Cultural Anthropology
Ethnography is the heart of practicing cultural anthropology. Ethnography involves 1) immersive fieldwork leading to 2) complex, deeply contextualized representations of particular times and places. Its emphasis on participant-observation resonates with the Block Plan’s prioritizing of experiential learning.
We consider the ethnographic record, the aggregate of these singular representations, in comparative terms to understand the diversity of human understanding and experience. Our primarily qualitative approach is often complemented with quantitative and other mixed methods, and we rely heavily on theory to “talk across” the varied and vast expanse of our particular areas of knowledge. While perhaps most are interested in “other cultures,” the rigor of anthropology’s methodological, theoretical, and ethical inquiries often challenge expectations. Taking representation seriously, with all that it entails in anti-reductionist, anti-essentialist, decolonial, antiracist, queer and feminist terms, has anthropology decades into conversations only now reaching our mainstream public.
Cultural anthropology at Colorado College immerses students in a wide range of research traditions. Students gain expertise in the Boasian school of the early twentieth century, when modern cultural anthropology emerged to challenge reigning ideas of scientific racism and eugenics by emphasizing human diversity and plurality around the world. At the same time, students engage contemporary currents in the field, including ongoing efforts to decolonize anthropology by critically examining its historical entanglements with empire and extractive forms of knowledge-production (see our Anti-Racism Statement).
Today, cultural anthropology can lend itself to an extraordinary range of questions and research topics. Below are some examples across potential topics of interest:
“Derecho de Piso”: Access to Home in the Path Towards the Uruguayan Citizenship for Cuban Migrants (Julieta Lechini, 2022).
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Cross-Pollination Across Subfields and Disciplines:
Cultural anthropology at Colorado College is deeply interdisciplinary, intersecting productively with the other subfields of anthropology. For example, cultural and biological anthropologists collaborate to examine how humans create meaning in multispecies worlds, as in Dr. Fish and Dr. Hautzinger’s joint course, Multispecies Anthropology (AN208). Cultural anthropologists also work alongside linguistic anthropologists and archaeologists to explore how language, material culture, and history shape social realities. See our Cross-Field Collaborations page for further examples.
Cultural anthropology’s interdisciplinary connections extend across campus and the curriculum as well. Cultural anthropology professors participate in the Environmental Program, Southwest Studies, Feminist and Gender Studies, Asian Studies, and the Religion, Culture & Power program.