ABSTRACT
Bronislaw Malinowski laid the foundation for an advocacy role in anthropology very early on in the history of the discipline. Anthropology therefore enables its practitioners not only to follow their intellectual curiosity about why people do what they do, and produce research that reveals this in scientific terms. Facilitating culturally appropriate forms of communication is also at the heart of Kevin Avruch and Peter Black’s work on the role of anthropology in ‘alternative dispute resolution’ (ADR), which has become increasingly popular as an informal ‘alternative’ to legal action in America. They point out that anthropology actually provided the inspiration for ADR, because ‘some reformers from within the legal profession read ethnography and thought they had found the perfect template for their reform: dispute resolution in “tribal societies”’.
