What is it about?
Anthropological accounts need both thick and thin descriptons, not just thick ones. Peter Galison's idea of a 'trading zone' works well to summarize the complex interplay of different accounts. Ways can be found of working together without having to share meanings or ontologies. An example from the history of Mambila religion provides an ethnographic instance.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
This provides a theroetical argument for ecleticism that promotes ways of using multiple approaches. This won the 2023 Curl Prize Essay.
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Trading Zones Between Thick and Thin: Anthropological Description as Scaffold or Mosaic, American Anthropologist, January 2026, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/aman.70056.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
