ABSTRACT
The practice of anthropology begins with consciousness of self and others. It is informed by the cultural and social milieu inhabited by its practitioners. The authors of anthropological reports and the compilers who organized the information they collected were often state officials who provided information about subject populations to facilitate political control; others gathered or used information to criticize state-based societies and their practices toward colonial subjects and their own subordinated classes. Anthropological inquiry shifted from the study of tribal to that of peasant communities, and even to that of whole nations. Some retreated from analyses of social class structures, organized resistance movements, and inequality into self-reflexivity and idealist perspectives. This chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
