Anthropologist Quotes

“Too often, the anthropologist takes on the role of police detective, discovering what is "hidden," assembling "evidence" to make a strong "case"... But sometimes what is called for is not an "investigator" at all, but an attentive listener.”
― Liisa H. Malkki, Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania

“It is worthwhile studying other peoples, because every understanding of another culture is an experiment with our own.”
― Roy Wagner, The Invention of Culture

“To the anthropologist, there’s no such thing as a singular episode, a singular phenomenon – only a set of variations on generic ones; the more generic, therefore, the more pure, the closer to an unvariegated or unscrambled archetype.”
― Tom McCarthy, Satin Island

“Anthropology studies the phenomenon of man, not simply man's mind, his body, evolution, origins, tools, art, or groups alone, but as parts or aspects of a general pattern, or whole. To emphasize this fact and make it a part of their ongoing effort, anthropologists have brought a general word into widespread use to stand for the phenomenon, and that word is culture.”
― Roy Wagner, The Invention of Culture

“The peculiar situation of the anthropological fieldworker, participating simultaneously in two distinct worlds of meaning and action, requires that he relate to his research subjects as an "outsider," trying to "learn" and penetrate their way of life, while relating to his own culture as a kind of metaphorical "native."

To both groups he is a professional stranger, a person who holds himself aloof from their lives in order to gain perspective.”
― Roy Wagner, The Invention of Culture