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Week 1 · Module overview

Week 1 — Anthropology and the Anthropological Perspective

Cultural Anthropology Free sample edition

Welcome to your Week 1 Start Here page.

Why this matters

A nursing student hearing how patients talk about feeling unwell and a new hire learning the unwritten rules of a workplace are both looking at people the way an anthropologist does.

In plain language

Anthropology is the study of people: how they live, talk, organize their lives, and make sense of the world, in every place and across time. This week you will meet its four subfields (the four main branches the field is divided into) and the anthropological perspective (the field's way of looking, made of three habits used together). You will learn what anthropology is not, how it moved from reading other people's reports to living among the people it studies, and how it looks at an ordinary place. You will also meet the running fieldwork site (an illustrative farmers' market this course visits week after week). By the end of the week, a place you thought you knew will look a little stranger, and a lot more interesting.

  • This week: the four subfields, three wrong turns, holism, comparison, fieldwork, and a first look at the market.
  • How they connect: this is the foundation; every later week uses this perspective and this market.
  • Where we're going next: Week 2, The Culture Concept, defines culture.

Focus

What does anthropology study, and how does an anthropologist look at an ordinary place?

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

  • [ ] name the four subfields and place applied anthropology across them
  • [ ] correct the dinosaur, fossil, and exotic-peoples wrong turns
  • [ ] apply holism, comparison, and fieldwork to a familiar place
  • [ ] tell a first look from long-term fieldwork

To-do

Plan your week

  1. Read Chapter 1 (about 30 minutes), then the lecture and slides.
  2. Work the lecture tutorial (60–90 minutes) and the practice set (about 20 minutes).
  3. Do the Ethnography Workshop (about 90 minutes), the discussion, and the assignment.
  4. Take the quiz.

This week's checkpoint: name what a first-time visitor would not know at a familiar place.

You've got this

Take it in order, and ask your instructor if a step snags.

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