Mathematical Anthropology
- LAST REVIEWED: 24 April 2019
- LAST MODIFIED: 24 April 2019
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199766567-0215
- LAST REVIEWED: 24 April 2019
- LAST MODIFIED: 24 April 2019
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199766567-0215
Introduction
Mathematical anthropology has as its raison d’être formally expressing models, ideas, and concepts developed by anthropologists so as to extend our understanding of human societies. When addressing cultural systems, the mathematical content of mathematical anthropology depends on which of two possible ways culture is understood to be constituted. One way considers culture to consist mainly of socially learned and transmitted behaviors, and the other way considers culture to be composed of shared idea systems that provide the framework through which behavior is formulated and articulated. The first way leads to statistical modeling of behavior patterns measured over an aggregate and to quantitative and descriptive accounts of cultural system revealed through patterns of behavior. The second way involves mathematical representations aimed at working out the structural organization and generative logic of cultural idea systems. Mathematical anthropology, as it is considered here, relates to culture in this latter sense, and thus involves using mathematical representations as a way to express and work out the structural implications of the concepts forming the cultural idea systems making up the cultural milieu of a group.
Journals
There is a single journal, Mathematical Anthropology and Culture Theory, devoted to mathematical anthropology. Articles relating to mathematical anthropology are occasionally published in journals with a broad approach to anthropology such as Current Anthropology and the American Anthropologist, though articles relating to mathematical anthropology have not been published in the latter journal for the past several years. L’Homme, the French equivalent of the American Anthropologist, occasionally publishes article related to mathematical anthropology. The Journal of Mathematical Sociology, though focusing more on articles relating to sociology, also includes articles relating to anthropology.
American Anthropologist. 1888–.
This is the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association. It is peer-reviewed, publishes in all four disciplinary subfields, and occasionally includes an article relevant to mathematical anthropology, though less so in recent years.
Current Anthropology. 1955–.
This is a peer-reviewed journal published by the University of Chicago Press and organized by the Wenner Gren Foundation. It actively accepts articles linked to all areas of anthropology and includes articles relevant to mathematical anthropology.
Journal of Mathematical Sociology. 1971–.
This is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes in all areas of mathematical sociology. The focus is on the use of mathematical models, the logic of measurement, computers and computer programming, applied mathematics, statistics, or quantitative methodology.
L’Homme. 1961–.
This is a peer-reviewed journal with articles in French and English. It actively accepts articles linked to all areas of anthropology and includes articles relevant to mathematical anthropology.
Mathematical Anthropology and Culture Theory. 2003–.
This is an online, peer-reviewed journal devoted to the scientific study of culture, with a focus on mathematical anthropology and culture theory. It publishes papers applying the ideas of algebras, logics, lattices, “finite methods,” combinatorics, or similar techniques to culture theory.
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Article
- Africa, Anthropology of
- Aging
- Agriculture
- Animal Cultures
- Animal Ritual
- Animal Sanctuaries
- Anorexia Nervosa
- Anthropocene, The
- Anthropological Activism and Visual Ethnography
- Anthropology and Education
- Anthropology and Theology
- Anthropology of Islam
- Anthropology of Kurdistan
- Anthropology of the Senses
- Anthrozoology
- Antiquity, Ethnography in
- Applied Anthropology
- Archaeobotany
- Archaeological Education
- Archaeologies of Sexuality
- Archaeology
- Archaeology and Museums
- Archaeology and Political Evolution
- Archaeology and Race
- Archaeology and the Body
- Archaeology, Gender and
- Archaeology, Global
- Archaeology, Historical
- Archaeology, Indigenous
- Archaeology of Childhood
- Archaeology of the Senses
- Archives
- Art Museums
- Art/Aesthetics
- Autoethnography
- Bakhtin, Mikhail
- Bass, William M.
- Beauty
- Belief
- Benedict, Ruth
- Binford, Lewis
- Bioarchaeology
- Biocultural Anthropology
- Bioethics
- Biological and Physical Anthropology
- Biological Citizenship
- Boas, Franz
- Bone Histology
- Bureaucracy
- Business Anthropology
- Cancer
- Capitalism
- Cargo Cults
- Caribbean
- Caste
- Charles Sanders Peirce and Anthropological Theory
- Childhood Studies
- Christianity, Anthropology of
- Citizenship
- Class, Archaeology and
- Clinical Trials
- Cobb, William Montague
- Code-switching and Multilingualism
- Cognitive Anthropology
- Cole, Johnnetta
- Colonialism
- Commodities
- Consumerism
- Crapanzano, Vincent
- Cultural Heritage Presentation and Interpretation
- Cultural Heritage, Race and
- Cultural Materialism
- Cultural Relativism
- Cultural Resource Management
- Culture
- Culture and Personality
- Culture, Popular
- Curatorship
- Cyber-Archaeology
- Dalit Studies
- Dance Ethnography
- de Heusch, Luc
- Deaccessioning
- Design
- Design, Anthropology and
- Diaspora
- Digital Anthropology
- Disability and Deaf Studies and Anthropology
- Douglas, Mary
- Drake, St. Clair
- Dreaming
- Durkheim and the Anthropology of Religion
- Economic Anthropology
- Embodied/Virtual Environments
- Embodiment
- Emotion, Anthropology of
- Environmental Anthropology
- Environmental Justice and Indigeneity
- Ethics
- Ethnoarchaeology
- Ethnocentrism
- Ethnographic Documentary Production
- Ethnographic Films from Iran
- Ethnography
- Ethnography Apps and Games
- Ethnohistory and Historical Ethnography
- Ethnomusicology
- Ethnoscience
- Europe
- Evans-Pritchard, E. E.
