Identification is created both from the inside and the outside, in the encounter between one’s own presentation of self and the perceptions of others. - Thomas Hylland Eriksen

One reason for the increased interest in studies of identity in anthropology may be the fact that issues to do with the nature of groups have become hugely important in politics worldwide in the last decades.

In anthropological research, it is impossible to keep single variables constant. If one were to place a group of natives into an artificial, controlled situation, the resulting interaction would lose the very context that guarantees its authenticity, and the result would be useless. The closest anthropologists get to the methodological ideals of the experiment is therefore through comparison. One would then compare two or several societies with many similarities, but with one or a few striking differences.

Anthropology is an intellectually challenging, theoretically ambitious subject which tries to achieve an understanding of culture, society and humanity through detailed studies of local life, made sense of through comparison and contextualisation. But it is also a form of storytelling about the lives that you and I could have led, but didn’t because we were busy living our own lives.