Anthropology: Some Old Themes and New Directions

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Abstract
The present "crisis" in anthropology has been occasioned by two sets of events in the wider society. First, there is the virtual disappearance of the primitive world which in the past provided the discipline with most of its data as well as the major inspiration for its key concepts and theoretical ideas. Second, there is the growing demand for greater anthropological involvement in and application to contemporary social problems. In brief, and in broad outline, we review certain aspects of "the anthropology of the past" in order to speculate about where the discipline might be going in the future. Several trends seem clear. As anthropology has become more committed to the study of "complex" societies, one of its trends has been to temper its holistic approach and to supplement its participant-observation methodology with techniques long used by the other social sciences. At the same time those other sciences are becoming more comparative in their approach and are applying some of the practices and techniques long used by anthropologists. In short, a kind of methodological convergence is taking place within the social sciences. As a result of increasing pressures upon anthropologists to become more socially responsible and to make their work more relevant to the analysis of contemporary social problems, we see a second trend toward a greater development of the "applied" side of the discipline. While a greater concern with applied problems has certain advantages for the future development of the discipline, it may also involve certain risks, for an insistence on application would tend to stifle the kind of theoretical speculation upon which the development of any discipline depends.

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