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Applied Anthropology1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

E. E. Evans-Pritchard
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Extract

I Do Not intend to say to-night all over again what has been said many times before in admirable addresses to learned societies. I propose only to bring to your notice some features of the subject which have often been overlooked or disregarded and yet seem to me to be important.

May I in the first place mention the confusion which frequently arises when someone asks whether social anthropology can, or should be, an applied science. It is evident that it cannot be applied in the same sense as, for instance, medicine or engineering are said to be applied sciences since it cannot state its findings as laws in the light of which it can predict events. Perhaps it will never be able to formulate laws as these are understood in the exact sciences. Nevertheless social anthropology is a body of knowledge about human societies and, like all knowledge of the kind, can be used in a common-sense way to solve social problems; and there is surely no one who holds that it should not be so used.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , April 1946 , pp. 92 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1946

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References

page 92 note 2 Haddon, A. C., ‘What the United States of America is doing for Anthropology’, J.R.A.I., vol. xxxii, 1902Google Scholar; Sir Temple, Richard C., Anthropology as Practical Science (addresses given in 1904 and 1913), London, 1914Google Scholar; Keith, A., ‘How can the Institute best serve the Needs of Anthropology?’, J.R.A.I., 1917Google Scholar; Myres, J. L., ‘Anthropology, Pure and Applied’, J.R.A.I., vol. lxi, 1931Google Scholar; idem, ‘The Science of Man in the Service of the State’, J. R.A.I., vol. lix, 1929; Rev. Smith, Edwin W., ‘Anthropology and the Practical Man, J.R.A.I., vol. lxiv, 1934Google Scholar; and others mentioned in footnotes to the text.

page 93 note 1 Tax, Sol, ‘Anthropology and Administration’, América Indigena, vol. v, no. I, pp. 26–7 (reference given by Professor Radcliffe-Brown).Google Scholar

page 94 note 1 Herskovits, Melville J., ‘Applied Anthropology and the American Anthropologist’, Science, 6 March 1936, vol. lxxxiii, p. 7.Google Scholar

page 94 note 2 Dr. Haddon, A. C., ‘Anthropology: its Position and Needs’, J.R.A.I., vol. xxxiii, p. II.Google Scholar

page 95 note 1 Professor Radcliffe-Brown, A. R., Report of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, Brisbane Meeting, May-June, 1950, p. 12.Google Scholar

page 95 note 2 Rev. Smith, Edwin W., ‘Africa, what do we know of it?’, J.R.A.I., vol. Ixv, p. 77.Google Scholar

page 97 note 1 Op. cit., p. 26.