Ethnology

Ethnology, from an anthropological standpoint, involves the comparison and analysis of ethnographic data with society and culture. Often confused with ethnography, which explores one particular group, ethnology takes a more comparative approach by using research collected by ethnologists (or ethnographers) and comparing and contrasting it to research on other cultures. Ethnologists often approach research from a more systemic and theoretical approach, as opposed to ethnographers, whose work tends to produce more descriptive and localized information. Ethnologists also tend to rely on printed and recorded materials, instead of immersing themselves in a culture or group. Adam Franz Kollár, a historian, ethnologist, and jurist, is credited with first using the term ethnology (or ethnologia), with a number of other scholars and researchers following. A goal of ethnology, as with all branches of anthropology, is to better understand not only what it means to be part of a specific group, but also how individuals came to belong to the specific group.

Background

Anthropology is a branch of the social sciences that studies what gives humans their human qualities. As part of their study, anthropologists take a holistic approach to assessing a group or providing a detailed narrative of a particular culture. Not only do anthropologists study what is currently happening with a group or culture, but they also refer to the past to consider how the group lived hundreds (or thousands) of years prior. In addition, anthropologists use biological data and genetics to compare, among other things, how humans lived in comparison to other groups at the time. Anthropologists also study language and linguistic interactions between groups of people.

Anthropology has roots extending back to the ancient Greeks. The Greek historian Herodotus is frequently credited as being the first person to write in what would eventually be recognized as anthropological terms. For example, Herodotus researched and detailed the cultures of the people within the Persian Empire. The Arab historian Ibn Khaldun also addressed aspects of anthropology when he examined the existence of various cultures within the Mediterranean region. Studying one’s own culture, as well as the culture of others, became popular and crucial to obtaining more knowledge of the world. It wasn’t until the 1800s, however, that anthropology as it is known today took hold. Anthropological studies and research allowed Christian Thomsen, a Danish archaeologist, to establish the technological eras of the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages.

As anthropology became more established, multiple subfields emerged, including archaeology, biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and cultural anthropology. Although these four areas are distinct, they are also complementary to one another, and are not typically found exclusively. At the most basic level, archaeology is the study of human culture based upon what people have created. However, archaeologists also study human remains to better understand their lived experiences. Archaeology does not deal with the living. Instead, it deals with what has been left behind by those who were once alive. In biological anthropology, researchers are interested in the relationship between biology and culture. More specifically, researchers seek to explore how the relationships may impact other groups over time. Linguistic anthropologists study how people communicate and use language to relate to one another. They place considerable emphasis on the importance of language in creating a culture and/or society.

Finally, cultural anthropology looks at how people live in different places and make sense of the world. That world includes areas both near and distant to the people. Cultural anthropologists often find it best to immerse themselves within a particular society. This provides the researcher with a deeper level of understanding. Ethnology is often associated with cultural anthropology. As researchers attempt to better understand a particular culture, they use comparative strategies to better situate the culture within its place in society. Unlike ethnography, which is more descriptive and straightforward, ethnology is more interpretive and driven by theory. For some, the term ethnology has been replaced by anthropology, though others continue to view the term as a more specialized aspect of the field.

Overview

Ethnology began in the 1700s as a way to gather, analyze, and compare information about those populations (or groups) that did not have extensive written records of the past. “Ethnos” comes from the Greek term meaning “people.” Another way to define ethnology would be the study of how human beings are unique and similar at the same time. Although ethnology is most often viewed in terms of anthropology, some see ethnology as being situated in history.

The first ethnological society, founded by William F. Edwards, began in Paris in the 1830s. At that time, ethnology was viewed as the study of human races, and the concept of race was viewed as a paradigmatic component. By the second half of the century, however, the study broadened and race was no longer used as the only variable in research.

The ethnology or social anthropology coming from the French and British in the 1900s was slightly different than the ethnology coming from the United States. The French and British placed greater emphasis on present and living systems. In the United States, however, ethnology, led by Franz Boas, took a more historical-cultural approach. The process was more inductive and focused on observing and accumulating data.

Julian Steward began the concept of cultural ecology. Cultural ecology placed a stronger emphasis on one’s relationship to the environment, and Steward’s ideas allowed for a more open-ended approach. Human ecology is one of the newer ecologies that places emphasis on the interaction of people with nature. It relates directly to biocultural diversity that takes the traditional environmental aspects of ecology and enforces them with linguistic and sociocultural research methods.

