Applied Anthropology and Social Change in the Teaching of Anthropology

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Abstract

experts in the exotic, particularly in magical and ritual practices. For this reason, a number of people, inclllding some anthropologists themselves, believe thaw members of ollr profession have a special role as advisers to government and agencics concerned with the administration or general development of so-called primitive and backward people.2 It is certainly the case that anthropologists are well eqllipped to understand and explain the olltlook as well as the organization of primitive peoples.3 However, the real significance of the anthropologist's position in this regard lies less in his ability to translate the values and institlltions of one society into terms of another than in the analytical tools developed by his discipline. Anthropology possesses an approach and a method of studying social relations which can be employed in all forms of cllltllre. It is capable of 1lse not only among primitive tribes and peoples but in ollr own modern society. In addition, therefore, to their employment in research anthropological methods are also of interest to a wide variety of people whose evcryday life and occupations necessitate application of the findings of social science. This point is important becallse it is not only African pastoralists and Indonesian peasants and the like whose way of life is 1lndergoing transition. Ollr own Western society, too, is changing so rapidly as constantly to need the same degree of scientific attention. We tend, however, to be sceptical when it comes to the 'social engineering' of the aSairs of Western Europeans or North Americans, although it is obvious that any major innovation in social policy implies a manipulation of social relations. Admittedly, the manipulation may be a mluch more

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