Social and Cultural Anthropology for the 21st Century Connected Worlds

Social and Cultural Anthropology for the 21st Century: Connected Worlds is a lively, accessible, and wide-ranging introduction to socio-cultural anthropology for undergraduate students. It draws on a wealth of ethnographic examples to showcase how anthropological fieldwork and analysis can help us understand the contemporary world in all its diversity and complexity.

The book is addressed to a twenty-first-century readership of students who are encountering social and cultural anthropology for the first time. It provides an overview of the key debates and methods that have historically defined the discipline and of the approaches and questions that shape it today. In addition to classic research areas such as kinship, exchange, and religion, topics that are pressing concerns for our times are covered, such as climate change, economic crisis, social media, refugees, sexuality, and race. Foregrounding ethnographic stories from all over the world to illustrate global connections and their effects on local lives, the book combines a focus on history with urgent present-day social issues. It will equip students with the analytical tools that they need to negotiate a world characterized by unprecedented cross-cultural contact, ever-changing communicative technologies and new forms of uncertainty.

The book is an essential resource for introductory courses in social and cultural anthropology and as a refresher for more advanced students.

Preface ; 1 Society and culture in the 21st century ; 2 Anthropologists at work ; 3 Kinship ; 4 Marriage ; 5 Gender, sex, and sexuality ; 6 The body ; 7 The senses ; 8 The life cycle ; 9 Gifts and exchange ; 10 Religion ; 11 Rank, caste, and social class ; 12 State, nation, and citizenship ; 13 Mobility and transnationalism ; 14 Media and the technological transformation of social relations ; 15 The environment

Marzia Balzani is research professor of anthropology, New York University Abu Dhabi. She has published on the anthropology of South Asia, political ritual, diasporic Islam, and gendered and religious persecution. In 2003–08 she was chief examiner for social and cultural anthropology for the International Baccalaureate and in 2010–12 she was chief examiner for Anthropology for the A level (AQA).

Niko Besnier is professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Amsterdam and honorary research fellow at La Trobe University. He has published widely on globalization, sport, sexuality and gender, economic relations, and language. In 1998–2003, he was chief examiner for social and cultural anthropology for the International Baccalaureate, and in 2015–19, he edited the journal American Ethnologist.