Ethnology is often confused, or used interchangeably with, ethnography. However, the two are distinct. Ethnography is a research method that helps individuals better understand a specific piece of the world from a socially relevant perspective. For example, researchers may immerse themselves in a particular culture or society for an extended period so they can study the inhabitants through participation and observations. From this intense fieldwork, researchers are able to provide a qualitative narrative that is rich with description, as well as a certain degree of analysis and interpretation. Ethnographers may also engage in interviews, focus groups, journaling, surveying, and/or audio and video collection and analysis. Just as ethnography and ethnology are distinct, so, too, are ethnography and anthropology. Anthropology is a particular field, while ethnography is a research methodology.

Bronislaw Malinowski was a Polish anthropologist and well-known ethnographer, specifically in terms of participant observation. Born in 1884, Malinowski traveled in 1914 to New Guinea to live among the Trobriand Islanders. Malinowski spent two years conducting research there. During that time, he recognized the importance that such cultural immersion could have on understanding a culture. Two of Malinowski’s most famous reports included a piece examining the Kula Ring, a ceremonial exchange in Papua New Guinea, and a piece detailing the sexual behavior of the Trobriand people. One of Malinowski’s greatest contributions to anthropology, as well as ethnography and ethnology, was the belief that not only one aspect of a culture should be studied. To better understand a specific aspect of a culture, studying various areas of the culture (beyond the primary one) was crucial. Some of those areas included the culture or group’s understanding of, and relationship to economy, education, family, religion, sex, and nearby or colonizing cultures.

Ethnology has continued to expand, reorganize, and reinvent itself in the centuries since it was first introduced. In many instances, key scholars of a period have left their influence on ethnology, either by expanding its definition or its purpose to research. Similarly, ethnologists have given people greater and more meaningful understandings of the world around them.

Adam Franz Kollár has been credited with coining the term “ethnology” in 1783 and establishing its definition. Kollár was a former Jesuit librarian who left the Jesuits early in his career and became an advocate for the Hungarian crown. In his work exploring the history of the Slavic Rusyn people, he received international acknowledgement and established the term “ethnologia.” Kollár studied languages, edited, and published multiple manuscripts, many of which are held in high regard. Kollar wrote on ethnology specifically in Historiae ivrisqve pvblici Regni Vngariae amoenitates, which was published in 1783. He also used ethnographic methods in his research. His own life and experiences served as the impetus for his interest in the field.

Franz Boas was a German-American anthropologist and pioneer of modern anthropology. He was also one of the most prominent individuals to publicly oppose the concept of scientific racism. Scientific racism argued that race is a biological notion and that human behavior is understood through a typology of such biological characteristics. For example, Boas addressed how the skull is somewhat malleable and influenced by external factors like nutrition. Racial anthropologists, however, had argued that the skull is a fixed shape that helps distinguish racial groups. Boas also viewed culture as developing through interaction with other groups in contrast to moving through stages. He frequently used the term “cultural relativism.” Cultural relativism refers to the idea that one culture is not higher (or better) than another culture. Individuals base their perceptions of things on what they have been exposed to or what they lived through, thus making things “relative.” For example, what is considered beautiful in once country may be viewed as unappealing in another. This way of thinking places groups or cultures on more equal footing and does not consider one superior than another. Boas also rejected the absolute idea of culture being evolutionary. Instead, he supported the idea that societies and/or cultures evolved through interactions with one another, and that no single pathway existed for reaching a higher cultural point.

Adolf Bastian was a crucial figure in German ethnology. Bastian was the director of the famous Royal Museum of Ethnology and chaired several scholarly organizations. He favored cross-disciplinary approaches to studying and explaining topics, including culturally based studies. In the late nineteenth century, Bastian’s idea of an underlying “psychic unity of humankind” was used to explain basic commonalities among people. He further proposed that certain traits existed because of the laws of cultural evolution. Such traits only changed or differed insofar as they were situated in different physical environments. Bastian’s ideas are said to have initiated the basic premises behind the work of psychoanalyst Carl Jung.

Bastian earned a degree in medicine in 1850 from Prague’s Charles University. After receiving the degree, he became a doctor on a ship and traveled around the world for eight years. As he traveled through different countries, Bastian became more interested in ethnography and ethnology. After his trip, he returned to Germany in 1859 and wrote Der Mensch in der Geschichte, which became one of his most famous pieces. A decade later, Bastian and Rudolph Virchow created the Berlin Ethnological Society, also known as the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology, and Prehistory, and edited an ethnologic journal.

