“The world is far too complex, and variation between societal types is too vast, for a categorisation dividing it into two mutually exclusive kinds of society to be meaningful. In addition, as argued above, one cannot once and for all draw the boundaries of a society. For this reason, it is more accurate to state that anthropologists study social life rather than saying that they study societies.”

Source: What is Anthropology? (2nd ed., 2017), Ch. 2 : Key Concepts

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Thomas Hylland Eriksen 18
Norwegian social anthropologist and professor 1962

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