- Evolution, Cultural
- Evolutionary Cognitive Archaeology
- Evolutionary Theory
- Experimental Archaeology
- Federal Indian Law
- Feminist Anthropology
- Film, Ethnographic
- Folklore
- Food
- Forensic Anthropology
- Francophonie
- Frazer, Sir James George
- Geertz, Clifford
- Gender
- Gender and Religion
- Gene Flow
- Genetics
- Genocide
- GIS and Archaeology
- Global Health
- Globalization
- Gluckman, Max
- Graphic Anthropology
- Grass
- Haraway, Donna
- Healing and Religion
- Health and Social Stratification
- Health Policy, Anthropology of
- Health, Race and
- Heritage Language
- HIV/AIDS
- House Museums
- Human Adaptability
- Human Evolution
- Human Rights
- Human Rights Films
- Humanistic Anthropology
- Hurston, Zora Neale
- Identity
- Identity Politics
- India, Masculinity, Identity
- Indigeneity
- Indigenous Boarding School Experiences
- Indigenous Economic Development
- Indigenous Media: Currents of Engagement
- Industrial Archaeology
- Institutions
- Interpretive Anthropology
- Intertextuality and Interdiscursivity
- Kinship
- Laboratories
- Landscape Archaeology
- Language and Emotion
- Language and Law
- Language and Media
- Language and Race
- Language and Urban Place
- Language Contact and its Sociocultural Contexts, Anthropol...
- Language Ideology
- Language Socialization
- Leakey, Louis
- Legal Anthropology
- Legal Pluralism
- Levantine Archaeology
- Liberalism, Anthropology of
- Linguistic Anthropology
- Linguistic Relativity
- Linguistics, Historical
- Literacy
- Literary Anthropology
- Local Biologies
- Lévi-Strauss, Claude
- Magic
- Malinowski, Bronisław
- Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, and Visual Anthropology
- Maritime Archaeology
- Marriage
- Material Culture
- Materiality
- Mathematical Anthropology
- Matriarchal Studies
- Mead, Margaret
- Media Anthropology
- Medical Activism
- Medical Anthropology
- Medical Technology and Technique
- Mediterranean
- Memory
- Mendel, Gregor
- Mental Health and Illness
- Mesoamerican Archaeology
- Mexican Migration to the United States
- Migration
- Militarism, Anthropology and
- Missionization
- Mobility
- Modernity
- Morgan, Lewis Henry
- Multimodal Ethnography
- Multispecies Ethnography
- Museum Anthropology
- Museum Education
- Museum Studies
- Myth
- NAGPRA and Repatriation of Native American Human Remains a...
- Narrative in Sociocultural Studies of Language
- Nationalism
- Needham, Rodney
- Neoliberalism
- NGOs, Anthropology of
- Niche Construction
- Northwest Coast, The
- Oceania, Archaeology of
- Paleolithic Art
- Paleontology
- Performance Studies
- Performativity
- Personhood
- Perspectivism
- Philosophy of Museums
- Pilgrimage
- Plantations
- Political Anthropology
- Postprocessual Archaeology
- Postsocialism
- Poverty, Culture of
- Primatology
- Primitivism and Race in Ethnographic Film: A Decolonial Re...
- Processual Archaeology
- Psycholinguistics
- Psychological Anthropology
- Public Archaeology
- Public Sociocultural Anthropologies
- Race
- Religion
- Religion and Post-Socialism
- Religious Conversion
- Repatriation
- Reproductive and Maternal Health in Anthropology
- Reproductive Technologies
- Rhetoric Culture Theory
- Rural Anthropology
- Sahlins, Marshall
- Sapir, Edward
- Scandinavia
- Science Studies
- Secularization
- Semiotics
- Settler Colonialism
- Sex Estimation
- Sexuality
- Shamanism
- Sign Language
- Skeletal Age Estimation
- Social Anthropology (British Tradition)
- Social Movements
- Socialization
- Society for Visual Anthropology, History of
- Socio-Cultural Approaches to the Anthropology of Reproduct...
- Sociolinguistics
- Sound Ethnography
- Space and Place
- Stable Isotopes
- Stan Brakhage and Ethnographic Praxis
- Structuralism
- Studying Up
- Sub-Saharan Africa, Democracy in
- Surrealism and Anthropology
- Technological Organization
- Tourism
- Trans Studies in Anthroplogy
- Transhumance
- Transnationalism
- Tree-Ring Dating
- Turner, Edith L. B.
- Turner, Victor
- University Museums
- Urban Anthropology
- Value
- Violence
- Virtual Ethnography
- Visual Anthropology
- Whorfian Hypothesis
- Willey, Gordon
- Witchcraft
- Wolf, Eric R.
- Writing Culture
- Youth Culture
- Zoonosis
- Zora Neale Hurston and Visual Anthropology