Anthropology! Distinguished Lecture—2000

The transformation of anthropology in the twenty‐first century can be seen in new mixes between anthropology's subfields and between anthropology and our publics interested in theory, research, and the practical. For most of the twentieth century anthropology was marked by increasing specialization. Now there is a reassembling that is more inclusive of all humankind. There is a reconnection of the particular and the universal, the local and the global, nature and culture. Fragmentation and holism move us back and forth, yet an anthropological perspective on the new technologies affecting the nature of nature, the forms of globalization, the environment, and intellectual property requires the use of all the anthropologies. Each epistemology privileges different aspects of reality. Anthropology, among the first of the "new" sciences rather than the last of the "old," is exploring new ways to understand the human condition writ large, [nature, culture, holism, epistemologies, new mixes]