Anthropology and nutrition: a perspective on two scientific subcultures

In the last several years serious collaborative efforts between nutrition scientists and anthropologists have begun to bear fruit. To encourage the development of such collaboration, it is useful to consider the professional scientific subcultures of each discipline and how these condition the ways in which we view research problems and methodology. Anthropologists and nutrition scientists share many values and assumptions by virtue of common membership in the larger culture and in the subculture of science. There are substantial differences, however, many of them rooted in the fact that anthropology is primarily an observational science while nutritional science has been primarily experimental in nature. Successful collaboration will result from the formation of long-term communicative relationships rather than from ad hoc utilization of the other discipline. We offer some suggestions for how this may occur, and submit that understanding our own professional subcultures is essential to interdisciplinary efforts.