Cultural Anthropology: A Problem-Based Approach - Softcover

Richard H. Robbins

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0875814042 ISBN 13: 9780875814049

Publisher: F.E. Peacock Publishers, Inc.,, 1998

Synopsis

This widely adopted text provides a fresh look at cultural anthropology and challenges students to engage in active and collaborative learning and critical thinking, as well as to recognize their own cultures as a basis for understanding the cultures of others. The book is organized around problems rather than topics, creating a natural and integrated discussion of such traditional concerns as kinship, caste, gender roles, and religion within the context of meaningful questions, including How can people begin to understand beliefs and behaviors that are different from their own. How do societies give meaning to and justify collective violence? Why are some societies more industrially advanced that others? What can anthropology tell us about attempts to link intelligence and class?

About this title

From the Back Cover

The need to understand the relation between social inequality and globalization has never been greater. This new edition of the ground breaking Canadian Cultural Anthropology text makes abundantly clear the connections between the global and the local. Much attention is given to how globalization is a force of change worldwide and how localization of global forces can be seen in various domains of change. Each chapter contains material discussing, for example, transnationalism, migration, cyberspace communities, and cultural pluralism.

 

Whether you are interested in environmental studies, peace studies, international business, or health studies, knowing about the world’s cultures is a crucial foundation for shaping a vision of what is both possible and appropriate in terms of goals and actions. New to this edition, "Lessons Applied" boxes provide in-depth examples of how research in cultural anthropology can be applied to real-world problems. They highlight different anthropological roles in applied work, such as in conducting social impact assessments, in advocacy anthropology working with indigenous peoples, or as a cultural broker.

 

Cultural Anthropology, Third Canadian Edition, reflects the work of contemporary anthropologists, including Canadian scholars. It presents interesting and informative material about “exotic” and distant cultures as well as paying substantial attention to contemporary “Western” cultures, including Canada. Readers coming from diverse cultural perspectives will be able to “make the strange familiar and the familiar strange”.

About the Author

Richard H. Robbins is a distinguished teaching professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. His teaching interests include courses on global problems, utopian societies, comparative religion, and activist anthropology. He has conducted research among indigenous peoples of Canada and fishing communities in northeastern New Brunswick. His recent books Include Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, 4e; Darwin and the Bible The Cultural Confrontation (With Mark Cohen); and Globalization and the Environment (with Gary Kroll). Professor Robbins is the recipient of the 2005 American Anthropological Association/McGraw-Hill award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

Edition details

• Publisher: F.E. Peacock Publishers, Inc.,
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0875814042
• ISBN 13: 9780875814049
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 251