ABSTRACT
We need to see our empirical work as an obligation, to acquit as best we can by critically using the variety of methods and concepts available to us at any one time, not by only performing the operations that are most fashionable or refined. But we equally need to regard every new empirical finding as a provocation, to rethink our assumptions and redesign our models. Pursued in this fashion, social anthropology promises to be as exciting in the future as it has been in the past.
