Anthropology

Cultural Anthropology

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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:

How do experiments in policing and state interventions around domestic violence -- like those examined in Dr. Sarah Hautzinger’s research -- reshape ideas of gender, authority, and power in Brazil? Capstone example:  
“Derecho de Piso”: Access to Home in the Path Towards the Uruguayan Citizenship for Cuban Migrants (Julieta Lechini, 2022). 

How do traditional Indigenous healing practices engage or conflict with new imperatives around digital health, as explored in Dr. Aaron Su’s research in Taiwan. Capstone example: Capitalizing on Community: a Critical Discourse on the Neoliberal Management of Diabetes and Inequity (Morgan Mulhern,  2017). 

How do globally threatened communities navigate the bureaucracy of yearly international climate summits such as COP, where Dr. Hautzinger and CC students have done ethnography at UN Climate Summits? Capstone example: The Early Closure of the Martin Drake Power Plant as an Example of Subnational Climate Action and its Role in the United States' Fulfillment of the Paris Agreement (Mikaela Alexander, 2023).  

 How does Wall Street produce particular ideals of individual achievement, economic value, and cultural dominance (Ho 2009)? Capstone example: The Impacts of Twilight Tourism on Economic Security and Identity Development in Forks, WA (Hannah Nicole Tilden, 2026).

How do Western notions of feminism bias our understandings of women’s power, oppression, and agency in global contexts, such as the Muslim world (Abu-Lughod 2015)? Research example: CC anthropologists explore Feminist Last-Naming Practices, (Hautzinger and students) and capstone example: Going Queer on the Dance Floor (Manuel Macedo, 2023, now an Anthropology student at Vanderbilt). 

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Courses

  • AN 100 HumanBeing Anthropological Perspectives
  • AN 102 Cultural Anthropology
  • AN 204 The Body: Anthropological Perspectives
  • AN 206 Doing Ethnography
  • AN 215 Anthropological Theory
  • AN 221 Topics in Ethnomusicology
  • AN 237 African Descendants in the Caribbean and Latin America
  • AN 238 Gender and Sexuality in Latin America and the Caribbean
  • AN 239 Gender Diversity Across Cultures
  • AN 242 The Anthropology of Food
  • AN 259 Native Peoples of the Southwest
  • AN 270 Anthropocene
  • AN 326 Religion and Ritual
  • AN 376 Culture and Power: Political Anthropology
  • AN 377 Living in the Material World: Economic Anthropology

Skills and Careers

Our alumni in cultural anthropology have gone on to a variety of careers, harnessing our field’s emphasis on rigorous community-based research, comparative analysis, clear and persuasive writing, and the ability to work across cultural and institutional contexts. These careers include local and international NGOs, journalism, public policy, education, law, and health, as well as graduate school in anthropology or related fields. Our Senior Program including Anthropology Capstone and AN315: Senior Seminar hones students’ abilities to articulate their assets for employers, internships, and graduate programs. 

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.   

Report an issue - Last updated: 03/10/2026