Anthropology

Choose for your course

For an undergraduate course, start with its syllabus. MIT’s Spring 2022 Introduction to Anthropology lists The Dawn of Everything as a required text; that is one course’s choice, not a universal requirement. MIT’s How Culture Works uses Argonauts of the Western Pacific while teaching ethnographic practice. For independent study, begin with a field-based book, then add theory. Save Bourdieu’s graduate-level Outline of a Theory of Practice for when you can connect its concepts to concrete cases.

Suggested reading approach

1. Before choosing a book, match it to the course question, assigned chapters and edition. Archived university materials are useful examples, not substitutes for your current syllabus.
2. While reading an ethnography, note where and when the research took place, whose perspectives are represented, and what evidence supports each claim. Treat a classic as a historical account to examine critically, not as a universal description of a culture.
3. Then compare explanations: use a theory text to ask how concepts such as culture, exchange or social structure clarify—and where they fail to capture—the case you just read.