writing help: i have to write an essay in social anthropology. - Help.com

Ok you need to choose a good question (happy to review ideas with you). Do you have a course outline (I am so cross reading this but will help anyway- I studied anthropology) Seriously do not think you’ll pass but lets try- what are the lectures on.

great! i may find the course outline, but it won’t be in english anyway. it was only an introductory course and it was one of the courses i could choose from for this semester so i have to write at least anything to pass. i know that it was a revision of the main authors like Malinowski or Levi-Strauss we also discussed the main topics and theories in social anthropology, i can also recall lectures about visual anthropology and post-modernism, but nothing i would write my essay on. i REALLY appreciate your will to help me

Er ok well that’s not much to go on. Levi-Strauss is best known in cultural studies for his concept of binary oppositions: that cultural practices are structured around oppositions and their transgression (key text The Raw and the cooked) IThe concept has been applied to Western culture so the land is opposed to the sea and the beach violates this opposition so is a place of transgession- ie display, nudity, freedom from work. So I guess in if you focussed on his work you’d need a question like “Discuss the role of language in the work of Levi Strauss (language here means structure of meaning) or, more simply “How does Levi Strauss’s concept of binary oppositions help understand a culture”. Or how does structuralism influence the work of levi strauss

Strauss’s work is influential on the post modern theorist jean Baudrillard but I honestly think its too late for youy to grasp that (in brief Baudrillard argues that binary oppositions between, for instance Disneyland and the rest of America, lead us to believe Dysney land is a place of fantasy whereas actually America itself is)

Malinowski is oldschool social anthropology. One aspect he focussed on is gift exchange. You could ask a questionm like what is the role of gifts in tribal socities (you would need to include the work of Marcel Mauss and sahlins.)

Did you do Evans pritchard and witchcraft among the Azandi?

well, i do know the basics about these authors’ ideas and the authors themselves, yet i don’t want to go into discussing them in my essay, because that would require a much more in-depth knowledge. i’m also aware that my essay can be about anything off-course. i know some people chose to write about different subcultures. it’s just my problem that i have a hard time starting anything that requires my creativity and the topics i think of seem non-anthropological or rather ’sociological’, but that’s maybe because i don’t know where the exact line between social anthropology and sociology is. what you said here may be of some help. thank you!

ok **** Hebdige applied structuralist ideas from Levi-Strauss to punk in his work Sub Culture the meaning of style. If you can apply this stuff to western society check out Fiske’s Reading Popular Culture, and Understanding Popular Culture. Sorry i can’t be of more help.

thank you!

Anonymous wrote:
thank you!

Lol the censor is automatic so it cut out “Richards” name because he uses the familar shortened version of D**k. Ridiculous.