Abstract

In this paper the author examines the anthropology of law and the legal anthropology as two different kinds of normative studies. The first one was born in the USA in the thirties with the research team of Hoebel and Llewellyn, whereas the second one was born after 1950 and stemmed from the experience of some American lawyers in an African context. The anthropology of law is concerned with explaining the basic concepts of Lawcentered studies. By contrast, legal anthropology focuses on the disputes and the corresponding processing of such disputes as alternatives to law (such studies are usually called «order-and-dispute studies»).