Introduction to Social Anthropology

Recommended Prerequisites

None.

Teaching Methods

Continuous evaluation consists of a final frequency, which focuses on the texts of the practical classes, and the evaluation of student’s individual papers. The Frequency is worth 75% of the final grade, and the individual paper 25%.

Each student must deliver an individual paper on the text previously presented

Learning Outcomes

In this discipline the students should apprehend the main historical and theoretical contents of Social and Cultural Anthropology as same as to develop a strong capacity of individual critical thought  on ethnographic and theoretical domains built over cultural and social diversity.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1- The social evolutionism (Henry Morgan);

2- The British functionalism and structural functionalism (Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, Evans-Pritchard);

3- The French structuralism (Lévi-Strauss);

4- The American culturalism (Boas, Benedict and Geertz);

5- The history of Portuguese anthropology, and the Coimbra School of Antropology.

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Individual paper : 25.0%
Frequency: 75.0%

Bibliography

EVANS-PRITCHARD, E.E., 1976, “Witchcraft is an Organic and Hereditary Phenomenon”, “The Notion of Witchcraft Explains Unfortunate events”, in Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande, Oxford, Clarendon Press, pps. 1-32.

GEERTZ, Clifford, 1978 (1973), “Uma Descrição Densa: Por uma Teoria Interpretativa da Cultura”, in A Interpretação das Culturas, Rio de Janeiro, Zahar Editores, pps. 13-41.

LEAL, João, 2000, Etnografias Portuguesas (1870-1970). Cultura Popular e Identidade Nacional, Lisboa, Colecção Portugal de Perto, Publicações Dom Quixote, pps. 83-104.

MALINOWSKI, Bronislav., 1985 (1922), “Introduction. The Subject, Method and Scope of this Inquiry”, in Argonauts of the Western Pacific, London & Henley, Routledge and Kegan Paul, pps. 1-25.

TURNER, Vitor W., 1996 (1957), “ The Politically Integrative Function of Ritual”, in Schism and Continuity in an African Society, Oxford and Washington D.C., Berg, pps. 288-317.