Social Anthropology

Contents:
Foreword by Professor Tim Ingold • Author's preface • Syllabus checklist

Chapter 1: Studying social anthropology
One-minute overview • What is social anthropology? • Why study social anthropology? • Learning about cultural differences • Learning about human universals • Social anthropology and other subjects • Social anthropology and your career 'Tutorial

Chapter 2: Ethnography: writing about peoples
One-minute overview • Appreciating classic ethnographies • Understanding the structure of an ethnography • Reading recent ethnographies • Getting inside another culture • Comparing cultural differences • Using ethnography in your essays and exams • Tutorial

Chapter 3: Ecology: understanding environment and technology
One-minute overview • How environment influences society • Technology as a social force • Making a living Ecology and globalisation • Tutorial

Chapter 4: Economics: interpreting production and distribution
One-minute overview • How to live without a surplus • Ways to accumulate and distribute • Spheres of exchange in "simple" societies • What is money? • Three theories in economic anthropology • Tutorial

Chapter 5: Politics and law: discerning power and social control
One-minute overview • Approaches to politics • Studying levels of political organisation • Seeking the origin of the state • Explaining social stratification • Appreciating ethnicity and nationalism • Is "law" universal? • Tutorial

Chapter 6: Belief, ritual and symbolism
One-minute overview • Different views of the world • The sacred and the profane • Understanding belief systems • Explaining witchcraft and sorcery • Encountering ritual • Interpreting mythology and symbolism • Tutorial

Chapter 7: Sex, gender and the family
One-minute overview • Comparing gender roles and attitudes to sex • Explaining gender: two views • Liberating women and men: the feminist critique • How families and marriage differ in different societies • Tutorial

Chapter 8: Kinship: appreciating terminology, descent and alliance
One-minute overview • "Rear versus "fictive" kinship • How to draw kinship diagrams • How to understand kinship terminologies • Descent theory • Alliance theory • The new kinship • Tutorial

Chapter 9: Applied and development anthropology
One-minute overview • What is applied anthropology? • Understanding “self and “other” • Putting theory into practice • Using anthropology in policy and action • Social development in the Third World • Rethinking cultural values • Tutorial

Chapter 10: Anthropological theory
One-minute overview • Why theory is important • Is humankind inventive or not? • Evolution versus diffusion • Culture and personality • Functionalism: finding purpose in social organisation • Structuralism: finding meaning in relations between things • Anthropology as “cultural translation” • Anthropology as “a kind of writing” • Ideas from outside anthropology • Using theory in your essays and exams • Tutorial

Glossary • Further reading and reference • Useful Websites • Index

About the Author:

Alan Barnard is Professor of the Anthropology of Southern Africa. He has completed fieldwork with Nharo Bushmen and other populations in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. He has written over sixty articles and seven books, and his work has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Polish, Japanese and Korean.