Ethnology as a play: a comparison of two schools of thought at the turn of the century.

The methods and theories of science are in a state of constant flux. With the perimeters of science changing so does the subject of inquiry. Ethnology, a relatively young science underwent a drastic change at the turn of the century as unillineal evolutionism of the preceding century became obsolete and gave away to diffusionism. In this paper I want to outline briefly the development of two institutes of cultural anthropology--at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Vienna--at the turn of the century. It is not surprising that synchronous with this paradigmatic shift in ethnological inquiry the two institutes examined here found themselves in a time of great social as well as cultural upheaval. I took on the task of writing a kind of meta-ethnology, an inquiry into the socio-political and cultural forces that shape a scientific dogma, which in turn can and did change society. For my reader's as well as for my own benefit I used the metaphor of a "play" in describing such a complex process.