Knowra Ethnology Ethnology Ethnology is the comparative study of peoples and cultures, examining social organization, histories, customs, and relationships. It draws on evidence from ethnographic research and historical sources to explain cultural similarities and differences.
Ethnography : The systematic description of a people or culture, commonly based on extended fieldwork. Ethnography supplies detailed accounts that ethnology compares across societies.
Edward Burnett Tylor : A nineteenth-century British anthropologist who developed influential theories of culture and religion. His comparative work helped establish anthropology as a systematic study of culture.
Comparative method : A research approach that identifies similarities and differences among cases to investigate patterns and explanations. It turns separate cultural accounts into evidence about broader social patterns.
Cultural anthropology : The study of cultural meanings, practices, and social life, often grounded in ethnographic fieldwork. In many academic traditions, it is the closest contemporary counterpart to ethnology.
Ethnographic present : A writing convention that describes a culture as timeless and unchanging, often obscuring historical change. Ethnological comparisons have sometimes frozen dynamic societies into static categories.
Participant observation : A research method in which investigators participate in everyday activities while observing social life. It produces firsthand evidence about customs and social organization.
Lewis Henry Morgan : An American ethnologist whose studies of kinship and social evolution shaped nineteenth-century anthropology. His kinship research became a model for comparing social institutions.
Historical particularism : An anthropological approach explaining each culture through its own distinct historical development. It challenged broad comparisons that ignored how particular societies formed.
Social anthropology : The comparative study of social relations, institutions, and structures, especially in the British tradition. Its focus on institutions and relationships closely overlaps ethnological inquiry.
Salvage anthropology : An approach that sought to document cultures believed to be disappearing, often under colonial pressure. It produced records while framing cultural change through assumptions about disappearance.
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