Anthropology
Published online January 2012.
Research Guide. Subjects: anthropology; human evolution; medical anthropology; physical anthropology; social and cultural anthropology.
Made up of a rapidly expanding range of articles written by distinguished international scholars, this dynamic, continuously updated online resource offers exclusive authoritative...
Anthrozoology
in Anthropology
Published online March 2013.
Article. Subjects: anthropology; human evolution; medical anthropology; physical anthropology; social and cultural anthropology. 5512 words.
Anthrozoology examines humans’ relationships with animals. As an interdisciplinary field, anthrozoology connects with many other disciplines, including sociology, psychology, and...
Applied Anthropology
in Anthropology
Published online January 2012.
Article. Subjects: anthropology; human evolution; medical anthropology; physical anthropology; social and cultural anthropology. 12858 words.
As a term and a subject area, applied anthropology refers to that broad array of research, methods, and outcomes developed and used for the explicit purpose of recognizing,...
Archaeology
in Anthropology
Published online January 2012.
Article. Subjects: anthropology; human evolution; medical anthropology; physical anthropology; social and cultural anthropology. 12602 words.
Archaeology is a historical social science concerned with study of past societies and cultures through material traces, called the archaeological record. These traces may have been left...
Business Anthropology
in Anthropology
Published online January 2012.
Article. Subjects: anthropology; human evolution; medical anthropology; physical anthropology; social and cultural anthropology. 10877 words.
Business refers to the buying and selling of goods and services in the marketplace, and the organized economic activities attendant to those practices—for example, product and service...
Clifford Geertz
in Anthropology
Published online January 2012.
Article. Subjects: anthropology; human evolution; medical anthropology; physical anthropology; social and cultural anthropology. 8505 words.
Clifford Geertz (b. 1926–d. 2006) has had a tremendous impact on cultural anthropology and, more generally, all of the social sciences and humanities. In particular, Geertz is associated...
Consumerism
in Anthropology
Published online November 2012.
Article. Subjects: anthropology; human evolution; medical anthropology; physical anthropology; social and cultural anthropology. 5465 words.
“Consumerism” is a word with multiple meanings and histories. To begin with, it is frequently conflated with “consumption,” but it is useful to make a conceptual distinction between...
Cultural Evolution
in Anthropology
Published online January 2012.
Article. Subjects: anthropology; human evolution; medical anthropology; physical anthropology; social and cultural anthropology. 6681 words.
“Cultural evolution” is the idea that human cultural change––that is, changes in socially transmitted beliefs, knowledge, customs, skills, attitudes, languages, and so on––can be...
Culture
in Anthropology
Published online January 2012.
Article. Subjects: anthropology; human evolution; medical anthropology; physical anthropology; social and cultural anthropology. 8059 words.
Culture is a term that describes and characterizes various ways in which human differences and similarities are recognized and marked. It is inseparable from many important ideas such as...
Culture of Poverty
in Anthropology
Published online January 2012.
Article. Subjects: anthropology; human evolution; medical anthropology; physical anthropology; social and cultural anthropology. 6951 words.
The term culture of poverty emerged in 1959 to explain why people were poor. The culture of poverty concept delineates factors associated with poor people’s behaviors, and argues that...