandro (ed.), 2004''Companion to Linguistic Anthropology'' Malden, MA: Blackwell. Linguistic anthropology explores how language shapes communication, forms social identity and group membership, organizes large-scale cultural beliefs and ideologies, and develops a common cultural representation of natural and social worlds.Society for Linguistic Anthropology. n.dAbout the Society for Linguistic Anthropology(accessed 7 July 2010). Historical development Linguistic anthropology emerged from the development of three distinct paradigms that have set the standard for approaching linguistic anthropology. The first, now known as " anthropological linguistics," focuses on the documentation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Historical Archaeology
Historical archaeology is a form of archaeology dealing with places, things, and issues from the past or present when written records and oral traditions can inform and contextualize cultural material. These records can both complement and conflict with the archaeological evidence found at a particular site. Studies focus on literate, historical- period societies as opposed to non-literate, prehistoric societies. While they may not have generated the records, the lives of people for whom there was little need for written records, such as the working class, slaves, indentured labourers, and children but who live in the historical period can also be the subject of study. The sites are found on land and underwater. Industrial archaeology, unless practiced at industrial sites from the prehistoric era, is a form of historical archaeology concentrating on the remains and products of industry and the Industrial era. Definition According to the overall definition given here based on metho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Experimental Archaeology
Experimental archaeology (also called experiment archaeology) is a field of study which attempts to generate and test archaeological Hypothesis, hypotheses, usually by replicating or approximating the feasibility of ancient cultures performing various tasks or feats. It employs a number of methods, techniques, analyses, and approaches, based upon Archaeology, archaeological source material such as ancient structures or Artifact (archaeology), artifacts. It is distinct from uses of primitive technology without any concern for archaeological or historical study. Living history and historical reenactment, which are generally undertaken as hobbies, are non-archaeological counterparts of this academic discipline. One of the main forms of experimental archaeology is the creation of copies of historical structures using only historically accurate technologies. This is sometimes known as reconstruction archaeology or reconstructional archaeology; however, reconstruction implies an exact ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evolutionary Anthropology
Evolutionary anthropology, the interdisciplinary study of the human evolution, evolution of human physiology and human behaviour and of the relation between hominids and non-hominid primates, builds on natural science and on social science. Various fields and disciplines of evolutionary anthropology include: * human evolution and anthropogeny * paleoanthropology and paleontology of both human and non-human primates * primatology and primate ethology * the sociocultural evolution of human behavior, including phylogenetic approaches to historical linguistics * the cultural anthropology and sociology of humans * the archaeological study of human technology and of its changes over time and space * human evolutionary genetics and changes in the human genome over time * the neuroscience, endocrinology, and neuroanthropology of human and primate cognition, culture, actions and abilities * human behavioural ecology and the interaction between humans and the environment * studies of human ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethnopoetics
Ethnopoetics is a method of recording text versions of oral poetry or narrative performances (i.e. verbal lore) that uses poetic lines, verses, and stanzas (instead of prose paragraphs) to capture the formal, poetic performance elements which would otherwise be lost in the written texts. The goal of any ethnopoetic text is to show how the techniques of unique oral performers enhance the aesthetic value of their performances within their specific cultural contexts. Major contributors to ethnopoetic theory include Jerome Rothenberg, Dennis Tedlock, and Dell Hymes. Ethnopoetics is considered a subfield of ethnology, anthropology, folkloristics, stylistics, linguistics, literature and translation studies. A need for ethnopoetics: Rothenberg Jerome Rothenberg coined the term ethnopoetics in the 1960s. According to Catherine S. Quick, Rothenberg had recognized that “most translations of Native American oral traditions . . . failed to capture the power and beauty of the oral pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethnology
Ethnology (from the , meaning 'nation') is an academic field and discipline that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). Scientific discipline Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct contact with the culture, ethnology takes the research that ethnographers have compiled and then compares and contrasts different cultures. The term ''ethnologia'' (''ethnology'') is credited to Adam Franz Kollár (1718–1783) who used and defined it in his ''Historiae ivrisqve pvblici Regni Vngariae amoenitates'' published in Vienna in 1783. as: "the science of nations and peoples, or, that study of learned men in which they inquire into the origins, languages, customs, and institutions of various nations, and finally into the fatherland and ancient seats, in order to be able better to judge the nations and peoples in their own times." Kollár's int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethnography
Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining the behavior of the participants in a given social situation and understanding the group members' own interpretation of such behavior. As a form of inquiry, ethnography relies heavily on participant observation, where the researcher participates in the setting or with the people being studied, at least in some marginal role, and seeking to document, in detail, patterns of social interaction and the perspectives of participants, and to understand these in their local contexts. It had its origin in social and cultural anthropology in the early twentieth century, but has, since then, spread to other social science disciplines, notably sociology. Ethnographers mainly use Qualitative research, qualitative methods, though they may also include ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethnobotany
Ethnobotany is an interdisciplinary field at the interface of natural and social sciences that studies the relationships between humans and plants. It focuses on traditional knowledge of how plants are used, managed, and perceived in human societies. Ethnobotany integrates knowledge from botany, anthropology, ecology, and chemistry to study plant-related customs across cultures. Researchers in this field document and analyze how different societies use local flora for various purposes, including medicine, food, religious use, intoxicants, building materials, fuels and clothing. Richard Evans Schultes, often referred to as the "father of ethnobotany", provided an early definition of the discipline: Since Schultes' time, ethnobotany has evolved from primarily documenting traditional plant knowledge to applying this information in modern contexts, particularly in pharmaceutical development. The field now addresses complex issues such as intellectual property rights and equitab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethnobiology
] Ethnobiology is the multidisciplinary field of study of relationships among peoples, biota, and environments integrating many perspectives, from the social, biological, and medical sciences; along with application to conservation and sustainable development. The diversity of perspectives in ethnobiology allows for examining complex, dynamic interactions between human and natural systems. History Beginnings (15th century–19th century) Biologists have been interested in local biological knowledge since the time Europeans started colonising the world, from the 15th century onwards. Paul Sillitoe wrote that: Local biological knowledge, collected and sampled over these early centuries significantly informed the early development of modern biology: * during the 17th century, Georg Eberhard Rumphius benefited from local biological knowledge in producing his catalogue, ''"Herbarium Amboinense"'', covering more than 1,200 species of the plants in Indonesia; * during the 18t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cultural Anthropology
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The term sociocultural anthropology includes both cultural and social anthropology traditions. Anthropologists have pointed out that through culture, people can adapt to their environment in non-genetic ways, so people living in different environments will often have different cultures. Much of anthropological theory has originated in an appreciation of and interest in the tension between the local (particular cultures) and the global (a universal human nature, or the web of connections between people in distinct places/circumstances). Cultural anthropology has a rich methodology, including participant observation (often called fieldwork because it requires the anthropologist spending an extended period of time at the research location), inter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
