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Conclusion
The brief concluding chapter reiterates the theoretical framework of the book and presents a brief overview of every chapter, highlighting the way chronologically and geographically diverse research subjects tie into the general approach the work utilizes. The author stresses the importance of the overarching goal of this collective work, to showcase the applicability of the concept of foundational principles of social organization in a wide range of historical contexts, from what can be called “traditionally ethnographic” societies to contemporary Western states. Special attention is given to the methodological range of the works presented in this volume, showing that the core concept combines effectively with a wide range of methodologies, from classic anthropological participatory observation to historical analysis and statistical methods. This highlights the inherently transdisciplinary nature of the theoretical concept initially established through borrowing the key notion of heterarchy from natural sciences, and expanded with significant influences from history, since the connection between anthropology and history was always prominent in the Russian anthropological tradition. Summarizing the results of the collective work, the author concludes that the theoretical framework used in the book has proven to be a useful tool for the study of social evolution from an institutionary perspective, which avoids strict categorization prevalent in other evolutionist approaches and allows the study of social complexity to be grounded in the actual empirical historic evidence rather than in preexisting notions of what forms of social organization should emerge in particular conditions. This establishes the concept of foundational principles of social organization one of the few existing theoretical frameworks to take into account the full diversity of social forms and social experiences which existed throughout history and exist today, studying or even acknowledging which has become an increasingly obvious challenge for anthropology and other related disciplines in recent years.
In book
