3 Quotes by Matthew Engelke

In order to get a holistic explanation, anthropology often has to upend common sense and question what gets taken for granted. Anthropology prompts us to reconsider not only what we think we know - what it means to be affluent, why blood matters, what constitutes reason - but also the terms by which we know it.

For most people, in most times and places, the boundaries between nature and culture are blurry at best, if they exist at all. And in many places they are not in play.

Difference for difference's sake, though, is not the point of anthropology. If it was, we would indeed be dazzled, even blinded. While anthropology wants to document difference - and often be a witness to it - it also wants to make sense of those differences. Anthropology seeks to explain.