Sociocultural anthropology

Sociocultural anthropology is a portmanteau used to refer to social anthropology and cultural anthropology together. Some universities, such as Boston University, link them together into one major of study. However, mostly they are separated because of their different focuses.

The rubric cultural anthropology is generally applied to ethnographic works that are holistic in spirit, oriented to the ways in which culture affects individual experience, or aim to provide a rounded view of the knowledge, customs, and institutions of a people. Social anthropology is a term applied to ethnographic works that attempt to isolate a particular system of social relations such as those that comprise domestic life, economy, law, politics, or religion, give analytical priority to the organizational bases of social life, and attend to cultural phenomena as somewhat secondary to the main issues of social scientific inquiry.

Further reading

• Main article: List of important publications in anthropology