Anthropology

Robert L. Welsch is retired from Franklin Pierce University, where he taught from 2008-2019. Previously, he taught at Dartmouth College, from 1994-2008. Luis A. Vivanco is Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Anthropology Department at the University of Vermont. Agustin Fuentes is Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University.

Contents
Letter from the Authors
About the Authors
Preface
Acknowledgments

PART I. THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

1. Anthropology

Asking Questions About Humanity

How Did Anthropology Begin?

The Disruptions of Industrialization

The Theory of Evolution

Colonial Origins of Cultural Anthropology

Anthropology as a Global Discipline

What Do the Four Subfields of Anthropology Have in Common?

Culture

Cultural Relativism

Human Diversity

Change

Holism

How Do Anthropologists Know What They Know?

The Scientific Method in Anthropology

When Anthropology Is Not a Science: Interpreting Other Cultures

How Do Anthropologists Put Their Knowledge to Work in the World?

Applied and Practicing Anthropology

Putting Anthropology to Work

What Ethical Obligations Do Anthropologists Have?

Do No Harm

Take Responsibility for Your Work

Share Your Findings

A WORLD IN MOTION: George A. Dorsey and the Anthropology of Immigration in the Early Twentieth Century

CLASSIC CONTRIBUTIONS: E. B. Tylor and the Culture Concept

DOING FIELDWORK: Conducting Holistic Research with Stanley Ulijaszek

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL LIFE: Anthropologists Are Innovators

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL LIFE: Key Characteristics of Anthropologists in the Workplace

2. Culture

Giving Meaning to Human Lives

What Is Culture?

Elements of Culture

Defining Culture in This Book

If Culture Is Always Changing, Why Does It Feel So Stable?

Symbols

Values

Norms

Traditions

How Do Social Institutions Express Culture?

Culture and Social Institutions

American Culture Expressed Through Breakfast Cereals and Sexuality

Can Anybody Own Culture?

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL LIFE: Cultural Anthropology and Human Possibilities

CLASSIC CONTRIBUTIONS: Franz Boas and the Relativity of Culture

ANTHROPOLOGIST AS PROBLEM SOLVER: Michael Ames and Collaborative Museum Exhibits

3. Human Biocultural Evolution

Emergence of the Biocultural Animal

Life Changes. But What Does It Mean to Say It Evolves?

A Brief Primer on the Rise of Evolutionary Thinking

Differentiating Evolution From Simple Change

What It Means to Have Common Ancestry

Why Evolution Is Important to Anthropology . . . and Anthropology to Evolution

What Are the Actual Mechanisms Through Which Evolution Occurs?

The Modern Synthesis

Basic Sources of Biological Change: Genes, DNA, and Cells

Genetic Mechanisms of Evolution

Non-Genetic Mechanisms of Evolution

How Do Biocultural Patterns Affect Evolution?

Human Inheritance Involves Multiple Systems

Evolutionary Processes Are Developmentally Open-Ended

The Importance of Constructivist Evolutionary Approaches for Biocultural Anthropology

Are Modern Humans Evolving, and Where Might We Be Headed?

The Impact of Disease on Evolution

Cultural Practices, Morphology, and Evolution

Looking to the Future

Global Population and Human Density

Genetic Manipulation

Climate Change and Adaptive Behavioral Patterns

CLASSIC CONTRIBUTIONS: Clyde Kluckhohn and the Role of Evolution in Anthropology

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL LIFE: The Biocultural Awesomeness of Awe

ANTHROPOLOGIST AS PROBLEM SOLVER: Clarifying the Biocultural and Evolutionary Dimensions of Obesity

4. Cross-Cultural Interactions

Understanding Culture and Globalization

Are Cross-Cultural Interactions All That New?

Is the Contemporary World Really Getting Smaller?

Defining Globalization

The World We Live In

What Are the Outcomes of Global Integration?

Colonialism and World Systems Theory

Cultures of Migration

Resistance at the Periphery

Globalizing and Localizing Identities

Doesn't Everyone Want to Be Developed?

What Is Development?

