Reviewed and adapted by Courtney Anderson (for political, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, globalization chapters) and Hilary Simons Morland (for introduction, family and marriage, and religion chapters).
Preface
Welcome to Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology! Perspectives was the first peer-reviewed open access textbook created for cultural anthropology courses. It was produced by the Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges with contributions from contemporary cultural anthropologists doing field work around the world. Each chapter offers an overview of the topic and includes case studies from the author’s own research. The Community College of Aurora received a grant to review and adapt the original textbook for relevance to our own student community.
Perspectives takes a holistic approach to cultural anthropology and emphasizes the interconnectedness of different parts of culture. In reading these chapters, you will be invited to step into another’s shoes and to learn about and understand the practices of other cultural groups without judgement, bias, or criticism.
As instructors, we want you, as students, to see the possibilities that cultural awareness and sensitivity can contribute to creating more constructive approaches to global problems, issues, and conflicts. We want to help you share and practice anthropological knowledge and understanding, and to put this knowledge into the context of your own life and educational experience. We want all readers to be inspired by the personal writings of the anthropologists who contributed to this volume.
About Courtney Anderson
Courtney Anderson is a Community College of Aurora faculty, teaching in the disciplines of Education, Ethnic Studies, and Geography. Anderson received her BA in History from New York University and her Masters in Social Sciences Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. Prior to entering higher education, she worked as a high school educator, teaching middle school and high school students, in New York City and Berkeley, California. Anderson is passionate about creating a more informed and just world through education, currently working to develop apprenticeship programs for future teachers.
About Hilary Morland
Hilary Morland, PhD, earned a BA in Anthropology and Psychology from Reed College and a PhD in Anthropology from Yale University. Morland has a concentration in Biological Anthropology and has done field work on primates in Japan, Madagascar, Kenya, and the DRC. She conducted the first field study of ruffed lemurs in the eastern rain forests of Madagascar and has worked in international wildlife conservation. Morland is an instructor at Community College of Aurora, teaching face to face and online classes in cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, medical anthropology, and ethnic studies. She believes deeply in the value of education in general and anthropology in particular for equipping students to navigate the complexities of the 21st century.
Land Acknowledgement
The Community College of Aurora respectfully acknowledges that the land on which our campuses are located is on the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pʉ̱ (Ute), Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Sioux) Nations, Tribes, and peoples, and descendants of the Folsom and Clovis first peoples.
These lands were also the sites of trade gatherings, generational migration routes, and places of harvesting, hunting, and healing for numerous other Native tribes.
We recognize the Indigenous peoples as original stewards of this land and all the living things within it. We pay our respects to these communities, past, present, and future, the land, and the elders.
We renew and reaffirm the ties that Indigenous Nations have to their traditional lands.
About the Community College of Aurora
The Community College of Aurora is a proud Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), with over 30% of the student population identifying as Hispanic/Latinx, and a Minority Serving Institution (MSI), with more than half the student population identifying as Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC). The CCA student body includes first-time students, adult learners, international students, and Veterans, representing the rich community of Aurora.
This diversity in the CCA student body offers experiences, perspectives, attitudes, and backgrounds. As a CCA student, you are encouraged to draw on your lived experiences and those of your classmates to help cultural anthropology come alive.
