Introduction: Style among Visual Anthropologists

Abstract

The study of style has had a checkered past in the annals of anthropology. The 19th- and 20th-century prehistorians in Europe found it an essential conceptual tool, and the Boasians in North America contributed much to its understanding too. But after Tylor, British anthropology was unconcerned with material culture or with style, which is one minor aspect of it. Earlier German anthropology did not make a notable contribution on this subject either. French colleagues, on the other hand, from the time of Mauss onwards, have shown a steady effort to study material culture and its associated techniques, including the features of style in a wide variety of arts and crafts.

Notes

In contrast, 2,119 libraries have copies of the Colliers’ Visual Anthropology.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul Hockings

Paul Hockings is the editor of Visual Anthropology. He holds degrees in Anthropology and Archaeology from the Universities of Sydney, Toronto and California, and is currently Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Illinois.