AnthNav.

Guiding you through the field of social/cultural anthropology

Welcome!

AnthNav is an online resource designed to help you get familiar with the field of social/cultural anthropology.

Here we have curated a variety of links (to videos, graphics, websites, and more), within short informational paragraphs that you can navigate at your own speed.

Learn more about the AnthNav site here …

… or continue on to explore the two main headings of ‘About Social/Cultural Anthropology‘ and ‘Practicing Social/Cultural Anthropology’.

Social anthropology is a lively and diverse academic discipline. This section aims to give you some of the background information you need to understand how it fits into a broader picture of academic teaching, research, and employment.

Anthropology is an academic field devoted to the study of human beings. It has four sub-disciplines. This online tool is focussed on one specific area called social anthropology.

Learn how Social Anthropology is situated
within academia

Social anthropology has changed a lot throughout its history. Understanding how it developed over time, will help you get a good understanding of the focus and goals.

Learn about the History of the Field

Anthropologists are often driven by a curiosity about people, an interest in deconstructing what others take for granted, and a desire to make the world safer for diverse ways of life.

Learn more about these Values, and some possible Career Pathways

In a way, social anthropology is defined less by what we study, and more by how we study it. This section aims to help you get a feel for what makes an anthropological approach distinctive or unique.

We’ve broken it into three sections, about Thinking, Researching, and Communicating like a social anthropologist. In practice, these three aren’t separate at all, but rather we move in and out of all these activities when we ‘do’ social anthropology.

Social anthropology provides a specific lens on the world; a set of tools for seeing, understanding, and deconstructing complex human worlds. This section covers some of the major concepts that make up this this lens.

Learn how to ‘Think like a Social Anthropologist’

Social anthropology involves empirical research, and data-gathering, typically based in an ethnographic approach. This section covers some of the research methods and techniques that anthropologists use.

Learn how to ‘Research like a Social Anthropologist’

Social anthropologists tell stories about big and small aspects of human life. This section introduces you to some written, visual, sounded, and other methods that can be used to do this in clear and compelling ways.

Learn how to ‘Communicate like a Social Anthropologist‘