在人類學研究和分析的一個正在成長的趨勢，是多田野地點的民族誌研究，在George Marcus的文章《世界體系之中/的民族誌：多田野地點民族誌的興起》（"Ethnography In/Of the World System: the Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography"）有所討論。將文化視為嵌合在一個全球社會秩序的宏觀建構之中，多田野地點的民族誌研究方法在空間上與時間上，將傳統的研究方法運用於不同地點。透過這種研究方法，當我們檢視世界體系對地方社群與全球社群的影響時，能得到更好的瞭解。
1980年代以後，權力的議題，如艾瑞克·沃爾夫在《歐洲與沒有歷史的人》檢視的那些題目，已經是這個學科的核心。1980年代的著作，像是《人類學與殖民遭遇》（Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter），反思人類學與殖民不平等的連結，在此同時極受歡迎的理論家如安東尼奧·葛蘭西與米歇爾·傅柯，將權力與霸權的議題推向矚目焦點。性別與性慾成為受歡迎的議題，這兩者宛如歷史與人類學之間的關係，受到馬歇爾·薩林斯影響，他援引克勞德·李維史陀與費爾南·布勞岱爾的作品，以檢視象徵意義、社會文化結構與個人行動者在歷史轉變過程當中，彼此之間的關係。珍與約翰·康莫洛夫在芝加哥大學培養一整個世代的人類學家聚焦這些議題。同樣在這議題有影響力的人包括尼采、海德格，以及法蘭克福學派、德希達與雅各·拉岡的批判理論。[17]
Ethnography dominates socio-cultural anthropology. Nevertheless, many contemporary socio-cultural anthropologists have rejected earlier models of ethnography as treating local cultures as bounded and isolated. These anthropologists continue to concern themselves with the distinct ways people in different locales experience and understand their lives, but they often argue that one cannot understand these particular ways of life solely from a local perspective; they instead combine a focus on the local with an effort to grasp larger political, economic, and cultural frameworks that impact local lived realities. Notable proponents of this approach include Arjun Appadurai, James Clifford, George Marcus, Sidney Mintz, Michael Taussig, Eric Wolf and Ronald Daus.
A growing trend in anthropological research and analysis is the use of multi-sited ethnography, discussed in George Marcus' article, "Ethnography In/Of the World System: the Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography". Looking at culture as embedded in macro-constructions of a global social order, multi-sited ethnography uses traditional methodology in various locations both spatially and temporally. Through this methodology, greater insight can be gained when examining the impact of world-systems on local and global communities.
Also emerging in multi-sited ethnography are greater interdisciplinary approaches to fieldwork, bringing in methods from cultural studies, media studies, science and technology studies, and others. In multi-sited ethnography, research tracks a subject across spatial and temporal boundaries. For example, a multi-sited ethnography may follow a "thing," such as a particular commodity, as it is transported through the networks of global capitalism.
Multi-sited ethnography may also follow ethnic groups in diaspora, stories or rumours that appear in multiple locations and in multiple time periods, metaphors that appear in multiple ethnographic locations, or the biographies of individual people or groups as they move through space and time. It may also follow conflicts that transcend boundaries. An example of multi-sited ethnography is Nancy Scheper-Hughes' work on the international black market for the trade of human organs. In this research, she follows organs as they are transferred through various legal and illegal networks of capitalism, as well as the rumours and urban legends that circulate in impoverished communities about child kidnapping and organ theft.
Sociocultural anthropologists have increasingly turned their investigative eye on to "Western" culture. For example, Philippe Bourgois won the Margaret Mead Award in 1997 for In Search of Respect, a study of the entrepreneurs in a Harlem crack-den. Also growing more popular are ethnographies of professional communities, such as laboratory researchers, Wall Street investors, law firms, or information technology (IT) computer employees.[30]
^ Rosaldo, Renato.Culture and Truth. 1993. Beach Press.
^Campbell, D.T.（1983）The two distinct routes beyond kin selection to ultrasociality: Implications for the Humanities and Social Sciences. In: The Nature of Prosocial Development: Theories and Strategies D. Bridgeman（ed.）, pp. 11-39, Academic Press, New York
^Magolda, Peter M. The Campus Tour: Ritual and Community in Higher Education. Anthropology & Education Quarterly. March 2000, 31: 24–46. doi:10.1525/aeq.2000.31.1.24.
^Carsten, Janet. After Kinship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2004: 18–20.
^Clifford, James and George E. Marcus (1986) Writing culture: the poetics and politics of ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press.
^Dolores Janiewski, Lois W. Banner (2005) Reading Benedict / Reading Mead: Feminism, Race, and Imperial Visions, p.200 （页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆） quotation:
Within anthropology's "two cultures"—the positivist/objectivist style of comparative anthropology versus a reflexive/interpretative anthropology—Mead has been characterized as a "humanist" heir to Franz Boas's historical particularism—hence, associated with the practices of interpretation and reflexivity [...]
^Gellner, Ernest (1992) Postmodernism, Reason, and Religion. London/New York: Routledge. pp. 26–50
^DeWalt, K. M., DeWalt, B. R., & Wayland, C. B. (1998). "Participant observation." In H. R. Bernard (Ed.), Handbook of methods in cultural anthropology. pp. 259–99. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
^Tierney, Gerry. Becoming a Participant Observer. Angrosino, Michael (编). Doing Cultural Anthropology: Projects for Ethnographic Data Collection. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. 2007.
^Swick Perry, Helen. Using Participant Observation to Construct a Life History. Berg, David (编). The Self in Social Inquiry. Kenwyn Smith. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. 1988.
^ 28.028.1Price, Laurie J. Carrying Out a Structured Observation. Angrosino, Michael (编). Doing Cultural Anthropology: Projects for Ethnographic Data Collection. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. 2007.
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