Anthropology of Knowledge

Abstract

Since Annual Review of,4nthropology series has not previously contained a discussion of of knowledge, this review will look at literature published since mid-1970s. Volumes sporting phrases such as anthropology of are still comparatively rare (42, 47), despite fact that such a label is quite appropriate for that rich tradition stemming from Durkheim and Mauss’s work. The work covered below is normally referred to by more familiar labels such as cognitive, categories, classification, universals, ideology, symbolism.1 Some colleagues would no doubt like to see establishment of a subfield in discipline called the of knowledge. I have not advocated this despite fact that there exist a sociology of and an archaeology of knowledge. There have been too many fields enthusiastically developed within which have grown increasingly remote from main stream until their oflicianados vanished in their own epistemological spaces. I suggested in 1976 that semantic (36) is not a subfield but merely a reminder of what is centrally concerned with. I have taken theme anthropology of in same way. After all, some would wish to define our basic concept of culture as a process of acquiring and displaying knowledge--of rules, values, and beliefs. The concepts knowing and are definable in a field of contrasts which includes concepts such as action, feeling, ideology, and it could be counterproductive, given fundamental importance of these matters in understanding of social life, to set up of knowledge