Social Anthropology Basics Test — Flashcards

Social anthropology is the study of human societies and cultures through a comparative lens. It is a subdiscipline of anthropology that examines the cultural properties of human societies. Social anthropologists seek to understand how people live in societies and how they make their lives meaningful. 

Topics of social anthropology include: cultural norms, morals, laws, and customs. 
Social anthropology also focuses on the comparative study of non-industrialized societies. It examines a range of political, economic, family, and religious systems found among different peoples. 
Social anthropology has a lot of overlap with cultural anthropology. In the United Kingdom and much of Europe, social anthropology is the dominant constituent of anthropology, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. 
Social anthropology can help free people from social and cultural binds that they have acquired during their lifetime. It can help people learn about other cultures and other people through comparison, and to reflect back on themselves in their own culture. 

Some examples of social anthropology include:
Concepts of family, gender, and kinship organization
The production and circulation of necessities and luxuries
Moral and religious ideas and ritual practices
Notions of the human person and of health and illness
Cosmological ideas about space, time, the relation between human, animal, ... 

Related Test: Social Anthropology