ISSN:
0275-7206
Language:
English
Titel der Quelle:
History and anthropology
Publ. der Quelle:
London [u.a.] : Routledge
Angaben zur Quelle:
Vol. 26, No. 1 (2015), p. 92
DDC:
900
Abstract:
This essay addresses the suggestion made over a century ago by F. W. Maitland that anthropology must choose between being history and being nothing. At the time Maitland was correct in criticizing the simplistic unilinear evolutionary schemes of Edward Tylor and Lewis Henry Morgan. My own career combines ethnography among Yemeni farmers in the late 1970s with ongoing analysis of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Yemeni agricultural texts, demonstrating the value of drawing on both kinds of research to better understand the history of agriculture in Yemen. Details from the textual corpus are provided to supplement observations made in the field. My approach to agricultural and tax record texts from Yemen's Rasulid period is described as an example of what anthropology and history can contribute to each other. I argue that the choice is not between specific disciplines but rather the application of sound methods that seek to approximate reality rather than dogmatically recreate it. Anthropology and history have much to gain, as Evans-Pritchard once noted, in learning from each other. Anthropology is approached as a research field that has no preconceived borders, but one that necessitates learning from past methodological and theoretical trends, whether from within the formal discipline or from without.
Note:
Copyright: © 2014 Taylor & Francis 2014
DOI:
10.1080/02757206.2014.933105
URL:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02757206.2014.933105
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