What is the difference between Cultural Anthropology and Social Anthropology?

Question

What is the difference between Cultural Anthropology and Social Anthropology?

Answer 1

Honestly, I don't think there is one....it's kinda like asking the difference between physical and biological anthro =)

Answer 2

The difference is largely one of style and is related to the history of the discipline.  European scholars tend to call what they do "Social Anthropology" while Americans and American anthropology-influenced scholars tend to use "Cultural Anthropology."

Originally, the cultural approach problematized culture - sets of beliefs, language, lifeways, human ecology, etc.  And the social approach problematized society - a somewhat more inclusive and tangible scope.  

the cultural approach is identified with Boas and his students, who developed the almost uniquely American "Four Field" approach, of which Cultural Anthro was one of the fields.  The idea of culture was borrowed, in part, to ideologically permit partition of what cultural anthropologists did from the study areas of biological anthropology, archaeology, and linguistic anthropology. As the four fields naturally diverged through the 20th century, the attachment to "culture" became more and more entrenched.  While this was happening social anthropologists went on about their business in Europe and became more powerfully associated with what Americans tend to call sociology, Marxian theory, and political economy.  

Within the last 30 years, however, Social and Cultural have been on the path of convergence.  Difficult to predict, given the theoretical kaleidoscopes of these fields, whether the difference will ever be fully dissolved.