EVOLUTION FOR ANTHROPOLOGY: SETTING OUR HOUSE IN ORDER (A Review of Bringing It All Back Home by Gerald D. Berreman)

Authors

Dennis Toom, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Date of this Version

1977

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published in THE NEBRASKA ANTHROPOLOGIST, Volume 3 (1977). Published by the Anthropology Student Group, Department of Anthropology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588

Abstract

In Berreman's article, as in most of the other articles in Reinventing Anthropology, the main topic of discussion is that, once again, the need for change has presented itself in the discipline: anthropology needs to be reinvented. The changes called for have to do with relevance, responsibility, receptivity and the like. None of the authors offers much in the way of suggestions for accomplishing this ideological overhaul for anthropology; they only acknowledge the need for it. Processes of change are characteristically disruptive, producing harmful and negative effects during the transition, and change in anthropology is no different.