Cultural Anthropology

Successfully integrating attention to culture change, gender, class, race, ethnicity, and the environment, Barbara Miller's Cultural Anthropologyengages students with compelling ethnographic examples, and demonstrates the relevance of anthropology in today's world.   Faculty and students praise the book's proven ability to generate class discussion, increase faculty-student engagement, and enhance student learning!   Through clear writing, a balanced theoretical approach, and engaging examples, Barbara Miller stresses the importance of social inequality and human rights, the environment, culture change and applied aspects of anthropology.  Rich examples of gender, ethnicity, race, class, and age thread through the topical coverage of economic systems, the life-cycle, health, kinship, social organization, politics, language, religion, and expressive culture.  In addition, the last two chapters address how migration is changing world cultures, and how the importance of local cultural values and needs are shaping international development policies and programs.

“Cultural anthropology is exciting because it CONNECTS with everything, from FOOD to ART. And it can help prevent or SOLVE

world problems related to social inequality and injustice.” - BARBARA D. MILLER

 

Barbara Miller is a Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs, and Director of the Culture in Global Affairs (CIGA) Research and Policy Program, at The George Washington University. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology from Syracuse University in 1978. Before coming to GW in 1994, she taught at the University of Rochester, SUNY Cortland, Ithaca College, Cornell University, and the University of Pittsburgh.

 

Barbara’s research has focused mainly on gender-based inequalities in India, especially the nutritional and medical neglect of daughters in the northern part of the country. She has also conducted research on culture and rural development in Bangladesh, on low-income household dynamics in Jamaica, and on Hindu adolescents in Pittsburgh.

 

Her current interests include continued research on India along with attention to the role of cultural anthropology in informing policy issues, especially as related to women, children, and other disenfranchised people.

 

She teaches courses on introductory cultural anthropology, medical anthropology, development anthropology, culture and population, health and development in South Asia, migration and mental health, and culture and security.

 

In addition to many journal articles and book chapters, she has published several books: The Endangered Sex: Neglect of Female Children in Rural North India, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 1997), an edited volume, Sex and Gender Hierarchies (Cambridge University Press, 1993), and a co-edited volume with Alf Hiltebeitel, Hair: Its Power and Meaning in Asian Cultures (SUNY Press, 1998). She is the author of Cultural Anthropology in a Globalizing World (Pearson, 2008) and the lead author of Anthropology (Pearson, 2^nd ed., 2008).

BRIEF CONTENTS

Part I INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY  
         1 ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE STUDY OF CULTURE  
         2 THE EVOLUTION OF HUMANITY AND CULTURE  
         3 RESEARCHING CULTURE 
Part II CULTURAL FOUNDATIONS  
         4 MAKING A LIVING 
         5 CONSUMPTION AND EXCHANGE 
         6 REPRODUCTION AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT  
         7 DISEASE, ILLNESS, AND HEALING 

Part III SOCIAL ORGANIZATION  
         8 KINSHIP AND DOMESTIC LIFE  
         9 SOCIAL GROUPS AND SOCIAL STRATIFICATION  
         10 POLITICAL AND LEGAL SYSTEMS 

Part IV SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS  
         11 COMMUNICATION  
         12 RELIGION  
         13 EXPRESSIVE CULTURE 

Part V CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL CHANGE  
         14 PEOPLE ON THE MOVE  
         15 PEOPLE DEFINING DEVELOPMENT