Gourt > Science > Social Sciences > Anthropology > Cultural Anthropology (7)
Cultural anthropology, also called social anthropology or socio-cultural anthropology, is a field (one of four that are commonly recognized in the United States) of anthropology, the holistic study of humanity. It is the branch of anthropology that has developed and promoted "culture" as a meaningful scientific concept; it is also the branch of anthropology that studies cultural variation among humans. The anthropological concept of "culture" reflects in part a reaction against earlier Western discourses based on an opposition between "culture" and "nature", according to which some human beings lived in a "state of nature". Anthropologists argue that culture is "human nature," and that all people have a capacity to classify experiences, encode classifications symbolically, and teach such abstractions to others.
Since humans acquire culture through learning, people living in different places or different circumstances may develop different cultures. Anthropologists have also pointed out that through culture people can adapt to their environment in non-genetic ways, so people living in different environments will often have different cultures. Much of anthropological theory has originated in an appreciation of and interest in the tension between the local (particular cultures) and the global (a universal human nature, or the web of connections between people in distinct places/circumstances).
A brief history
Modern socio-cultural anthropology has its origins in 19th century "ethnology", which involves the organized comparison of human societies. Scholars like E.B. Tylor and J.G. Frazer in England worked mostly with materials collected by others – usually missionaries, explorers, or colonial officials – this earned them their current sobriquet of "arm-chair anthropologists". Ethnologists had an especial interest in why people living in different parts of the world sometimes had similar beliefs and practices. In addressing this question, ethnologists in the 19th century divided into two schools of thought. Some, like Grafton Elliot Smith, argued that different groups must somehow have learned from one another, however indirectly; in other words, they argued that cultural traits spread from one place to another, or "diffused". Other ethnologists argued that different groups had the capability of inventing similar beliefs and practices independently. Some of those who advocated "independent invention", like Lewis Henry Morgan, additionally supposed that similarities meant that different groups had passed through the same stages of cultural evolution. More on [ Cultural anthropology ]
Human Geography :: Geography
Rural Sociology :: Sociology
Indigenous People :: Ethnicity
Video: A cultural anthropology video I did a couple of years back. Interviewing folks not from America and... http://tumblr.com/xzt4q8qzx
saynoir (Sean) Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:46:27 -0000
Video: A cultural anthropology video I did a couple of years back. Interviewing folks not from America and... http://tumblr.com/xzt4q8qzx
Cultural anthropology....wha?(Watchn chopped)who knew that wuz a major???
adorejjs ( Jerica Sears) Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:27:21 -0000
Cultural anthropology....wha?(Watchn chopped)who knew that wuz a major???
This final cultural anthropology essay is impossible.
EisforELIZABETH (Elizabeth Nikoley) Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:29:42 -0000
This final cultural anthropology essay is impossible.
What's that? I got 100% on my Cultural Anthropology final? Damn right I did!
DreLCO (MDrelling) Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:22:01 -0000
What's that? I got 100% on my Cultural Anthropology final? Damn right I did!
@trailsampler I studied this in an anthropology of aging class. Lots of reasons why, most of them cultural.
caitlinconstan (Caitlin Constantine) Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:06:41 -0000
@trailsampler I studied this in an anthropology of aging class. Lots of reasons why, most of them cultural.
Why did a jason mraz song pop up as related to sociology-cultural anthropology?!
katiemelch (Katie Anne Melcher) Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:48:32 -0000
Why did a jason mraz song pop up as related to sociology-cultural anthropology?!
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25th Annual Conference of the Society of Ethnobiology - Meeting hosted by the University of Connecticut, Storrs, March 6-9, 2002. Features abstracts, registration materials, and lodging and transportation information.
Meta Description: [ Society of Ethnobiology ]
A Journey Through The Culture of Capitalism - Explores capitalism as a cultural phenomenon rather than an economic philosophy.
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AnthroCommons - Virtual conference facility for the American Anthropological Association. Offers meeting abstracts, and conference papers.
Anthropological Theories - A guide to anthropological theories and approaches prepared by graduate students of the University of Alabama under the direction of Dr. Michael D. Murphy.
Anthropology Page - Book reviews and short essays.
Anthropology Resource Base - Resources for indigenous cultures around the world provided by NativeWeb.
Anthropology, Gender and Masculinity - Bilingual site featuring articles, images, news, and links related to the anthropological study of masculinity and gender.
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Brand You - An article that describes using anthropological data for advertising commercial products.
Center for Cross-Cultural Research - Dedicated to fostering and disseminating comparative research. Features news, staff profiles, events and contacts at the Australian National University.
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Circumpolar Ethnographic Field School - Features information and contact details for the project hosted by the University of Northern British Columbia. Summer 2003.
Critical Theory and Cultural Studies - Cultural studies draws from the fields of anthropology, sociology, gender studies, feminism, literary criticism, history and psychoanalysis in order to discuss contemporary texts and cultural practices.
Cross-cultural Psychology - A subfield of psychological anthropology concerned with observing human behavior in contrasting cultures.
Cross-Culture Theory Test - Features software and data for comparative ethnographic analysis.
Cultural Islands - An essay by Thomas Hylland Eriksen that critically examines the metaphors which have underlied anthropological theory and research.
