Founded in 1960 by Claude Lévi-Strauss, then Professor of Social Anthropology at the Collège de France, the Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale has always had a generalist vocation, covering all the major themes of ethnology and social anthropology. Its research covers most regions of the globe, including Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, South and North America, Australia, Oceania and India.
The laboratory is managed by Andrea-Luz Gutierrez-Choquevilca, Julien Bonhomme and Florence Brunois.
The laboratory reports to three institutions: Collège de France, CNRS (UMR 7130) and EHESS. It has around fifty permanent members, researchers and teacher-researchers, as well as around a hundred students preparing a thesis under their supervision.
The unit provides the scientific community with research and distribution tools. It houses the editorial structures of two EHESS journals (L'Homme and Études rurales), as well as a collection published by Editions de l'Herne entitled Cahiers d'Anthropologie Sociale. The Anthropology Laboratory offers its readers a documentation center comprising a research library specialized in ethnology and a comparative studies documentation center (Human Relations Area Files - HRAF).
An in-house seminar is held on the second Wednesday of each month to discuss the work of the laboratory's researchers and doctoral students.
Caption for illustration: Warrior shaman carrying a trophy head. Embroidered textile fragment in cotton and alpaca fibers from the Paracas culture (300 BC-200BC). National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History of Peru, Lima, Peru (photo: Andrea-Luz Gutierrez-Choquevilca).