Anthropology
Anthropology is devoted to the “holistic” study of humankind, to the understanding and explanation of human beings in all of their diverse aspects at all times and places. The subject of Anthropology embraces four sub-disciplines - Archaeology, Biological Anthropology, Ethnomusicology, and Social Anthropology - thereby bridging the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. In Anthropology at The University of Auckland, these interests are concentrated in the study of the peoples of the Pacific including Aotearoa/New Zealand and the peoples of South and Southeast Asia.
Archaeology is concerned with cultural development and variation through time. It involves the reconstruction of past human behaviour through the study of material remains recovered by field survey and excavation. Archaeology encompasses a wide variety of analytical and experimental methods and techniques which draw on both the natural and social sciences.
Biological Anthropology is concerned with the physical or biological aspects of being human, especially how we evolved and why we vary from each other. The study of biological anthropology encompasses a wide range of scientific fields, including genetics, primatology, paleoanthropology, biomedical anthropology (infectious and genetic diseases), human growth and the physiology and evolution of behaviour.
Ethnomusicology is the study of music in the context of human life: music symbolises the way of life of a people. These days composers and students of music are alive to all of the world’s music. Ethnomusicologists use insights and methods from anthropology, sociology, literary criticism, linguistics and history to understand music as human expression. Ethnomusicology at The University of Auckland focuses especially on Pacific musics, musics of India, and Popular musics.
Social Anthropology is concerned with the cultures and ways of life of all the world’s societies in both the present and the recent past - from remote tribal communities in Africa and South America to the villages of contemporary Polynesia and the suburbs, factories and board-rooms here in Auckland. Social anthropologists employ a wide range of perspectives on human social life including material culture, social organisation, politics, economics, symbolism, change and “development”, ethnicity, and modern nation-state formation. Social anthropology at The University of Auckland focuses especially on the peoples of the South Pacific and Aotearoa/New Zealand
|
|
| Email |  | anthro@auckland.ac.nz
|
| |
| Extension | | 87662 (ph + 64 9 373 7599)
88535 (ph + 64 9 373 7599)
|
| |
| Location | | Human Sciences Building
10 Symonds St
Level 8
|
| |
|
|