Clifford Geertz is considered the greatest cultural anthropologist of his generation, and has been specifically recognized for his theories surrounding cultural interpretation. He pulled from a variety of fields, including history, philosophy, and literature to decode the meanings behind cultural symbols and customs. In 1956, Geertz earned his doctorate in anthropology from Harvard University. His work Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight is well-known to those studying ethnography. In the piece, Geertz used the first-person point of view, a tactic that remains controversial in some research circles. In his writing, Geertz did not simply describe the fighting, but instead situated the cockfight within the Balinese culture, linking it to the culture’s belief system as well as its views on violence. The interpretative approach taken by Geertz allows his work to be considered within the realm of ethnology and not only ethnography. However, it was the ethnographic methods utilized by Geertz that allowed him to approach topics from an ethnologic standpoint.

Robert Heine-Geldern was an Austrian ethnologist, as well as an archaeologist and historian. He spent time in the areas of India and Burma, and completed his thesis, The Mountain Tribes of Northeastern Burma, in 1914. He taught at the University of Vienna before coming to the United States. There, he helped establish the Southeast Asia Institute. In 1950, Heine-Geldern returned to Vienna as part of the Ethnology Institute. He is the author of One Hundred Years of Ethnological Theory in the German-Speaking Counties: Some Milestones.

Margaret Mead was an anthropologist who spent much of her life studying the South Pacific people, specifically their more primitive cultures. Her book, Coming of Age in Samoa, was published in 1928. Mead spent considerable time detailing the impact of social constructs on young girls. Mead was particularly interested in the realization that Samoan girls moved into adulthood easily, while young girls from the United States often struggled with the transition. Mead concluded that the remnants of Victorian culture within the United States placed burdens on the sexual awakenings of young women. In addition, a distinct separation of children from work made that transition equally challenging. Samoan young women, however, did not experience the same degrees of difficulties transitioning from adolescence to adulthood. Mead also argued that the social constructs of masculinity and femininity that are abundant in Western cultures did not exist within the South Pacific.

Two years prior to the book’s publication, Mead was named the assistant curator of ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History. As an undergraduate at Barnard College, Mead studied under Franz Boas. When Mead lost funding to study in the South Pacific due to World War II, she founded the Institute for Intercultural Studies in 1944. Mead continued to publish her research, expanding her scope to include motherhood and sexuality. Her articles appeared in popular magazines in the 1970s, as well as in academic journals. Mead, who was also very politically active, urged society, particularly women, to better understand other people and cultures so that they could ultimately better understand themselves.

Bibliography

Boas, Franz. “The Methods of Ethnology,” American Anthropologist, vol. 22, no. 4, Oct.–Dec. 1920, pp. 311–321. www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/660328.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A2d9e3c766f4abcb4a7edf6afbdf59986&ab‗segments=&origin=&acceptTC=1. Accessed on 20 Dec. 2022.

Cassar, Claudine. “Bronislaw Malinowski: The Father of Field Research,” Anthropology Review, 30 Jan. 2022, anthropologyreview.org/influential-anthropologists/bronislaw-malinowski-the-father-of-field-research/. Accessed on 26 Dec. 2022.

“Ethnology,” Ecology Center, 23 Dec. 2022, www.ecologycenter.us/natural-history-2/ethnology.html. Accessed on 26 Dec. 2022.

Heine-Geldern, Robert. “One Hundred Years of Ethnological Theory in the German-Speaking Counties: Some Milestones,” Current Anthropology, vol. 5, no. 5, December 1964, pp. 407–418, www.jstor.org/stable/2739990. Accessed on 20 Dec. 2022.

“Margaret Mead.” History.com, 28 Oct. 2019, www.history.com/topics/womens-history/margaret-mead. Accessed on 26 Dec. 2022.

Rowe, John Howland. “Ethnography and Ethnology in the Sixteenth Century.” digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/anthpubs/ucb/proof/pdfs/kas030-002.pdf. Accessed on 20 Dec. 2022.

Tatum, Malcolm. “What is Ethnology?” Language Humanities, 26 Nov. 2022, www.languagehumanities.org/what-is-ethnology.htm. Accessed on 21 Dec. 2022.

“What is Anthropology?” American Anthropological Association, www.americananthro.org/AdvanceYourCareer/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=2150. Accessed on 20 Dec. 2022.