Ethnology

Fields of the ethnology

Anthropology of the religions: field of the anthropology which tries to clarify the fact religious.
legal Anthropology: analyzes Culturelle and Symbolique of the legal phenomena.
Anthropology of the policy: she studies the official forms different Peuple S from the world.
Anthropology of art: analyzes Culturelle and Symbolique of the artistic production in all its forms.
Ethnomusicologie : study of the Music S of the non-European civilizations, traditionally studied by the ethnology.
Ethnochorégraphie : field which is pursued the study mainly of the repertory danced of the rural populations, and more particulièrementdes non-European people.
Anthropology of the body practices: field which is pursued the study of the activities bringing into play the body, that they are about the modification of appearance (piercing, scarification…), or of the setting in motion of the body like tool. (Sporting or artistic Physical-activities…)
Anthropology of the Disease: field studied the representations and the expressions of the disease, the various means implemented to treat it and the therapeutists ratios/sick according to the culture of the studied company.

History of the discipline

This word dates from the 18th century century. This science is born with the beginning from the colonial expansion, often accompanied by a policy of evangelization of the natives. The first ethnologists thus worked starting from the descriptions left by the explorers, of the colonial officers (or soldiers; for defense and the territorial recognition) the traders (inventory of the richnesses and resources of the people which one does not know, then, the origin; process of conquest of the markets) or the missionaries.

Theoretical currents of the ethnology

to see detailed article: List of the currents of anthropology

Ethnology in the social sciences

Which differences with sociology?

Historically, the ethnology differs from the Sociologie in what it privileges not the study of the social phenomena of the industrialized countries as the latter would do it, but on the contrary the non-European traditional communities, which were regarded a long time as “Culture S primitives”. Today precisely them ethnologists undertake to find allegedly these “primitive” aspects Culturel S in the Western companies (the magic for example), thus returning the border between these two disciplines increasingly fuzzy: their object of study - the human - is finally the same one.

When one tries to distinguish most clearly possible the ethnology and sociology, easiest is to insist on the difference of the angles of incidence. Broadly one could then allot to sociology the made quantitative methods of surveys, questionnaires, individualized talks, and a concern pronounced for the representativeness of such studies; concerning the ethnology they is rather the qualitative methods such as the investigation of long life and the participating Observation, making subjectivity of the researcher a real base of work.

Also one can evoke the consideration of the dimension symbolic system which is characteristic of the ethnology: study of the myths, the rites, and overall of the practices and perceptions symbolic systems of the surrounding world.

Anthropology, ethnology and ethnography

On this subject, the use is to refer itself with the definition of Claude Lévi-Strauss. One could summarize it in the following way: the Ethnographie is a phase of collection of data mainly, as a tool of the ethnology, it maintains with it the same report/ratio as the archaeological excavation with the Archéologie. The ethnography belongs to the ethnology, and the ethnology of the Anthropologie.

Then one can say that the ethnology theorizes descriptions of the Ethnographie of which the unit of study is the Ethnie, human group characterized by its Langue and its Culture. These two sciences form ultimately part of the Anthropologie.

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