Recommendations for finding publications related to Anthropology
Anthropology can be a very interdisciplinary subject. There are often multiple databases that will be relevant for your topic. As such I usually recommend that researchers being with an advanced search in the library website. This way you get access to most if not all the journal articles, books, and more that are relevant for your topic.
Individual databases most relevant for anthropology are included below for your information.
Finding Ethnographies
Ethnographies are written, observational science which provides an account of a particular culture, society, or community based on observation of or interactions with research subjects. Use this checklist to determine if a scholarly work is an ethnography:
✔️ Written by a trained researcher who gathered their data through participant observation, interviews, or focus groups
✔️ Published in a scholarly journal or by a scholarly press
✔️ Uses information about the culture to explain the phenomena observed in a structured, narrative way
✔️ Tells of events lived by actual individuals
✔️ Has a time period and location
Ethnographies can be found using DiscoverUR and other anthropology resources listed on this guide. Search terms to help narrow your search within these databases include: ethnograph* OR ethnology OR autoethnograph* OR "ethnographic fieldwork" OR anthro* OR cultur* OR "social life" OR "case stud*" Note: Not all ethnographies will have the word ethnography in their titles or abstracts, so you won't know for sure until you've applied the criteria above. Nor will all case studies will be ethnographies, so use the checklist above to make sure that's what you've found.
The asterisk [*] helps find multiple endings of words; ethnograph* finds you ethnography, ethnographic, ethnographer, etc.
If you’re having trouble finding ethnographies on a particular country or ethnic group, try using broader search terms (e.g. Say you are looking for research on the Pyu and haven’t found a lot, try expanding your search to Burmese OR “Burmese culture” OR Bamar). You can also add terms for the group's ethnographic region or country (e.g Myanmar OR “South* Asia*”).
Doing Ethnography
Search DiscoverUR for ethnog* research method* to find articles, books and media for best practices.
To find more resources, please visit the Anthropology library guide (click HERE).