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Social anthropology

Social Anthropology research 'how-to'

Pre-fieldwork PhD, Master's students and early career researchers in social anthropology will find good advice on research practices in their discipline here. The advice is presented in three modules:

Anthropology

Getting Started

If you are not sure what your topic is about, try one or more of the following:

Handbooks: 

Moving anthropology : critical indigenous studies

The handbook of ethical research with ethnocultural populations & communities

Browsing the Shelves:

You can also browse the Catalogue, or the shelves at the following call numbers

CC Archaeology
DU History of Australia and Oceania
E & F History of America
GF Human ecology; Anthropogeography
GN Anthropology

Image Collections
Image Collections: 

National Museum of Natural History - Anthropology image collection

Picture Australia - A collection of Australian images, objects, maps and art

UCLA's Fowler Museum - Online collection of global arts and cultures with an emphasis on works from Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas

Western Australian Museum - Archaeological and anthopological image collections, including maritime archaeology

Journal Articles

For recent information, journal articles are often the best sources. Looking through individual journals in the hope of finding relevant material is time-consuming. It is better to use the databases to find articles on your topic.

Journal Articles: 

Key databases

APA-FT

Indexing and full text database providing access to journal articles from published material on the social sciences and humanities. APA-Full Text includes all the journal indexing from the Australian Public Affairs Information Service (APAIS) database.

Humanities index

Indexes publications in all areas of the Humanities, including archaeology, from 1984

Australian heritage bibliography (formerly HERA)

Indexes and abstracts articles from material on Australia's natural and cultural environment

Sociological abstracts

Provides access to international research in theoretical and applied sociology, social science, and policy science

Anthropology plus

Provides indexing of journal articles, reports, commentaries, edited works, and obituaries in the fields of social, cultural, physical, biological, and linguistic anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, folklore, material culture, and interdisciplinary studies.

Other databases

Mura

Catalogue of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) library which contains comprehensive collections of print materials on Australian Indigenous studies

ProQuest Research Library

Includes journals, magazines and newspapers on a broad range of general reference subjects including arts, business, humanities, social sciences, and the sciences.

AIATSIS

Indexes published and unpublished material on Australian indigenous studies. All records relate to Australian indigenous studies and are in English with some in Australian indigenous languages.

eHRAF World Cultures

This is a cross-cultural database organised into cultures and ethnic groups. Although it only contains limited Australian material, it is a useful starting point for finding papers about a particular ethnic group.

Browse all databases for Anthropology

Multimedia
Web Sites
Web Sites: 

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Studies (AIATSIS) - A gateway to research publications and multimedia resources

Voice of the Shuttle

Trove - A collection of images, multimedia, maps, letters and diaries focused on Australia and Australians

Anthropology tutorials - Web based tutorials on biological and cultural anthropology topics