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Anthropology is the study of humans across space and time. It is essentially cross-cultural, and attempts to understand the way of life of other peoples throughout the world, how they have attempted to solve pan-human problems of food, shelter, and repopulation; and what worlds of meaning and explanation they have created. It is a comparative discipline seeking similarities and differences between societies and environments. Its study leads to a heightened awareness of the importance of culture and sensitivity to cultural differences.

As an anthropology student you may study such things as: the way culture influences the process of communication between people of different cultures; the relationship between individuals and their ecological and socio-cultural environments throughout the life cycle; major societal forms from foraging, through horticultural and agrarian, to industrial and post-industrial; and issues of development at the global and local levels around questions such as "What is development?" and "Who benefits from development?"

Program
The Department offers a Minor, a Major and an Honours program in anthropology.  A distinctive feature of the program is a series of world ethnography courses which provide regional overviews.  Course work includes the study of theory, method, and areas such as social inequality, belief, folklore, family and kinship, health, and culture.  This creates the lens through which the anthropologist views the world.

Anthropology also complements other scientific and liberal arts courses by helping students understand the interconnectivity of knowledge about people and their cultures.  Inter-disciplinary study enables students to understand issues that will affect the future and the information that will be needed to thrive in the global world.

Students participate in enrichment activities such as a field trip to a Gurdwara Sikh temple, a cultural exchange organized in partnership with an Aboriginal community, a workshop at an Aboriginal Healing Lodge, and a Henna workshop.  The Department also offers fieldwork opportunities through faculty initiated summer research projects.

You and your career
The study of anthropology is essential training for careers in an increasingly global workplace.  Business is being conducted internationally and employees and markets are increasingly diverse.  Anthropology also develops the critical thinking and communication skills needed to succeed in business, research, teaching, advocacy, and public service.

As a graduate you may pursue a career in the following areas: as teachers of English as a second language, museum curators, cultural resource managers, and in applied research either as consultants or employees within corporations or NGOs.  Mount Allison graduates have also achieved advanced degrees in anthropology and law.

What we do
Faculty in anthropology are active researchers on a global scale. Our projects include:

• Labour market participation of Middle Eastern women in Morocco;
•Henna practices and practitioners in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia;
• Comparative work on Muslim communities in North America and Europe;
• Role of shamans in the practice of land and resource management in northern India and Siberia;
•Comparative traditional medicine practices in Thailand, Siberia, and Maritime Canada;
•Fisheries Management and Policy in Atlantic Canada;
•Projects in the early history of Canadian Anthropology, such as The "Northern Athapaskan Survey" of Edward Sapir and James A. Teit, and of related interest, Joseph Howe's "Indian Journal."

Faculty provide consulting services to Indian and Northern Affairs Canada.  A project on settlement issues among recent women immigrants to New Brunswick was funded by the Canada Metropolis Centre.

What you can do
Students majoring in anthropology can gain practical experience in research conducted as part of an Honours degree or as student research assistants.  Recent Honours papers included: "Conversations on the Transformation of Rural Life: Domestic Commodity Production in an Age of Farm Corporations"; "Semiotics of Tattooing and its Implications for our Understanding of Liminality"; "'Gone to Pot?': An Examination of the Medical Marijuana Debate in North America"; "Blurring Transnational Boundaries: Migrant women, motherhood, and myth"; and "Healing and Middle Eastern Dance: An ethnography of 'belly dance' among North American women".

Department Website

Academic Calendar: Anthropology
Academic Calendar: Sociology/Anthropology