The necessary research is to disentangle the two terms doesn't seem to have been done. As someone who as part of my tertiary education I have done courses in anthropology, the differences between anthropology and sociology are apparent. There is definitely some overlap between the two fields, so it is inevitable there will be overlap between the tags. This is the result of the reality of their overlap.
The fact that there are so few questions tagged with "anthropology" displays a lack of awareness of the field and especially its relevance to worldbuilding. SF authors like Chad Oliver and Ursula K Le Guin employed anthropological themes in their science-fiction. There is a rich intellectual lode to be mined by science-fiction writers in their worldbuilding. We should see more of it. Certainly it is an excellent idea to have an anthropology tag.
Anthropology is a global discipline involving humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. Anthropology builds upon knowledge from
natural sciences, including the discoveries about the origin and
evolution of Homo sapiens, human physical traits, human behavior, the
variations among different groups of humans, how the evolutionary past
of Homo sapiens has influenced its social organization and culture,
and from social sciences, including the organization of human social
and cultural relations, institutions, social conflicts, etc.[24][25]
Early anthropology originated in Classical Greece and Persia and
studied and tried to understand observable cultural diversity.[26][27]
As such, anthropology has been central in the development of several
new (late 20th century) interdisciplinary fields such as cognitive
science,[28] global studies, and various ethnic studies.
According to Clifford Geertz,
"anthropology is perhaps the last of the great nineteenth-century conglomerate disciplines still for the most part organizationally
intact. Long after natural history, moral philosophy, philology, and
political economy have dissolved into their specialized successors, it
has remained a diffuse assemblage of ethnology, human biology,
comparative linguistics, and prehistory, held together mainly by the
vested interests, sunk costs, and administrative habits of academia,
and by a romantic image of comprehensive scholarship."
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of various aspects of humans within past and present societies.15 Social anthropology and cultural
anthropology15 study the norms and values of societies.
Linguistic anthropology studies how language affects social life.
Biological or physical anthropology15 studies the biological
development of humans.
Archaeology, which studies past human cultures through investigation
of physical evidence, is thought of as a branch of anthropology in the
United States,5 while in Europe, it is viewed as a discipline in its
own right, or grouped under other related disciplines such as history.
Sociology
Sociology is the study of social behaviour or society, including its origins, development, organization, networks, and
institutions.135 It is a social science that uses various
methods of empirical investigation[6] and critical analysis[7] to
develop a body of knowledge about social order, disorder, and change.
Many sociologists aim to conduct research that may be applied directly
to social policy and welfare, while others focus primarily on refining
the theoretical understanding of social processes. Subject matter
ranges from the micro-sociology level of individual agency and
interaction to the macro level of systems and the social structure.[8]
The traditional focuses of sociology include social stratification,
social class, social mobility, religion, secularization, law,
sexuality and deviance. As all spheres of human activity are affected
by the interplay between social structure and individual agency,
sociology has gradually expanded its focus to further subjects, such
as health, medical, military and penal institutions, the Internet,
education, social capital and the role of social activity in the
development of scientific knowledge.
The range of social scientific methods has also expanded. Social
researchers draw upon a variety of qualitative and quantitative
techniques. The linguistic and cultural turns of the mid-twentieth
century led to increasingly interpretative, hermeneutic, and
philosophic approaches towards the analysis of society. Conversely,
the end of the 1990s and the beginning of 2000s have seen the rise of
new analytically, mathematically and computationally rigorous
techniques, such as agent-based modelling and social network
analysis.[9][10]
Social research informs politicians and policy makers, educators,
planners, legislators, administrators, developers, business magnates,
managers, social workers, non-governmental organizations, non-profit
organizations, and people interested in resolving social issues in
general. There is often a great deal of crossover between social
research, market research, and other statistical fields.
By now, the differences between sociology and anthropology should be apparent.
A number of discussions about tags remind me of this story. Remember do the research and if you're not sure make inquiries to clarify the subjects related to the tags.
