Comparative Methods in Anthropology

博格霍夫·穆尔这项研究将通过开发和应用涉及同步(跨社会变化)和历时(随时间变化)变化的新方法来推进人类学中的比较方法。使用网络自相关矩阵分析来控制“高尔顿问题”(相邻社会的独立性)，该项目将开发方法，利用历史和当代的人种学信息来检查特征组合如何相互变化；评估这些方法与其他共时方法和比较历史社会学中新发展的方法的关系；并利用比较数据将这些方法应用于检验假设。该项目将使用东非过去100年的人种学文献(35个社会的120个变量的编码)来测试一组关于跨文化变异性的假设(主要关注婚姻和新娘财富)，然后致力于在网上向其他对类似研究感兴趣的人提供用户友好的计算机程序。这项研究将增进我们对东非社会的了解，有助于将跨文化比较研究重新确立为人类学的中心部分，并将有助于将定性和定量研究传统联系起来。

0132927Borgerhoff MulderThis research will advance the comparative method in anthropology through development and application of new methods involving synchronic (variation across societies) and diachronic (variation across time) change. Using network autocorrelation matrix analyses to control for "Galton's Problem" (the independence of adjacent societies), the project will develop methods that examine how suites of characteristics covary using historical and present-day ethnographic information; evaluate these methods in relation both to other synchronic methods and to newly developed approaches in comparative historical sociology; and apply these methods to test hypotheses using comparative data. The project will test a set of hypotheses (mainly focusing on marriage and bridewealth) about cross-cultural variability using the ethnographic literature (codings of 120 variables for 35 societies) from East Africa over the past 100 years, and then work towards making user-friendly computer programs available on the web to others interested in similar research endeavors. This research will advance our knowledge of East African societies, will help re-establish comparative cross-cultural research as a central part of anthropology, and will help link qualitative and quantitative research traditions.