It is a fascinating and challenging task to introduce socio-cultural anthropology to new students. Regardless of a student s background or future endeavors, the very fact that they re pursuing college education in today s globalized era makes it imperative that they become informed about some of the key contemporary social and cultural issues examined in anthropology. This selection of readings is an ideal complement to commonly used socio-cultural anthropology textbooks.
Beyond cursory overviews of important issues, this anthology focuses on providing reasonably detailed, yet concise anthropological discussion of issues that are of interest to the general public. The selections are informed by the author s experience teaching anthropology courses on three different continents (Africa, Europe and North America) to students at varying levels in their college education. "Selected Readings in Cultural Anthropology" aims to leave readers with a better understanding of contemporary human challenges and help them practically address such issues in the future.
Data D. Barata, Ph.D. (2003, University of Bergen), is assistant professor of anthropology at California State University, Sacramento. Dr. Barata has a wealth of international experience having worked as a visiting lecturer at McGill University (Canada), research fellow at Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (Germany), research officer at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex (UK) and lecturer at Alemaya University (Ethiopia). He has published extensively on his areas of research interest including rural livelihoods, indigenous knowledge and biodiversity, social inequality and political change, human rights and governance cultures, election and legitimacy, religion, peace and conflict. His monograph "Rural Livelihoods and Social Stratification among the Dawro, Southern Ethiopia" (2008) was published by the Department Anthropology, Addis Ababa University."