Folklore, Anthropology, and the Government of Social Life

Abstract

Despite the enormous diversity of research within the anthropological tradition, a common unifying theme has been the “reach into otherness” (Burridge 1973:6), the venture of discovering humanity through the exploration of other cultures. From the inception of anthropology as a distinct domain of knowledge, this ethnographic curiosity has been staged within a comparative frame of reference (Hymes 1974). Early inquiries into different customs and social forms were based on the writings of European travelers, whose observations about people in distant lands provided the narrative material for constructing a plausible vision of their own world. Initially, insights into the workings of society remained implicit, hidden beneath the projected images of “otherness.” By the second half of the eighteenth century, these encounters with the unfamiliar through travel and commerce had begun to generate a conscious desire for societal self-knowledge among Europeans. The haphazard collection of ethnographic information was gradually transformed into a reflective methodology.