Before Social Anthropology : Essays on the History of British Anthropology

Explores the development of British anthropology from 1880 to 1920, looking at such diverse issues as the establishment of new research methodologies, the development of ethnographic reporting, the professionalization of the subject, and the connection between anthropology and imperialism.

First Published in 1993. From the 1930s, British anthropology was dominated by social anthropologists, an achievement of the two founding fathers, Bronislaw Malinowski and A.R. Radcliffe-Brown. However, the field of ethnology had originated in Britain in the 1840s and a broadly based general anthropology was well established before the rise of social anthropology. The essays in this volume explore the development of British anthropology in the period from 1880 to 1920 and deal with such diverse issues as the establishment of new research methodologies, the development of ethnographic reporting, institutional change and the professionalization of the subject, and the connection between anthropology and imperialism. These essays reveal how the establishment of social anthropology involved a narrowing field which at first involved not just the study of custom but also included archaeology, physical anthropology and philology. The emergence of the new approaches of the 1920s and 1930s, and the triumph of social anthropology as an academic, intellectual and professional discipline in post-war Britain also led to the subsequent loss of a more holistic vision of anthropology.