Anthropology is devoted to the study of human beings in all of their social and cultural complexity. Anthropologists seek to describe the inner workings of human social groups and to understand how and why societies change over time.
Located on the eastern edge of the continent, the Department of Anthropology at Memorial has strong intellectual roots in both Europe and North America. While the department has historically placed a strong regional focus on the North Atlantic Rim, particularly: Eastern Canada; the United States; Iceland; The Shetland Islands; Norway; England, Ireland, and Spain, our faculty members also have expertise in other areas, including Central and South America, the South Pacific, and Eastern Europe.
Memorial's anthropologists seek to foster an approach that is at once critical and engaged. While the research interests of the faculty are diverse, we share a strong interest in problems of power and social inequality, which we view as being critical to understanding the contemporary world. Faculty research projects have addressed a wide range of important topics, including: the Northern Ireland Peace Process, the political transformation that has taken place in Spain after the fall of the Franco’s fascist regime, the politics of authenticity in Newfoundland’s fishing and tourism industries, historical memory of the Viet Nam war, issues of development in Latin America, and social and political struggles over access to ocean spaces and resources.
The Department offers programs at the BA, MA and PhD levels.
News
Samantha Breslin will deliver a seminar entitled '"Would you be a reel now or a Jig?' Playing Tunes in St. John's, Newfoundland" on Thursday, November 19th at 5PM in QC 4028.
August Carbonella will assume the editorship of the Routledge journal "Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power" in January of 2010.
Reade Davis will be presenting a paper entitled: "Lost at Sea: Ecosystem Management and the Politics of Uncertainty" at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 2, 2009.
Gregory Gan will be presenting a paper entitled "Negotiating Liminality: Women of the Intelligentsia in Post-Soviet Russia" at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 6, 2009.
David Cooney delivered a seminar entitled "The
Accentuation of Intra-Class Divisions in Post-Moratorium Bonavista"
on Thursday, November 12th, 2009.
Jean Briggs delivered a seminar entitled "Language
Dead or Alive:
What’s in a Dictionary?" on Thursday, November 5, 2009
Janna Rosales kicked off the 2009-2010 Anthropology Seminar Series on October 15th with a paper titled "The Toll of Our Tools: Examining the Moral and Ethical Dimensions of E-Waste."
Kathleen Gordon published the paper "Marketplace vendors, decision-making, and the household." Research in Economic Anthropology 29: 123-146.