“Most” Maksa Glakmena: soediniaia antropologicheskie traditsii

Abstract

Max Gluckman’s essay Analysis of a Social Situation in Zululand, also known as The Bridge Paper, is examined in the article from the viewpoint of the “non-human” element that is employed in Gluckman’s extended case method. The essay describes the ceremonial opening of the bridge which led to an episode of the encounter between the Europeans and the locals. The situational analysis of that encounter was an important methodological accomplishment in British social anthropology. Gluckman introduced the method for capturing key aspects in the complex development of South African society, questioning the disciplinary identity of anthropology as a science studying closed and isolated communities.