Cultural Anthropology

Description

Cultural Anthropology: Global forces, local lives is an accessible ethnographically rich cultural anthropology textbook which gives a coherent and refreshingly new vision of the discipline and its subject matter—human diversity. The fifteen chapters and three extended case studies present all of the necessary areas of cultural anthropology, organizing them in conceptually and thematically meaningful and original ways.

A full one-third of its content is dedicated to important global and historical cultural phenomena such as colonialism, nationalism, ethnicity and ethnic conflict, economic development, environmental issues, cultural revival, fundamentalism, and popular culture. The more conventional topics of anthropology (language, economics, kinship, politics, religion, race) are integrated into this broader discussion to reflect the changing content of contemporary courses.

This well written and well organised text has been trialled both in the classroom and online. The author has extensive teaching experience and is especially good at presenting material clearly matching his exposition to the pace of students' understanding.

Specially designed in colour to be useful to today's students, Cultural Anthropology: Global forces, local lives:

• supports study with chapter case studies on subjects as diverse as "Doing Anthropology at Microsoft" to "Banning Religious Symbols in France"
• explains difficult key terms with marginal glosses and links related topics with marginal cross-references
• assists revision with boxed chapter summaries, an extensive bibliography and index
• illustrates concepts and commentary with a vivid range of photographs drawn from the most contemporary anthropological sources
• provides a support website which includes study guides, powerpoint presentations, chapter supplements, multiple-choice, essay, and assignment questions, a model course mapped to the textbook, a flashcard glossary of terms, links to useful maps

Reviews

"This is a resource I am excited to offer my students. Eller includes numerous personal experiences and each is presented in a way that anthropology majors and non-anthropology majors can understand. At the same time he challenges the reader to understand the complexities of other world views. This text will enhance the learning experience for students of diverse backgrounds." - Jason T. Younker, Rochester Institute for Technology

"Very accessible to students, and a very good textbook. There is a lot of attention to clarifying issues and concepts. The section ‘We all live anthropological lives’ is a unique and good addition." – Vance Geiger, University of Central Florida

Contents

1. Understanding Anthropology 2. Understanding and Studying Culture 3. The Origins of Cultural Anthropology 4. Language and Social Relations 5. Learning to be an Individual: Personality and Gender 6. Individuals and Identities: Race and Ethnicity 7. Economics: Humans, Nature, and Social Organization 8. Kinship and Non-Kin Organization: Creating Social Groups 9. Politics: Social Order and Social Control 10. Religion: Interacting with the Non-Human World 11. Cultural Dynamics:Continuity and Change 12. Colonialism and the Origin of Globalization 13. The Struggle for Political Identity: Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Conflict 14. The Struggle for Economic Independence: Development, Modernization and Globalization 15. The Struggle for Cultural Survival and Revitalization. Glossary. Bibliography

Author Bio

Jack David Eller is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the Community College of Denver. He is the author of Introducing Anthropology of Religion (Routledge 2007). He is also the editor for the visual anthropology and ethnographic film section of the Anthropology Review Database.

Related Subject

1. Anthropology - Soc Sci