Ethnology

interpretation of the observations on the ground and the reflections that are detache
d from them - or from the reading of other ethnographies. This does not invalidate t
he researches, theories and concepts used by the discipline, but it should be co
nsidered to contextualize the complexity of human behavior, the possibility of inv
estigating it and the critical distance that should be taken in reading the works.
Now, ethnology has generated an important and essential knowledge of
Industrial development made it
possible to unite the concepts of man about himself, his own and other people's socio-cultural environment, past
progress and evolution. and present. Has known a rapid development, not devoid of conflicts, in his
Source: http://aldovea-grupodetrabajoleonardo.blogspot theories, concepts, hypotheses, areas and fields of study. In this unit, only the
.com/2011/05/la-revolucion-industrial.html
general tendencies of the discipline are expressed and the most representative
authors are indicated, without intending to delve into its constituent elements.
Society:
Are they envolving? Are they making
progress? Agenda
What makes it possible to think about it? 1.
  Theories
and concepts of ethnology.
2. Fields and areas of ethnology.
 
The evolution it is the first concept
Reading 1. An overview of some theories of ethnology
that constitutes ethnology, since it
gives a scientific, universal,
necessary and comparative Carlos Alberto Guerrero Torrentera.
intention of the human species and
The evolution of the Century XIX it is recognized as the first theory in the
its culture.
development of ethnology, since this discipline is configured properly by his
hand. Of course, social anthropology, archaeology and other anthropological
The concept of evolution does not areas can point to this same ascendancy. The idea that nature, human
necessarily include the pro-greso, beings and societies evolve, as seen in the previous unit, is very old in
since it presupposes an Western thought. Several Greek and Latin philosophers, including
improvement of institutions and Democritus (460-360 BC) and Lucretius (99-55 BC), postulated it. Nineteenth
beliefs in their thematic
development.
-century anthropologists were not the first to formulate it. But, as has been
noted, a concept must be understood in its relationship with other concepts,
its historical moment, the problems to which it wants to respond and the
objectives that it sets. Therefore, although evolutionary ideas are frequent in
the West, it is possible to find differences and specificities in various
historical moments, both in Antiquity and in the birth of Modernity or in the
Enlightenment. Some important elements that characterize evolutionism in
the XIX, years in which it was the dominant theory, is that it tried to limit itself
to scientific controls, both in the social and natural sciences. In addition, two
concepts were related, that of evolution and that of progress, which seemed
to be interchangeable, although a more detailed analysis invites to
distinguish evolution as the changes that occur in an organism or an
institution, for example, without that transformation being valued (it is
considered better or worse, superior or inferior), although it can be admitted
that sometimes the new phenomenon has greater complexity (diversity of
elements and interconnections). Progress is understood in a valuative way,
by assuming that an improvement is achieved, whether political, moral,
religious, phenotypic or in another aspect. Nineteenth-century evolutionism
Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881),
one of the leading evolutionary
takes place in the midst of an important process of capitalist industrialization
anthropologists. He popularized the and colonial and economic expansion, which allowed a perception of
theory of the three evolutionary stages continuous, controllable and rational progress.
(savagery, barbarism and civilization)
. His studies on kinship turned out to
In relation to anthropology, evolutionary theories mean a break with pre-
be fundamental in the constitution of anthropological traditions and, simultaneously, their disciplinary constitution.-
ethnology. since:
Source: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Lewis "[...] some of his fundamental contributions completely transformed the
_henry_morgan.jpg approach that had been taken to certain social phenomena up to that time, in

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