INTRODUCTION TO

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
 WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?
• Literally, “Anthropos” = human in Greek + “Logos” = science in Greek. Anthropology, thus,
is the holistic study of humans.
• “The study of anthropology is concerned both with the biological features that make us
human (such as physiology, genetic makeup, nutritional history and evolution) and with
social aspects (such as language, culture, politics, family and religion). Anthropology is the
study of people throughout the world, their evolutionary history, how they behave, adapt to
different environments, communicate and socialise with one another. ”
 THE FOUR SUBFIELDS OF ANTHRO
• Physical anthropology
• Studies human evolution, genetics, adaptation, and primates.
• Archaeology
• Archaeology seeks to “reconstruct, describe, and interpret human behavior and cultural patterns
through material remains.” Ex: artifacts, ruins, bones, …
• Linguistics
• Studies “language in its social context.” Looks at variation through time and space.
• Socio-cultural anthropology
• “Describes, analyzes, interprets, and explains human social and cultural diversity” through
ethnography and ethnology.”
 PHYSICAL VS. CULTURAL
• Physical Anthropology:
• Theory of Evolution
• Origin of Humans
• Primatology
• Evolutionary Timeline
• Genetic Inheritance
• Physical Adaptations
• Anthropologists:
• Darwin
• Leakey's
• Jane Goodall
ANTHROPOLOGY
• Cultural Anthropology:
• Definition and Aspects of
Culture
• Race as a Social Construct
• Participation/Observation
• Anthropologists:
• Franz Boas
• Margaret Mead
 IN THE WORDS OF CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGISTS….
"Anthropology demands the open-mindedness with which one must look and listen, record in astonishment and
wonder at that which one would not have been able to guess"
Anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-1978)

“The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences”
Anthropologist Ruth Benedict (1887-1948)

“Anthropology is the most humanistic of sciences and the most scientific of the humanities”
Anthropologist Alfred L.Kroeber (1876-1960)
 what is socio-cultural anthropology?
• Describes, analyzes, interprets, and explains social and cultural similarities and differences
• How is it different from Sociology? Archaeology? Political Science? Economics?
• Where/whom it studies
• Two kinds of activities: Ethnography and Ethnology
 FOUR SCHOOLS OF
ANTHROPOLOGY
• Socio-political contexts for the rise of schools of anthropology:
• The increase in the European exploration of the world, and contact with new societies and cultures (unlike
sociology, originally interested in European populations)
• A tool for the capitalist and colonial expansion of European empires
• A scientific interest with human culture’s origins and evolution
• German
• Study of German myth, language, and ethnicity
• French
• Museums of ethnology, how to “run” societies (freedom, the individual and society, etc.)
• British
• Interest in social institutions such as religion, political structures
• American
• Focused on meaning and interpreting rituals, kinship, languages, symbols….
• BUT these schools were all interconnected, and exchanged knowledge and academics
 WHAT THEY HAD IN COMMON

• Ethnography
• Ethnology
• Fieldwork
• Scientific methods
• Holism
 ETHNOGRAPHY
• The complete work of an anthropologist is called an ethnography.
• It is an account of a particular community
• Requires fieldwork
• Descriptive
• It consists of:
• Conceptualizing a project of study
• Fieldwork
• Analysis of data collected during fieldwork
• Presenting the work in written form, film, etc.
 Ethnology
• Examines, interprets, analyzes, and compares the results of ethnographies of different
societies by several researchers
• Synthetic rather than descriptive
• Comparative/cross-cultural
 FIELDWORK
• Fieldwork is a distinctive feature of anthropology. Anthropological enquiries are never
complete without fieldwork.
• Living for long periods of time “immersed” in the culture under study
• Learning the language
• Participating in daily life
• Writing thick descriptions and field notes
 RESEARCH METHODS USED
• Qualitative
• Field notes
• Interviews
• Kinship charts
• Photographs
• Maps
• Etc. depending on the topic of study
• Quantitative
• Surveys of population and demographic data
• Surveys of dwellings
• Etc.
 HOLISM
• The refusal to break down cultures to parts, because the whole affects how different parts
behave
• It refers, then, to the study of all learned and shared components of culture as
interconnected: the physical, the material, the symbolic, language, institutions of religion
and government, gender and exchange systems, etc.