Full Description
This lively text offers a unique, holistic approach to human diversity for undergraduate courses in fields including anthropology, medicine, human ecology, and general education. Leading medical anthropologist Elisa Sobo rises to the challenge of truly integrating biology and culture. Her inviting writing style and fascinating examples make important new ideas from complexity theory and epigenetics accessible to undergraduates from all disciplines, regardless of academic background. Students learn to conceptualise human biology and culture concurrently--as an adaptive biocultural capacity that has helped to produce the rich range of human diversity seen today. With clearly structured topics, an extensive glossary and suggestions for further reading, this text makes a complex, interdisciplinary topic a joy to teach.
Contents
Introduction Part I: Where we Live and How We SubsistChapter 1: Anthropology and ComplexityChapter 2: Genetic Adaptation Chapter 3: Developmental Adjustment and Epigenetic Change Chapter 4: Emergence of Culture and People Like UsChapter 5: Global Expansion, Human Variation, and the Invention of 'Race'Part II: Social Positions and Global SystemsChapter 6: Foraging: A Human BaselineChapter 7: Agricultural Revolution: Another Great DivideChapter 8: Epidemics: Human Settlement and SocialityChapter 9: Political Economy of Variation in Human HealthPart III: Meaningful PracticesChapter 10: Diversity in Mind-Body Relations: Stress, Meaning, and Well-beingChapter 11: Gender Diversity Chapter 12: Variation in Body Ideals and OutcomesChapter 13: Kinship: So RelativeChapter 14: Biocultural Diversity: Closing the LoopFurther ReadingGlossaryReferences IndexAbout the Author
