Cultural Anthropology is the study of human cultures, beliefs, practices, values, ideas, technologies, economies and other domains of social and cognitive organization. 3.1: Social Evolution of Anthropological Theory There are a number of theoretical approaches used in cultural anthropology. ... in cultural anthropology gain foundational knowledge in contemporary social-cultural theory as well as the history of anthropological theory. Cultural anthropology is the study of human patterns of thought and behavior, and how and why these patterns differ, in contemporary societies. Cultural anthropology is sometimes called social anthropology, sociocultural anthropology, or ethnology. This page highlights some of the major theoretical approaches used in cultural anthropology. Culture and Personality, Cultural Ecology, and Cultural Materialism have all been jumping off points for more modern theoretical perspectives. The roots of functionalism are found in the work of sociologists Herbert Spencer and Émile Durkheim.Functionalism considers a culture as an interrelated whole, not a collection of isolated traits. This field is based primarily on cultural understandings of populations of living humans gained through first hand experience or participant observation. Communication and Language → ^ Alessandro Duranti, Husserl, inter-subjectivity and anthropology University of California, Los Angeles, USA, 2015. Social Evolution Proposed in the 19th century, social evolution , which is sometimes referred to as Unilineal Evolution , was the first theory developed for anthropology. This creates a variety of lenses for anthropologists. Thus, in a sense they have all constructed their own anthropologies. Not all of the theories reviewed are in use any more. Anthropological Perspectives Several theories have been propounded in order to study the human differences and explain the aspects of cultures. ‘Social’ and ‘cultural’ anthropology overlap to a considerable extent. Students also gain practical skills in research methodology and design. Like a human being has various organs that are interconnected and necessary for the body to function correctly, so society is a system of interconnected parts that make the whole function efficiently. Cultural anthropology - Cultural anthropology - Historical development of cultural anthropology: All human societies have been curious about how their customs originated and what the differences between their own culture and that of neighbouring societies might mean. Cultural Anthropology at the University of Kentucky. For example: Culture Theories, Structural Functionalism, Moral economics, Interpretivism, Ecological approach, Marxism, Sociao-biology etc. Social evolutionism was abandoned early on in cultural anthropology. There is no hard-and-fast distinction between them, although there are differences of emphasis.