Anthropology and Demography: The Mutual Reinforcement of Speculation and Research [and Comments and Reply]

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Abstract
Most demographic theory attempts to explain changes in fertility and mortality, and much of it rests on anthropological assumptions. Yet the scale and quality of the anthropological work designed to establish, modify, or refute these assumptions have been trivial compared with the need. Where the ideas of demographers have attracted the interest of anthropologists, the result has more often been a stimulus to further theorizing than to investigation in the field. A fundamental problem is that demographic and anthropological theory have frequently fed on each other, each discipline accepting ideas which emerge from the other less skeptically than it would the ideas of its own members. This paper substantiates this charge with regard to two of a variety of possible themes, namely, the pre-modern deliberate control of fertility and the related concept of "primitive affluence". It goes on to consider the value of existing anthropological work in areas in which the authors are interested as demogrpahers, to outline their experience as demographers attempting quasi-anthropological work, and to identify areas in which anthropological work is currently most needed for an understanding of demographic change and stability.