Politics & Anthropology :
a guide to library resources

Contents:
Starting points | Finding books | Finding journal articles |Web resources |

STARTING POINTS

When you need to define your topic and/or get some background reading try consulting a dictionary or encyclopedia on political science/world politics - those in electronic format are linked here. The guide to Anthropology dictionaries/encyclopedias will help if you need explanations of anthropological terminology or theory.

To find overviews on the subject try the following:

Anthropology and politics : visions, traditions, and trends (1990) [print]
[A critical review of the anthropological study of politics in the English-speaking world from 1879 to the present. A book review is linked here]

Anthropology of politics : a reader in ethnography, theory, and critique (2002) [print] 
[A selection of classic and contemporary articles on the anthropology of politics. A book review is linked here]

 

Cultural Anthropology virtual issue : democracy, voting & elections (2008) [electronic] 
[Maintained by Cultural Anthropology : the journal of the Society for Cultural Anthropology. Provides access to a collection of articles and supplementary papers relating to democracy, elections and voting]

Political economy (1988) [electronic]
[A review of the development of anthropological political economy. Published in vol.17 of the Annual review of Anthropology. Also available in print format]

Political anthropology : an introduction (1992) [print]
[Summarises the development of political anthropology, examines its theoretical structure and reviews its main contributors]

Toward an anthropology of democracy (2002) [electronic]  
[This review brings together the writings of ethnographers working in a wide variety of settings to generate lines of inquiry and analysis for developing an anthropology of democracy. Published in  vol. 31 of the Annual Review of Anthropology. Also available in print format]

FINDING BOOKS USING THE LIBRARY CATALOGUE

Books can be found by searching the library catalogue. Keyword searching is probably the best way of identifying material, and your results will be maximised by using keyword searching techniques such as truncation and Boolean searching, and by incorporating subject headings into your search where appropriate. Here are some examples on how to construct searches:

"political anthropology"

"power (social sciences)" and anthropology

"human rights" and (anthropol? or ethnograph?)

FINDING JOURNAL ARTICLES USING DATABASES

Journal articles can be found through databases listed in the Electronic Databases for Anthropology guide - Sociological Abstracts, Anthropology Plus, Academic OneFile and Academic Search Premier are probably the best starting points for finding articles written on political anthropology topics.

WEB RESOURCES

The following are starting points for locating resources on the Internet

Association for Political and Legal Anthropology
[The Association for Political and Legal Anthropology (APLA) of the American Anthropological Association was founded in 1976 to foster communication and cooperation among scholars interested in the anthropological study of politics and the law]

INTUTE:  Socio-Political Structure and Relations (Anthropology)
[INTUTE provides easy access to quality information sources over the net]

Last update: 23 Oct 2008  

This page is maintained by Helen Attar