WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?
Anthropology takes its name from the Greek ‘anthropos’, meaning ‘human being’ so Anthropology is the study of what it is to be human. It explores
the many different forms of human organization and human experience in their full complexity and variety. This course is an introduction to
sociocultural anthropology: the comparative study of human societies and cultures.

Anthropology has a central interest in the diversity of human experience but it also recognises that many practices and beliefs are shared by all people. For example, virtually every society has an institution which we could call ‘marriage’. However, the cultural expression of marriage varies from society to society: some groups allow one man to marry several women, others allow one woman to marry several men, while others permit marriage with the same sex or even with the dead.

Anthropology is also holistic. That is, it recognises that all parts of a society are interrelated and that the belief systems of a society impinge on everything. Therefore, anthropology looks at practices such as inheritance, kinship, child rearing, religion, power, economic markets and so on in their wider cultural context. For instance, it is possible simply to describe the technology of planting rice and measure the amount harvested. However, an anthropologist would try to gain a more complex and complete understanding of the place of rice in a particular society by looking at land tenure, men’s and women’s work, economics, exchange, gift giving, everyday eating and special feasting.Because anthropology looks at whole societies, it overlaps with many other subjects – economics, psychology, medicine, law, religion, politics, history etc. It also prepares you to analyse and understand cultural variation so that you can usefully contribute to the many debates that centre on cultural inclusions and exclusions.

Several broad themes guide this course:
1. everywhere people have the same concerns about birth, living and death and about relationships with the natural world (earth, sky,
water, forests, kin and strangers) and the supernatural world (gods, demons, the dead). However, the expression of these concerns
differs from society to society.

2. each society has its own internal logic. Anthropology challenges our taken for granted views of the way the world should be by
looking at other people’s beliefs. Customs and beliefs which, in one society, may seem quaint or bizarre from a tourist’s point of view,
are perfectly reasonable to the people of that society. Anthropology helps you to overcome ethnocentrism (seeing everything from your
own cultural standpoint) and helps you understand the sense and creative logic of other ways of life.

3. anthropology, like all social sciences, uses a variety of theoretical approaches to organise the information collected during fieldwork. This
course will introduce you to the different theories used by anthropologists in their efforts to understand other societies and, ultimately,
their own.

4. studying people raises moral and ethical questions about the use of information and the responsibilities of the fieldworker.

There are two lectures and one tutorial that you must attend each week.

LECTURES are on Mondays 9-9.50 in LGO3 and Thursdays 9-9.50 in LG02. Weekly TUTORIALS begin in the second week of the semester. Meaningful participation and the completion of tutorial worksheets is worth 10% of your final
grade

Naveena Menon and Sean Ikin are the tutors for ANTHY 101, their office hours and email addresses are on moodle.

There are two required text books:
1. T. Eriksen. Small Places, Large Issues: An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology, Pluto Press. Either the third or fourth
edition are fine.
2. Culture Sketches: Case Studies in Anthropology. 2012. New York: McGraw Hill. I am using the 6th edition, but other editions are fine
as long as they have the chapters listed in the readings

There are two required course books. These are available from Bennetts book shop, various online market places and a desk copy of both will be available in the library.

1.T. Eriksen. Small Places, Large Issues: An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology, Pluto Press. Either the third or fourth edition are fine.

2. Culture Sketches: Case Studies in Anthropology. 2012. New York: McGraw Hill. I am using the 6th edition, but other editions are fine as long as they have the chapters listed in the readings.