Cultural Observations Database - Open content project collecting observations made by travelers on behavior in other cultures. Features project description, technical details, and contacts.
Meta Description: [ This project collects observations made by travellers about the way people behave in other countries or cultures. The observations database will be freely accessible for exploring the ways in which behaviour varies in different cultures. ]
Culture and Developmental Subjectivities - An article that describes how anthropologists and historians have attempted to understand and explore the cultural and textual sources of sexual analysis from a holistic perspective.
Culture by Commotion Trilogy - Online version of the series of books that include: Plenitude, Transformation, Commotion. The series offers an anthropological account of modern life by Grant McCracken.
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Dueling Banners - A Smithsonian Magazine article that describes how proverbs in the Asafo war flags of Ghana show Western influence.
Meta Description: [ Articles from the Smithsonian Institution's award-winning, monthly general interest magazine, plus exclusive Web articles, videos, blogs, photographs and more. ]
Game Killing and Killing Games - Heidi Dahles discusses the anthropology of power relations in modern hunting in western society.
Growing up Sexually - Encyclopedia features cross-cultural information on sexual behavior development. Offers researchers the opportunity to participate in the project and bibliography.
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Hip Hop Barbers - Research into the influence of popular culture on the decoration of barber shops in Arusha, Tanzania by Brad Weiss, of the College of William and Mary. Features photos with brief captions.
Human Universals - Donald Brown discusses those features of culture for which there are no known exceptions to their existence in all ethnographically or historically recorded human societies.
Implosion - Research in architecture on the phenomenology of space of O. F. Bollnow. [in English, French and German].
Introduction: Everyday Life - An article that discusses how anthropology brings to light many similarities between ancient and modern cultures, particularly in customs surrounding food.
Kinship and Social Organization - Hypertext tutorial covering descent, kinship terminology, marriage systems, and residence rules. Includes ethnographic examples.
Meta Description: [ An extensive hypertext tutorial covering kinship basics
for introductory anthropology students and undergraduate majors.
Basic topics covered include: descent, marriage, kin terms, and residence.
Employs numerous color diagrams, animations and case study illustrations. ]
Kinship Glossary: Symbols, Term, and Concepts - Definitions of basic terminology and list of common abbreviations.
Opus corpus: Anthropology of the Corporal Appearances - Features articles by St�ephane Malysse on understanding the social and cultural logics made visible by the human body. Requires Flash. In English, French and Portuguese.
Raising Trust - An article that describes how some forager groups may nurture a sharing sense in their offspring.
Rites of Passage across Cultures - An annotated directory of links and course outline examining the anthropological and psychological elements involved in initiation ceremonies.
Meta Description: [ The Fall 2002 index for Dr. Balfour's LBAR 181-200 subsection at Texas A&M University. ]
Silence, AIDS and Sexual Culture in Africa - An article describing social factors in the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
Slovenian Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology - A portal dedicated to preserving national traditions and promoting research. Offers photos, articles, and fieldwork reports, as well as a calendar of local events.
Meta Description: [ Slovenian ethnology and cultural anthropology on the Net ]
Social and Cultural Anthropology - A annotated guide to Internet resources from the University of Delaware.
Social and Cultural Evolution - A directory of links to research papers that discuss general theoretical approaches and models of culture change.
Sound and Society - Paul Roquet's project comparing the acoustic ecology of living places in the Cook Islands, Fiji, Tonga, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Nepal, and Bhutan. Features research proposal, bibliography and guestbook.
Meta Description: [ This is a journal of my Watson Fellowship year, June 29, 2003 - sometime after August, 2004. My project compares the sounds of living places in the Cook Islands, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Canada. I'll be wandering, listening, talking, and hoping to get a sense of how ... ]
Symbolic Anthropology - A site that explores the relationship between symbols and a society's cognitive structure, rules of moral conduct and patterns of social interactions.
Meta Description: [ Yutaka Yamada (Anthropology Ph.D.) explored life history narratives in which dreamsand healing experiences are episodic symbols. A narrative is a symbol, a medium which conveys a certain meaning and has its own symbolic structure. Leaders or members of religious groups narrate religious experien... ]
Symbolic Power Struggles in Inter-cultural Space - A lecture given by Thomas Hylland Eriksen at the symposium Culture in the Global Village, Lund, Sweden, 14-16 January, 1993.
The Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel - Essays in cultural anthropology on the philosophy of Aesthetic Realism.
Meta Description: [ Aesthetic Realism, founded by Eli Siegel, explains the deepest feeling of a person in every society. ]
The Third Culture - A directory of links and resources for understanding cultural ecology.
Theory in Anthropology - Descriptions of various subdisciplines of sociocultural anthropology, reviews of trends in anthropological publications, and biographies of some influential anthropologists.
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What is Culture? - A tutorial on the nature of culture and the history of the culture concept.
Womanist Epistemology and a New Anthropological Paradigm - African American women's experiences of oppression and marginalization have led them to espouse a religious framework that would give them the regard society has deprived them.
World Food Habits Bibliography - Bibliographies sorted by region and topic prepared by Robert Dirks.
Meta Description: [ resources for the anthropological study of food, eating habits, nutrition and culture ]
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