Metamorphoses of Anthropology: Issues and Perspectives of a Discipline in Search of Legitimacy

Abstract

In the third Millennium, humanity lives in a globalized world and this globalization is multidimentional : political, economic, financial, and communicational: But first and foremost, this globalization is cultural, in the sense that is restructured the social and cultural fundaments of human societies. In fact, in this context humanity is invited more than ever, to think and rethink its ways of cultural and social constructions.

   Consequently, anthropology is the only discipline among the social sciences capable to perform this difficult role of re-thinking. But it this discipline inertly opened towards rethinking its own strategies of knowledge construction? This paper is an essay on the nature of anthropology, and on some ideas of its possible renewal.