ABSTRACT
Looking back at sociocultural anthropology over the past thirty years or so, it seems that the heady invigoration of early postmodernism eventually yielded to a sense of crisis. A token of this was the theme of the 2009 conference of the American Anthropological Association, the largest body of anthropologists in the world: “The end/s of anthropology.” This sense of crisis is not, of course, driven only by factors that are purely intellectual or purely internal to the discipline. Confronting decreasing financial resources and increasing demand that courses lead to greater individual and national economic reward, anthropology’s prospects appear unhappy. Furthermore, while the job market of the 2000s and the financial crisis of 2008 are perhaps the most visible of the recent external pressures that have shaped and constrained anthropology, and led to a sense of crisis, they are not the only ones. The chapter also provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
