Culture, Meaning and Communication

Central to social anthropology is the understanding of social actions and events in light of the specific meanings people attach to them. Culture is a central concept in the discipline, and the course accounts for different social anthropological perspectives on cultural meaning, both on a personal level and as a collective, social dimension. The course contains a number of thematic areas where the dimensions of meaning are especially visible, such as the cultural arrangements of reality (classification), fundamental worldly perceptions (cosmology), symbols and communication, knowledge management, representations of faith (religion) and constructions of time and history (social memory). Emphasis is given to the understanding of meaning as social practice, in other words how orientations of reality are generated, maintained and shaped through social life, and how the production of meaning is well established in social relations, economic transactions and displays of power. Practices weighed with meaning, such as rituals, ceremonies, witchcraft, magic, and spirit possession, are therefore central in the course, but the course also focuses on meaning aspects of aesthetics and relations between humans and nonhumans.

Bachelor level

Autumn