ABSTRACT
Anthropology textbooks have traditionally taken one of two approaches: either they introduce students to the core themes and concepts in anthropological writing to date or they summarise the theoretical standpoints of the various schools of anthropological thought. Writers of ethnography attempt to make the ways of living and thinking of particular groups of people intelligible to their readers, no matter how foreign or incomprehensible, or how familiar and taken-for-granted, these practices may appear at first. Faced with a new field of language and behaviour, anthropologists unavoidably start by setting it against what they are familiar with – that is, they compare. In order to initiate the study of others, then, writers of ethnography must compare. In order to unveil the purposes and significance of an activity or a belief, they must contextualise. For this same reason, they must also consider meaning and action relationally, understanding how their interplay shapes the quality of life among and between groups of people.
