In Europe the social science program remained dominant, though it was revitalized by a new concern with social history. Some European social scientists became leaders of social thought, among them Pierre Bourdieu, Mary Douglas, Louis Dumont, Ernest Gellner, and Claude Lévi-Strauss. Elsewhere, particularly in some formerly colonial countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, local traditions of anthropology established themselves. While anthropologists in these countries were responsive to theoretical developments in the traditional centres of the discipline, they were also open to other intellectual currents, because they were typically engaged in debates with specialists from other fields about developments in their own countries.
Empirical research flourished despite the theoretical diversity. Long-term fieldwork was now commonly backed up by historical investigations, and ethnography came to be regarded by many practitioners as the core activity of social and cultural anthropology. In the second half of the 20th century, the ethnographic focus of anthropologists changed decisively. The initial focus had been on “primitive” peoples. Later, ethnographers specialized in the study of Third World societies, including the complex villages and towns of Asia. From the 1970s fieldwork began increasingly to be carried out in European societies and among ethnic minorities, church communities, and other groups in the United States. In the formerly colonized societies, local anthropologists began to dominate ethnographic research, and community leaders increasingly insisted on controlling the agenda of field-workers.
The liveliest intellectual developments were perhaps to be found beyond the mainstream. Fresh specializations emerged, notably the anthropology of women in the 1970s and, in the following decades, medical anthropology, psychological anthropology, visual anthropology, the anthropology of music and dance, and demographic anthropology. The anthropology of the 21st century is polycentric and cosmopolitan, and it is not entirely at home among the biological or social sciences or in the humanities.