Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Catalog description

This course explores how anthropologists study and compare human culture. Cultural anthropologists seek to understand the broad arc of human experience focusing on a set of central issues: how people around the world make their living (subsistence patterns); how they organize themselves socially, politically and economically; how they communicate; how they relate to each other through family and kinship ties; what they believe about the world (belief systems); how they express themselves creatively (expressive culture); how they make distinctions among themselves such as through applying gender, racial and ethnic identity labels; how they have shaped and been shaped by social inequalities such as colonialism; and how they navigate culture change and processes of globalization that affect us all. Ethnographic case studies highlight these similarities and differences, and introduce students to how anthropologists do their work, employ professional anthropological research ethics and apply their perspectives and skills to understand humans around the globe. An appreciation of the significance of cultural diversity is stressed, as well as understanding ethnocentrism as a barrier to cross-cultural understanding. All of this provides an important basis for discussions of cultural and ethnic diversity within our own society as well as around the world. (C-ID: ANTH 120) (UC, CSU, AVC)