Learning Objectives

• about the field of cultural anthropology
• about the concept of culture
• how cultural anthropology is situated within the larger discipline of anthropology
• that food and sustainability are essential topics within cultural anthropology
• about using frameworks to study culture
• a brief history of anthropological thought
• how cultural anthropology is relevant today

Review Questions

1. What are the four academic fields of anthropology?
2. What is the focus of cultural anthropology?
3. Why are issues of food and sustainability important in cultural anthropology?
4. What is a framework?
5. How does the history of anthropological thought provided show larger changes in how people think about culture?
6. What are some of the criticisms of anthropology by African American and Indigenous scholars

Discussion Questions

1. If you were to choose a subfield of cultural anthropology to study, which would you choose and why?
2. What frameworks do you use to make sense of the world?
3. If you were a museum curator, what questions would you ask in order to begin the process of decolonizing the museum’s collections?
4. What kinds of careers might welcome a degree in cultural anthropology in addition to the ones listed here?

Chapter Outline and Key Points

Introduction: The Lens of Cultural Anthropology
Cultural anthropology focuses on living cultures, emphasizing the thoughts, feelings, beliefs, behaviors, and products of human societies. Cultural anthropologists undertake fieldwork in order to understand others, placing themselves in the midst of their study population. This process is called doing ethnography, or living among groups of people and learning about human culture.

The Culture Concept
Although there are many slightly different definitions of culture, all definitions emphasize the understandings that people share as members of a community.
The Field of Anthropology
The discipline of anthropology includes four fields of research: cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology. Each has an applied component, meaning that anthropological skills and understandings may be used to solve problems in a practical way. The field of cultural anthropology may be further divided into many subfields, each with a particular focus. This textbook has a special emphasis on the two subfields of food and sustainability studies.

Frameworks
A framework (or theory) is a set of ideas that is used to guide research questions and interests. Anthropologists may use different frameworks, which means they approach cultural issues in various ways. This book tends toward a biocultural perspective, emphasizing the connections between human biological needs, environmental constraints, and culture.

A Brief History of Anthropological Thought
Early explorers and philosophers laid the foundation for later anthropological thinking. Unfortunately, much of this early thought was racist and misguided. American anthropology began with Franz Boas’s emphasis on fieldwork, which required an anthropologist to live among the people with whom they were working. Many social scientists around the world contributed to anthropological frameworks in different ways, including African American thinkers such as W.E.B. Du Bois.

Anthropology and Colonialism
The field of anthropology has a deeply colonial past, in which exploitation of Native peoples was common. Today, the relationship between anthropologists and Indigenous peoples is more supportive and collaborative.

The Importance of Anthropology Today
Cultural anthropology is important today because we live in a diverse world in which the distance between people, whether virtual or geographical, seems to be very small. Moreover, the concepts and tools of cultural anthropology can lead to an inclusive perspective that will support whatever career a person decides to pursue.

Glossary

agency: the capacity of people to think for themselves and control their life choices
class consciousness: the awareness of one’s social rank within a system
colonial: pertaining to the period of time during which a region was colonized or the effects of colonialism on social structures, culture, or people
decolonize: to undo (as much as is possible) the effects of colonialism through empowering Indigenous people to self-determination economically, politically, culturally, and psychologically
diasporic: spread to different parts of the world, especially used in reference to ethnic or cultural groups
embody: the physical or tangible representation of an idea or process
ethnography: the written or visual product of ethnographic (field) research; also the process of doing fieldwork (ethnographer is the person who practices it)
fieldwork: the process of doing anthropology; in cultural anthropology, this usually entails living and participating in the study community 
foodways: the methods, knowledge, and practices regarding food in a particular society
holistic: interconnected and integrated
informants: study subjects of an anthropologist; also referred to variously as collaborators, interlocutors, or associates
lifeways: ways of living; customs and practices
marginalized: kept in a position of social disadvantage or without power 
migrant: a type of labor in which a worker seeks temporary work outside their home country with plans to return
Others: a view of a person or category of people as different from, and therefore less than, one’s self; also used as a verb, “to Other a group of people”
Red Power Movement: a social movement in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States in which Indigenous youth organized for political action
qualitative: a form of research that captures non-numerical data, such as thoughts, opinions, and feelings 
quantitative: a form of research that relies on numerical data gathered through surveys and questionnaires
self-determination: the right of an individual or group to have authority over their own development in social, economic, and cultural spheres; the right to control one’s own destiny
social capital: resources that have value within a particular social group in which exchanges are bound by reciprocity and trust
subsistence: food procurement; basic food needs for survival
typology: classification scheme; categorization of types

Weblinks

American Anthropological Association (AAA)
https://americananthro.org/
Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA)
http://www.cas-sca.ca
Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges (SACC) Teaching Resources
http://sacc.americananthro.org/download-file/
Open School of Ethnography and Anthropology (OSEA) Community Institute for Transcultural Exchange (Field Schools)
http://www.osea-cite.org
SAPIENS online magazine
https://www.sapiens.org/
Anthrodendum (group blog with 70+ contributing authors)
https://anthrodendum.org/
Living Anthropologically (blog by Jason Antrosio, Hartwick College)
http://www.livinganthropologically.com

Further Reading

Erickson, P., & Murphy, L. (2016). A history of anthropological theory (5th ed.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Harrison, I., & Harrison, F. (1998). African-American pioneers in anthropology. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.
Lonetree, A. (2021). Decolonizing Museums: Representing Native America in National and Tribal Museums. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Ingold, T. (2018). Anthropology: Why it matters. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Engelke, M. (2019). How to think like an anthropologist. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Marks, J. (2017). Is science racist? Malden: Polity Press.
A Sample of Classic Contemporary Ethnographies
Boellstorff, T. (2008). Coming of age in Second Life: An anthropologist explores the virtually human. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bourgois, P., & Schonberg, J. (2009). Righteous dopefiend. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Fernea, E.W. (1995). Guests of the sheik: An ethnography of an Iraqi village. New York: Anchor.
Hamdy, S., & Nye, C. (2017). Lissa: A story about medical promise, friendship, and revolution. Art by Sarula Bao and Caroline Brewer; lettering by Marc Parenteau. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
McCarthy Brown, K. (1991). Mama Lola: A vodou priestess in Brooklyn. Berkeley: UC Press.
Paxton, H. (2012). The Life of Cheese: Crafting Food and Value in America. Berkeley: UC Press.
Scheper-Hughes, N. (1993). Death without weeping: The violence of everyday life in Brazil. Berkeley: UC Press.
Shostak, M. (2000). Nisa: The life and words of a !Kung woman (4th ed.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Teaching Anthropology
Rice, P.C., & McCurdy, D.W. (2004). Strategies in teaching anthropology (3rd ed.) Upper Saddle River: Pearson/Prentice Hall. (All of the Strategies editions are excellent sources for teaching activities.)