A PROFILE OF SOCIAL CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Growing complexities, Renewal of emphasis and Emerging issues

The book is on Social-cultural anthropology - its meaning and purpose, growing complexities and areas of conflict, new concerns and future possibilities. An impression has been created that social-cultural anthropology as it is practised today is a type of arrangement or a matter of convenience to get easy access into the social and cultural world. Far from it, the distinctive outlooks followed by social-cultural anthropologists in their approach have made it possible for them to pursue their self-directed way of looking at human society and culture more intantly. This is not something which is limited to behavioural manifestations only. Indeed, anthropological interpretation, by which it analyses and translates other cultures, has some unique properties. There are glimpses of these in the book. Be it social structure, tribal way of transformation, ethnicity, political emancipation, knowledge-ignorance dichotomy, humanistic pursuit, bio-diversity preservation or bio-cultural impact assessment - in studying them social-cultural anthropologists follow their own course to good effect.