Corsi di Studio del Dipartimento di Culture, Politica e Società

The course will be easier to follow for students who have acquired some previous knowledge of socio-cultural anthropology from introductory courses. However, this is no absolute requirement, as this module is designed to be essentially self-contained.

The primary goal of the course is to contribute to the building of anthropological and ethnological competences by introducing students to the research fields, theoretical orientations and methodological tools that are distinctive of social anthropology.

By focusing especially on the “classic period” of the growth of social anthropology and its enduring legacy, the course will therefore aim at:

• following the evolution of social anthropology from its origins up to its most recent tendencies;
• exploring the relations  between this branch of anthropology and the other human and social sciences;
• identifying the distinctive methods and conceptual tools of social anthropology through the analysis of classic ethnographic monographs.

The main distinctive feature of this course is that its aims is to induce familiarity with the methods and conceptual tools of social anthropology through an analysis of classic or especially representative ethnographic monographs, rather than through an abstract systematic overview.
This allows students to develop critical and independent thinking in reading the literature and at the same time to acquire a basic knowledge of the discipline which is closer to the concreteness of ethnographic experience, and therefore more useful to the practical application of what has been learned during the course.

Whole class teaching

• The exam will be oral: in addition to assess the extent to which knowledge – ethnological as well as theoretical and methodological – has been successfully acquired, it will also serve to evaluate the student’s critical ability in reading the ethnographic monographs.
• Differential programmes have been devised for students who will attend the course and for those who will be unable to do so.

Title: Aims, methods and achievements in social anthropology

 Topics:
• The origins and early development of social anthropology: evolutionism and diffusionism.
• The functionalist school and the development of the modern techniques of fieldwork.
• The study of magical thought and the problem of primitive rationality.
• The structuralist schools: “descent theory” and “alliance theory”.
• The new research paradigm: transactionalism and the analysis of social networks.

Differential programmes have been devised for students who will attend the course and for those who will be unable to do so.

 A) Programme for the students who will be able to attend the course of lectures.

They will have to demonstrate knowledge:
- of the course content (notes from the lectures);
- of two volumes selected among the following:
• B. Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, London, Routledge, 2014 [orig. ed.1922].
• B. Malinowski, Sex and Repression in Savage Society, London, Routledfge, 2001 [orig. ed. 1927].
• R. Firth, We, the Tikopia. A Sociological Study of Kinship in Primitive Polinesia, London, Psychology Press, 2004 [orig. ed. 1936].
• E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, oracles and magic among the Azande, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1976 [orig. ed. 1937].
• E.E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer. A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1987 [orig. ed. 1940].
• C. Lévi-Strauss, Les structures élémentaires de la parenté, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1949 [English trans. Boston, Beacon Press, 1969].
• E. Leach, Political Systems of Highland Burma, London, Athlone Press, 1964 [orig. ed. 1954].
• V. Maher (ed.), Questioni di etnicità, Turin, Rosenberg & Sellier, 2008 (a collection of classic papers by F. Barth, A. Cohen, U. Hannerz, P. and I. Mayer, J.C. Mitchell).
• F. Piselli (ed.), Reti. L'analisi di network nelle scienze sociali, Roma, Donzelli, 2001 (study only Piselli's Introduction and the classic papers by J. Barnes, J. Boissevain and E. Bott).

 NB: Reading lists on specific topics will be provided during the course and made available on line.

 B) Programme for the students who will not be able to attend the course of lectures

- Students of Cross-cultural communication unable to attend the lectures will be expected to study three volumes selected among those listed above.
- Students of degree courses other than Intercultural Communication unable to attend the lectures will be expected to study: (a) two volumes selected among those listed above and (b) an introductory volume selected among the following:
• J. Beattie, Other Cultures. Aims, Methods and Achievements in Social Anthropology, London, Psychology Press, 2004.
• R. Deliège, Storia dell’antropologia, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2008 [French orig. ed. Une histoire de l'anthropologie, Paris, Seuil, 2006].

- This course is intended primarily for students of Cross-cultural communication, but all students from other degree courses are welcome.

- International and Erasmus students may prepare for examinations and take them in English. Specific reading lists consisting of books and articles in English will be made available on request from the teacher.