French Anthropology, Ethnology of France and the Contemporary Turn

This chapter outlines some of the main characteristics of contemporary French anthropology, focusing initially on the institutional framework, the most important museums and the relationship with other social sciences, as well as on the main theoretical nodes, research methods and new fields of investigation. The author’s attention then shifts to the main ethnological approach that has developed in France over the last three decades. It is a new turn, aimed at establishing an autonomous space of investigation with its own unique nature vis-à-vis the so-called exotic anthropology and other fields of knowledge, placed within the general framework of efforts to critically and radically rethink anthropology. The chapter thus discusses some of the distinctive traits of such a “return to the home of anthropology”, focusing in particular on innovative paths taken by the studies on urban contexts, gender, generations, rituals, material culture, and bourgeois and popular universes.