Subdiscipline I: Political structure

Finally here comes the first subdiscipline of Ethnology. The political structure is the organisation of a society, for example if it has a government of not and how the government looks like. There are different political systems like bands, tribes or kingdoms. Beside the question of how power is organised you can ask about how power is attained. Max Weber, a German sociologist, said that there are three different forms of governments: In the first one you attain power through legal procedures like voting, in the second one through tradition, meaning the heir will be the king’s son, and in the third one through charisma.

May 4, 2020

Subdisciplines of Ethnology

As an Ethnologist you pick a region where you want to do your research (that can be all over the world, even in your home country), and a topic on which your research is about. This topics can be summarised to subdisciplines of Ethnology, for example political structures, medicine or religion.

Apr 20, 2020

Ethnological theories and their origins

Ethnology, also known as Social anthropology is a discipline with a lot of twists and turns in the past 200 years. Ethnologists came up with new theories, some approved and even enhanced them and on the other hand, others disapproved them. I’d like to give you an overview of the most important theories and tell you where they come from.

Apr 7, 2020

A Brief History of Ethnology

You think, Ethnology is something new? Far wrong. Although it hasn’t been institutionalised until the end of the 19th century and still is a small chair, the interest in other societies existed long before and people always wrote about other cultures. How ethnology has developed, you can find out here.

Mar 28, 2020

Katching Up With Ethnology

When I told my friends and family that I’m going to study Ethnology, everyone was like: “Oh nice. Sounds great. But… what is Ethnology exactly?” I don’t blame them for this reaction, I didn’t know what Ethnology is either before I discovered it on the university website. Ethnology isn’t present in peoples heads, although our behaviour is closely related with it. Ethnology isn’t present in the public, although we are confronted with it in everydays life. And Ethnology isn’t present in politics, although it is very important in the globalised world we’re living in.

So, what is Ethnology? With this blog, I’d like to bring Ethnology closer to the people. And in this first blogpost, I’d like to give a first impression of it.