Projects
This page is a curated collection of well-written, step-by-step guides for learning Anthropology through hands-on, project-based practice.
What I cannot create, I do not understand — Richard Feynman.
These projects are meant to support learning throughout the curriculum, not only at the end.
By building, writing, creating, or reconstructing real artifacts in the field, learners develop practical understanding alongside theoretical study.
Tutorials
- Write your own ethnography
- Compose your own fieldnotes
- Construct your own kinship diagram
- Record your own life history
- Collect your own oral history
- Material Culture Catalog
- Produce your own ethnographic film
- Write your own autoethnography
- Design your own applied anthropology project
- Build your own linguistic corpus
- Write your own archaeological survey report
- Create your own biological profile
Write your own ethnography
- Five Simple Steps for Helping Students Write Ethnographic Papers (Guide)
- Writing an Ethnography (Step-by-step guide)
Compose your own fieldnotes
- Collecting Data and Taking Notes (Tutorial)
- How to write field notes (and how to teach the writing of fieldnotes) (Practical guide)
Construct your own kinship diagram
- What is a Kinship Diagram? Comprehensive Guide with Templates (Step-by-step tutorial)
- How to Make a Kinship Diagram (Guide with template)
Record your own life history
Collect your own oral history
- Step-by-Step Guide to Oral History (Toolkit)
- How Do Oral History anthropology Smithsonian Institution Archives (Procedural guide)
Material Culture Catalog
- Material Culture: How to Document and Analyze Objects (Guide) — outlines systematic description, classification, and cataloging workflows for objects
Produce your own ethnographic film
- Observational Cinema: Anthropology, Film, and the Exploration of Social Life (Book excerpt/chapter previews) — models ethnographic filmmaking process through key practitioners' methods
Write your own autoethnography
- Autoethnography as Method (Book preview & sample chapters) — explains structure, reflexive writing process, and evaluation criteria
- How to Do Autoethnography (Methodological handbook preview) — procedural steps for crafting personal-cultural narratives
Design your own applied anthropology project
- Designing and Managing Your Applied Anthropology Project (Professional association guide) — practical framework for project scoping, stakeholder engagement, and deliverables
Build your own linguistic corpus
- Building a Small Corpus: A Step-by-Step Guide (Tutorial) — basic workflow for corpus construction from text collection to annotation
Write your own archaeological survey report
- How to Write an Archaeological Report (Professional guide) — standard sections, data presentation, and interpretation structure
Create your own biological profile
- Forensic Anthropology Methods: Creating a Biological Profile (PDF worksheet/guide) — step-by-step estimation of age, sex, ancestry, stature from skeletal remains