Cultural Anthropology

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Anthropology is the holistic and scientific study of humanity. Cultural Anthropology focuses on the study of contemporary human cultures, their beliefs, myths, values, practices, technologies, economies and other domains of social and cognitive organization. The detailed descriptions of culture, or ethnography, are based upon a methodology of primary data collection through participant observation with living human populations.

This textbook aims to provide an introduction to the field of cultural anthropology. The initial chapters introduce the concept of culture and review the historical, theoretical and methodological influences on the field. Chapters four through twelve discuss the major domains of the study of culture; symbolism, communication, ritual, production, healing, rights, reproduction, kinship, conflict and globalization. These chapters provide ethnographic examples (both etic and emic perspectives) and case studies to support the central concepts in each chapter. Additional case studies are available via the Anthrobase website and others can be developed in wikibook format and integrated through links in this book.


Part of the Social Sciences Bookshelf

Table of Contents

Grape workers.jpg
Chapters:
  1. Introduction to Anthropology and Culture Development stage: 75% (as of Mar 12, 2009)
  2. History of Anthropological Theory Development stage: 50% (as of Mar 12, 2009)
  3. Anthropological Methods Development stage: 75% (as of Mar 12, 2009)
  4. Communication and Language Development stage: 100% (as of Mar 12, 2009)
  5. Play, Sport and Arts Development stage: 25% (as of Mar 12, 2009)
  6. Ritual and Religion Development stage: 100% (as of Mar 12, 2009)
  7. Production, Inequality and Development Development stage: 75% (as of Mar 12, 2009)
  8. Health and Healing Development stage: 75% (as of Mar 12, 2009)
  9. Human Rights Development stage: 75% (as of Mar 12, 2009)
  10. Marriage, Reproduction and Kinship Development stage: 75% (as of Mar 12, 2009)
  11. Social Stratification, Power and Conflict Development stage: 75% (as of Mar 12, 2009)
  12. Globalization and Migration Development stage: 50% (as of Mar 12, 2009)
  • Ethnographic Case Studies
    • Anthrobase is an online searchable, open source database of full text ethnographies. Nearly 100 of them are in English [1]

Print Version

Download the entire book as a PDF File. This can be done in two ways, you can either right click on the link "PDF File Edition 1.0" and choose "Save target as", this saves the PDF on your computer for viewing at any time; alternatively left click on the link: PDF File Edition 1.0.

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To Do

General Tasks

  1. Repair and reformat references using <ref>Citation</ref> intext citation format and insert =References= {{reflist}} at bottom of each chapter
  2. Divide and move # Production, Inequality and Development Development chapter into 'Chapter on Production and inequality' and 'Chapter on development (ch 12?)
  3. Edit and improve quality of chapter content.
  4. Create PDF

Chapter specific tasks, revisions and needed additional content

Ritual & Religion Chapter

  1. Clean up and shorten table of contents
  2. Re-write priest & priestess section
  3. possible deletion of "Vaschnavism"
  4. Re-write lengthy Judaism and Christianity sections
  5. Clarify "Cargo Cult"
  6. Clarify "African Religions"
  7. Possible shortening of "Pastafarian" section
  8. Move "Additional-Information-Taiwanese People and Culture" to more appropriate place

Social groups chapter

  1. Black and White Relations- I want to see how other races in other countries deal with each other.
  2. Integrate content or links to An introduction to antiracist activism for teachers and students


Health, Healing & Human Rights Chapter

  1. Move "Cultural imperialism" chapter to globalization chapter

Globalization & Migration Chapter

  1. Clarify on "How Globalization Affects the Five Modes of Production" -more critical thought needed
  2. Clarify on section "Globalization of Hip-Hop"
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