Going full frontal, or, the elision of lateral comparison in anthropology

In September 2015, I gave at the Sawyer Seminar The History of Cross-Cultural Comparatism: Modern doubts and new beginnings organised at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities. It focuses on the heuristic distinction between 'frontal' and 'lateral' modalities of comparison in anthropology. A french translation of the original paper, by Franck Lemonde, is forthcoming in L'Homme, issue 218. Read the pre-print (in English) here

A related piece entitled 'We have never been pluralist', which takes up parts of this discussion, but focuses specifically on the ontological turn, is forthcoming in an edited volume by Gildas Salmon, Pierre Charbonnier and Peter Skafish.

[Picture credit: Goldsmiths tools, Pforzheim Jewellery Museum, from  'Things Organised Neatly' http://thingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com/image/43989943323 ]