--- title: Cultural Anthropology description: Cultural anthropology examines the diversity of human societies, belief systems, social structures, and cultural practices. Learners will understand how people construct meaning, organize their communities, and navigate globalization and cultural change. category: humanities subcategory: anthropology difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/cultural-anthropology --- # Cultural Anthropology Cultural anthropology examines the diversity of human societies, belief systems, social structures, and cultural practices. Learners will understand how people construct meaning, organize their communities, and navigate globalization and cultural change. ## Available Resources 8 Books • 1 Courses • 5 Websites ## Podcasts ### 1. SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human **Author:** SAPIENS What makes you … you? And who tells what stories and why? In the SAPIENS podcast, listeners will hear a range of human stories: from the origins of the chili pepper to how prosecutors decide someone is a criminal to stolen skulls from Iceland. Join SAPIENS on our latest journey to explore what it means to be human. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** en-us | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.sapiens.org **Tags:** anthropology, cultural-anthropology, archaeology, human-origins ## Books ### 1. Gods of the Upper Air **Author:** Charles King Group biography of Franz Boas and his students Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ella Deloria. Explains how their fieldwork established cultural relativism and dismantled scientific racism, giving readers the intellectual origins of modern cultural anthropology. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0525432329?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** history-of-anthropology, franz-boas, cultural-relativism, margaret-mead, scientific-racism ### 2. Barracoon: The Story of the Last Slave **Author:** Zora Neale Hurston Hurston's account, based on 1927–1931 interviews, of Cudjo Lewis, one of the last survivors of the transatlantic slave trade, carried to Alabama on the Clotilda. Published in 2018, it shows how oral testimony becomes ethnography and why Hurston kept Lewis's own dialect. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0008368031?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** ethnography, oral-history, transatlantic-slave-trade, african-american-history, cultural-anthropology ### 3. Braiding Sweetgrass **Author:** Robin Wall Kimmerer A botanist and Potawatomi Nation member interweaves Indigenous knowledge, plant science, and personal essay. Readers come away understanding reciprocity between people and land, and how traditional ecological knowledge differs from and complements Western scientific method. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1728458994?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, anthropology ### 4. Cultural Anthropology **Author:** Conrad Phillip Kottak A standard undergraduate survey textbook covering kinship, language, religion, economic systems, and globalization, with ethnographic case studies. After working through it, students can apply core anthropological concepts and the comparative method to unfamiliar societies. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1337109681?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, anthropology ### 5. Ethnography **Author:** Carol J. Greenhouse, Elizabeth Mertz, Kay B. Warren (eds.) An edited Duke University Press collection of fieldwork accounts from societies undergoing abrupt political change. Contributors show how ethnographers handle reflexivity, ethics, and shifting identities when the ground of everyday life is itself unsettled. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0822328488?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, anthropology ### 6. Coming of Age in Samoa **Author:** Margaret Mead Mead's 1928 fieldwork on Samoan adolescent girls, arguing that the turbulence of teenage years is culturally shaped rather than biologically fixed. Readers meet the nurture side of the nature debate and the controversy the study later provoked. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0688050336?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, anthropology ### 7. Argonauts of the Western Pacific **Author:** Bronislaw Malinowski Malinowski's 1922 account of the Kula ring exchange in the Trobriand Islands, and the book that established participant observation as method. Readers see how long-term fieldwork replaced armchair theorizing in social anthropology. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0881330841?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, anthropology ### 8. The Interpretation of Cultures **Author:** Clifford Geertz Geertz's 1973 essays arguing culture is a web of meanings to be read, not a system to be measured. Includes the Balinese cockfight essay and defines thick description, a method still central to interpretive anthropology. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465097197?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, anthropology ## Websites ### 1. americananthro.org AmericanAnthro.org is the site of the American Anthropological Association, the leading professional association for anthropologists. It offers news, ethics and policy resources, education and career tools, and information on publications and events for students, educators, and professionals. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://americananthro.org **Tags:** websites, humanities-social-sciences, anthropology ### 2. culanth.org Cultural Anthropology (culanth.org) is the official site of the scholarly journal Cultural Anthropology, a leading venue for anthropological theory and ethnography. It offers peer‑reviewed articles, essays and features on theory and method, book reviews, and blog posts and news related to contemporary cultural anthropology. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://culanth.org **Tags:** websites, humanities-social-sciences, anthropology ### 3. culturalanthropology.org Official website of the Cultural Anthropology journal, presenting peer‑reviewed articles and essays on culture, ethnography, and global social life. Explore current and past issues, author guidelines, and multimedia content (podcasts, features, and videos) showcasing contemporary anthropological research. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://culturalanthropology.org **Tags:** websites, humanities-social-sciences, anthropology ### 4. ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu EHRAF World Cultures is a Yale-hosted database from the Human Relations Area Files that provides ethnographic descriptions and cultural profiles from cultures around the world. It offers searchable summaries, bibliographies, and cross-cultural data to support anthropological research. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu **Tags:** websites, humanities-social-sciences, anthropology ### 5. ethnography.com Long-running group blog where anthropologists and sociologists post field-based essays and commentary on topics such as Southeast Asia, bureaucracy, and everyday social institutions. Useful for seeing how practicing ethnographers write and reason, rather than as structured instruction. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://ethnography.com **Tags:** websites, humanities-social-sciences, anthropology ## Courses ### 1. Noongar Language and Culture Curtin University introduction to the Noongar people of south-west Western Australia, taught by Noongar educators. Covers conversational words and phrases, spiritual beliefs, connection to boodja (country), kinship, colonial history and contemporary art, music and dance. Learners gain basic dialogue skills and cultural understanding. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.edx.org/learn/noongar/curtin-university-noongar-language-and-culture **Tags:** noongar, aboriginal-australia, indigenous-languages, indigenous-cultures, kinship --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/cultural-anthropology