Anthropology: A Beginner's Guide

by Joy Hendry, Simon Underdown

Overview

In this illuminating tour of humanity, Joy Hendry and Simon Underdown reveal the origins of our species, and the fabric of human society, through the discipline of anthropology. Via fascinating case studies and discoveries, they unravel our understanding of human behaviours and beliefs, including how witchcraft has been used to justify misfortune, and debunk old-fashioned ideas about “race” based upon the latest genetic research. They even share what our bathroom tells us about our concept of the body – and ourselves.

 

From our evolutionary ancestors, through our rites of passage, to our responses to globalization, Hendry and Underdown provide the essential first step to understanding the world as an anthropologist would – in all its diversity and commonality.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781851689309
Publisher:	Oneworld Publications
Publication date:	09/01/2012
Series:	Beginner's Guides
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Joy Hendry is Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University and is author of the university-level textbook Sharing Our Worlds, now in its second edition. Her fieldwork has been in Japan.

Simon Underdown is Senior Lecturer in Biological Anthropology, also at Brookes University, where his research looks at the extinction of Neanderthals. He has written about evolution for the Guardian. Both authors live in Oxfordshire.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements vii

Introduction 1

1 The human body 10

2 Ways of thinking and communicating 30

3 Organizing social relations 50

4 Engaging with nature 68

5 Personhood 86

6 Ritual, ceremony, and identity 102

7 Ways of belonging 119

8 The global species 136

9 Anthropology in the age of global communication 156

10 Practising anthropology 173

Further reading 184

Index 194

Editorial Reviews

"A wonderfully accessible introduction, with a clear focus on the needs of students first coming to the field."

Faye Healey-Clough - Anthropology lecturer

— A wonderfully accessible introduction, with a clear focus on the needs of students first coming to the field. Dr Faye Healey-Clough Anthropology lecturer, Gloucestershire College, UK

From the Publisher