Defining what anthropology really is sometimes feels like chasing soap in the bath. We all know we are shaped by cultural patterns we inherit from our surroundings. But we rarely know what determines that “culture” or how to discuss cultural difference – least of all in a world where diversity issues now generate so much political heat. Just to add to the challenge, the branch of social science that studies human cultures, called social anthropology, has a contradictory past: although it champions diversity today, it has a racist, imperial past that modern anthropologists disown.
But while culture is hard to define, nobody can ignore it – certainly not in a