ABSTRACT
The Unsigned Editorial in RAINews 35, December 1979, on Martin West's inaugural lecture as Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cape Town, calls for a rejoinder. In particular I query its gloss on Professor West's comments on the distinction between social and cultural anthropology in South Africa. We are told that this distinction is ‘conceptually at least, rather artificial’ so that it becomes ‘ironical’ that West, having set out the close connections between social anthropology and other social sciences, should see social and cultural anthropology in South Africa as ‘distinct, even antithetical subjects’.
