Introductory Readings in Anthropology - Tapa dura

Key Features of Introductory Readings in Anthropology * The first anthropology reader intended to be used at A-Level as well as first-year undergraduate levels. * Edited by experts in the field, in consultation with the Royal Anthropological Institute. * Covers all four units to be taught as part of the Anthropology A-Level: "Being Human," "Becoming a Person," "Global and Local," and "Practising Anthropology." * Provides concise and accessible introductions to each section and subsection. * Features key extracts from essential anthropological works. * Includes new original texts written especially for the reader to clearly introduce key anthropological ideas. * Suggested further reading given for each section. Anthropology seeks to understand human social behaviour and how societies are formed. As a method of inquiry it embraces an enormous range of topics, and as a discipline it covers a multitude of fields and themes, as shown in this selection of original writings. As an accessible entry point, for upper-level students and first year undergraduates new to the study of anthropology, this reader also offers guidance for teachers in exploring the subject's riches with their students. That anthropology is an immensely expansive inquiry of study is demonstrated by the diversity of its topics - from nature conservation campaigns to witchcraft beliefs, from human evolution to fashion and style, and from the repatriation of indigenous human remains to research on literacy. There is no single 'story of anthropology'. Taken together, these fundamental readings are evidence of a contemporary, vibrant subject that has much to tell us about all the worlds in which we live. The reader contains four sections: the first looks at the body and how it is interpreted in anthropology; at ways of thinking and communicating; at how social relations are organised; and at ways of engaging with nature, the environment and human-made objects. The second section illustrates anthropologists' ideas about personhood as socially constituted, and ways of defining social boundaries and groups. The third studies the themes of globalisation (local and global processes); and the fourth the practice of anthropology, including anthropological ethics, methods and investigations.

Hilary Callan was Director of the Royal Anthropological Institute from 2000-2010. She is a member of the Institute's Committee on Anthropology in Secondary and Further Education; and is Editor-in-Chief of a forthcoming International Encyclopaedia of Anthropology. Brian Street is Emeritus Professor of Language in Education at King's College, London University and Visiting Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. He has a commitment to linking ethnographic-style research on the cultural dimension of language and literacy with contemporary practice in education and in development. He is currently a Vice President of the RAI Council and is Chair of the RAI Education Committee. Simon Underdown is a biological anthropologist specialising in human evolution. He is Senior Lecturer in Biological Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University, and a member of the Council and Education Committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute. In addition to scholarly publications, he has written numerous articles on human evolution for the UK's national press.