Development Anthropology

Anthropology of Development

Change on Their Own Terms

If the World Is Not Becoming Homogenized, What Is Actually Happening?

Cultural Convergence Theories

Hybridization

CLASSIC CONTRIBUTIONS: Eric Wolf, Culture, and the World System

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL LIFE: Coldplay and the Global Citizen Festival

A WORLD IN MOTION: Instant Ramen Noodles Take Over the World

DOING FIELDWORK: Tracking Emergent Forms of Citizenship with Aihwa Ong

PART II. BECOMING HUMAN

METHODS MEMO: How Do Anthropologists Study Human and Primate Biological Processes?

5. Living Primates

Comparing Monkeys, Apes, and Humans

What Does It Mean to Be a Primate, and Why Does It Matter to Anthropology?

What It Means to Be a Primate

The Distinctions Between Strepsirrhini and Haplorrhini

Primatology as Anthropology

What Are the Basic Patterns of Primate Behavioral Diversity, and Under What Conditions Did They Develop?

Common Behavior Patterns Among Primates

The Emergence of Primate Behavioral Diversity

How Do Behavior Patterns Among Monkeys and Apes Compare with Humans?

The Lives of Macaques

The Lives of Chimpanzees and Bonobos

So How Do They Compare With Us?

What Does Studying Monkeys and Apes Really Illustrate About Human Distinctiveness?

Primate Social Organization and Human Behavior

We Have Culture. Do They Too?

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL LIFE: So You Want to Work With Primates?

DOING FIELDWORK: The Ethics of Working with Great Apes

CLASSIC CONTRIBUTIONS: Sherwood Washburn and the New (Integrative) Physical Anthropology

METHODS MEMO: How Do Anthropologists Study Ancient Primates and Human Origins?

6. Ancestral Humans

Understanding the Human Family Tree

Who Are Our Earliest Possible Ancestors?

Our Earliest Ancestors Were Hominins

The Fossil Record of Hominins in

The Three Hominin Genera

Who Is Our Most Direct Ancestor?

What Did Walking on Two Legs and Having Big Brains Mean for the Early Hominins?

The Benefits of Upright Movement

The Effects of Big Brains on Early Hominin Behavior

Who Were the First Humans, and Where Did They Live?

Introducing Homo erectus

The Emergence of Archaic Humans

Who Were the Neanderthals and Denisovans?

Contemporary Humans Hit the Scene

How Do We Know If the First Humans Were Cultural Beings, and What Role Did Culture Play in Their Evolution?

The Emerging Cultural Capacity of H. erectus

Culture Among Archaic Humans

Social Cooperation and Symbolic Expression

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL LIFE: How to Think Like a Paleoanthropologist

ANTHROPOLOGIST AS PROBLEM SOLVER: Were We "Born to Run"?

CLASSIC CONTRIBUTIONS: Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Helpless Babies, and the Evolution of Human Cooperation

A WORLD IN MOTION: Rethinking the Peopling of the Americas

7. Human Biodiversity Today

Understanding Our Differences and Similarities

In What Ways Do Contemporary Humans Vary Biologically?

Genetic Variation Within and Between Human Populations

Genetic Variation Is Tied to Gene Flow

Physiological Diversity and Blood Types

Disease Environments and Human Immunity

Why Do Human Bodies Look So Different Across the Planet?

Is Skin Really Colored?

Variations in Body Shape, Stature, and Size

Are Differences of Race Also Differences of Biology?

The Biological Meanings (and Meaninglessness) of "Human Races"

But Isn>'t There Scientific Evidence for the Existence of Races?

What Biocultural Consequences Do Social Phenomena Like Discrimination, Rapid Change, Nurturing, and So Forth Have on Human Bodies?

Eugenics: A Weak Theory of Genetic Inheritance

The Embodied Consequences of Being a Racialized Minority

How Do Humans Thrive?

CLASSIC CONTRIBUTIONS: Ashley Montagu and "Man's Most Dangerous Myth"

ANTHROPOLOGIST AS PROBLEM SOLVER: Jada Benn Torres and Reparational Genetics in the Caribbean

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL LIFE: It Does, in Fact, "Take a Village:" A Biocultural Perspective

8. The Body

Biocultural Perspectives on Health and Illness

How Do Biological and Cultural Factors Shape Our Bodily Experiences?

