The presentations: ‘The task of anthropology is to invent relations’.

The author proposes that the task of anthropology is to invent relations. He says that the suggestion that relations are always self-evident calls forth perplexed responses because it offends the folk-theory of anthropology. He explains invention as the negative opposite of discovery. He provides brief comments on the terms relations, invention and task. He also offers an example of indigenous categories brought to bear on anthropological thinking, as well as discusses how the anthropological concept of the concept works.