This module is not currently running in 2021 to 2022.
You will study some of the key themes that have preoccupied social anthropologists through the history of the discipline, such as kinship, power, economic relations and religion. The module introduces these issues through theoretical approaches, but also through relevant ethnographic case studies. There will often be opportunities to understand the ways in which a social anthropological approach, grounded in ethnographic research, provides a different perspective on some of universal concerns that are shared by social science disciplines such as economics, politics and sociology.
Total contact hours: 44
Private study hours: 256
Total study hours: 300
BSc: Anthropology; BA: Social Anthropology; Joint Honours; with a Language; with a Year Abroad
Essay 1 (2500 words) (25%)
Essay 2 (2500 words) (25%)
Examination, 2 hour (50%).
Reassessment method: Like for like
Appadurai, A. ed. (1986) The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge University Press
Carrier, J. ed. (2013) A Handbook of Economic Anthropology. Edward Elgar
Carrier, J and D. Kalb, eds (2015) Anthropologies of Class: Power, Practice and Inequality. Cambridge University Press
Lewellen, T.C. 2003 (third edition). Political Anthropology: An introduction. Westport: Praeger. GN492
Hart, K, J.L. Laville, and A.D. Cattani eds. (2010) The Human Economy. Polity Press
Humphrey, C and S. Hugh-Jones, eds. (1992) Barter, Exchange, and Value: An Anthropological Approach. Cambridge University Press
Scott, J.C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press.
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
8.1 Be conversant with the key disciplinary themes and trends of social anthropology, such as power, economy, kinship and religion
8.2 Have acquired a critical understanding of the historical development of those anthropological debates and theories
8.3 Be knowledgeable about the theoretical contributions of the anthropology of the key themes studied to the broader discipline of social anthropology
8.4 Have cultivated a critical understanding of the global and historical diversity, operation and experience of political and economic institutions
8.5 Be able to apply anthropological insights to contemporary developments in relevant ways
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