Professional Socio-Anthropology in France: Transferable Knowledge Thanks to the Constraint of the Diversity of Business Demands

Abstract

In the 19th century and until the 1960s, French professional anthropology was mainly used to better understand the functioning of colonial societies. From the 1970s onwards, some anthropologists began to enter into immigrant circles in French cities and in the poorest social classes. Around the 1990s, professional anthropology was extended to the world of business, consumption and innovation. Today, French professional anthropologists conduct surveys on the lifestyles of the poor as well as the most privileged middle classes, in urban and rural areas, in France and abroad, in companies, administrations and NGOs. At the time of conducting a survey, there is no major difference between an academic approach and a professional approach. The difference is that professional anthropology operates mainly on demand and therefore does not choose its fields. This leads the professional anthropologist to acquire great intellectual mobility and not to specialise in a single field, as is often the case in the academic world.