Uniting Mind and Matter: A Biocultural Perspective

Culture and Mental Illness

What Do We Mean by Health and Illness?

The Individual Subjectivity of Illness

The "Sick Role": The Social Expectations of Illness

How and Why Do Doctors and Other Health Practitioners Gain Social Authority?

The Disease-Illness Distinction: Professional and Popular Views of Sickness

The Medicalization of the Non-Medical

How Does Healing Happen?

Clinical Therapeutic Processes

Symbolic Therapeutic Processes

Social Support

Persuasion: The Placebo Effect

How Can Anthropology Help Us Address Global Health Problems?

Understanding Global Health Problems

Anthropological Contributions to Tackling the International HIV/AIDS Crisis

ANTHROPOLOGIST AS PROBLEM SOLVER: Heidi Larson, Vaccine Anthropologist

A WORLD IN MOTION: Medical Tourism and Yemen

CLASSIC CONTRIBUTIONS: Paul Farmer and the Effort to Situate Global Health Problems in an Anthropology of Suffering

PART III. HUMANS AND THEIR MATERIAL WORLDS

METHODS MEMO: What Field Methods Do Archaeologists Use to Study the Human and Environmental Past?

9. Materiality

Constructing Social Relationships and MeaningsWith Things

Why Is the Ownership of Prehistoric Artifacts and Objects From Other Cultures Such a Contentious Issue?

Archaeological Excavation and Questions of Ownership

The Road to NAGPRA

Cultural Resource Management

How Should We Look at Objects Anthropologically?

The Many Dimensions of Objects

A Shiny New Bicycle in Multiple Dimensions

Constructing the Meaning of an Archaeological Artifact

How and Why Do the Meanings of Things Change Over Time?

The Social Life of Things

Three Ways Objects Change Over Time

How Archaeological Specimens Change Meaning Over Time

What Role Does Material Culture Play in Constructing the Meaning of a Community>'s Past?

Claiming the Past

The Politics of Archaeology

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL LIFE: Working as an Ethnographic Collections Manager at the Field Museum

A WORLD IN MOTION: The Movement of Art In and Out of Africa

CLASSIC CONTRIBUTIONS: Margaret Conkey and the Gender Politics of Understanding Past Lives

METHODS MEMO: Why Is Carbon-14 So Important to Archaeologists?

10. Early Agriculture and the Neolithic Revolution

Modifying the Environment to Satisfy Human Demands

How Important Was Hunting to Prehistoric Peoples?

Taking Stock of Living Hunter-Gatherers

's Holistic, On-the-Ground Approach to Fighting Poverty

14. Sustainability

Environment and Foodways

Do All People See Nature in the Same Way?

The Human-Nature Divide?

The Cultural Landscape

How Do People Secure an Adequate, Meaningful, and Environmentally Sustainable Food Supply?

Modes of Subsistence

Food, Culture, and Meaning

How Does Non-Western Knowledge of Nature and Agriculture Relate to Science?

Ethnoscience

Traditional Ecological Knowledge

How Are Industrial Agriculture, Economic Globalization, and Climate Change Linked to Increasing Environmental and Health Problems?

Population and Environment

Ecological Footprint

Industrial Foods, Sedentary Lives, and the Nutrition Transition

Climate Change and Culture

Are Industrialized Western Societies the Only Ones to Conserve Nature?

Anthropogenic Landscapes

The Culture of Modern Nature Conservation

Environmentalism>'s Alternative Paradigms

CLASSIC CONTRIBUTIONS: Roy Rappaport's Insider and Outsider Models

ANTHROPOLOGIST AS PROBLEM SOLVER: Urban Black Food Justice with Ashanté Reese

A WORLD IN MOTION: Migrant Caravans, Global Warming, and Ecological Refugees

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL LIFE: Careers in Sustainability

15. Power

Politics and Social Control

Does Every Society Have a Government?

The Idea of