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Armchair theorizing

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Armchair theory is an approach to providing new developments in a field that does not involve analysis of empirical (real-world) data. The term is typically pejorative, implying such scholarship is weak, frivolous, and disconnected from reality.[1]

Armchair scholarship is often contrasted with the scientific method, which involves the active investigation of nature through data collection or testing and developing rigorous mathematical models. Anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski was a major critic whose views are often summarized in the saying "[come] off the verandah", encouraging fieldwork and participant observation.[2]: 10–13 [3]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ See, for example, Nadel (1956:173), who defines armchair anthropology.
  2. ^ Boon, James A. (1982), Other Tribes, Other Scribes: Symbolic Anthropology in the Comparative Study of Cultures, Histories, Religions and Texts, CUP Archive, ISBN 978-0-521-27197-4
  3. ^ Gioia, Dennis A. (1 April 1999), "Practicability, Paradigms, and Problems in Stakeholder Theorizing", Academy of Management Review, 24 (2): 228–232, doi:10.5465/amr.1999.1893931, ISSN 0363-7425

References

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  • Ingold, Tim (2007), "Anthropology is not ethnography", Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 154, pp. 69–92
  • Nadel, S.F. (1956), "Understanding primitive peoples", Oceania, 26 (3): 159–173, doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1956.tb00676.x
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