ANTHROPOLOGY - A PRACTICE OF THEORY

This discussion, which introduces the first of two issues of the ISSJ devoted to social and cultural anthropology, focuses on the expansion of anthropological methods and concerns beyond what can be written or visually apprehended, and addresses the paradoxical but substantive ad vantages of the discipline's intensively localized focus in field rese arch (ethnography) for the analysis of global phenomena. The author ar gues that the increased importance of agency and practice has coincide d with an emphasis on multiple modernities to make a culturally reflex ive approach both pragmatically useful and empirically rich. While ant hropology may itself be increasingly implicated in global and local id entity politics, its ability to recognize that phenomenon - a potentia l liability - also enhances its capacity for social and cultural criti cism and analysis.