Sociocultural Anthropology Critical and Primary Sources

This is the first multi-volume collection of major writings on cultural anthropology, the sub-field of anthropology which is concerned with how people in different places live and understand the world around them. It covers key methodologies (participant observation, ethnography) and topics (kinship, ritual, values) and maps the development of the field from its beginnings in the mid-nineteenth century through to recent and current debates on the 'critique of anthropology' and the rise of new methodologies such as multi-sited research. The four volumes are arranged thematically and each is separately introduced. Drawing upon essays from anthropology and related disciplines, the volumes together chart the origins of the field, explore its core theories and methods, and trace the proliferation of sub-fields that it has generated, including anthropology of art, urban anthropology, medical anthropology and the anthropology of gender and sexuality. With key texts from James George Frazer, Lewis Henry Morgan, Bronislaw Malinowski, Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, Lucy Mair, Claude Levi Strauss, Melford Spiro, Marshall Sahlins, Laura Nader, Maurice Godelier, David Graeber, Suad Joseph and many more, this set is an essential resource for scholars and students of the subject.