Anthropology Project Directory

A curated directory of concrete project walkthroughs, step-by-step methodological guides, and open templates for self-directed anthropology learners. Select a tangible deliverable below to put anthropological theory into practice.

Write an Ethnographic Field Study

• Five Simple Steps for Helping Students Write Ethnographic Papers (Teaching Culture / University of Toronto Press)
• Writing an Ethnography (Open SLCC / John Gauthier)

Compile Fieldnotes and Observational Logs

• Collecting Data and Taking Notes (Ethnography Made Easy OER / Mary Gatta)
• How to Write Field Notes (Raul Pacheco-Vega)

Construct a Kinship Diagram

• How to Make a Kinship Diagram (Lucidchart)
• What Is a Kinship Diagram? Meaning, Symbols, Uses, and Templates (Creately)

Conduct an Oral History or Life History Project

• Step-by-Step Guide to Oral History (DoHistory / Judith Moyer)
• How to Do Oral History (Smithsonian Institution Archives)
• Conducting Life History Interviews: A How-To Guide (weADAPT)

Curate and Catalog a Material Culture Collection

• Analyze an Artifact (National Archives and Records Administration)
• Guides to Object Study (Stanford University Archaeology Collections) - search "Guides to Object Study" on Stanford University Archaeology Collections

Produce a Sensory or Visual Ethnography

• Sensory Ethnography (Ethnography Made Easy OER / Tom Martin)
• Doing Visual Ethnography (Sarah Pink / SAGE Publishing) - search "Doing Visual Ethnography Sarah Pink" on Google Books (comprehensive paid reference)

Write an Autoethnography

• Autoethnography (Ethnography Made Easy OER / Alia R. Tyner-Mullings)
• Autoethnography as Method (Heewon Chang / Routledge) - search "Autoethnography as Method Heewon Chang" on Google Books (comprehensive paid reference)

Design an Applied Anthropology Project

• The Toolkit of a Good Professional Anthropologist (National Association for the Practice of Anthropology) - search "The Toolkit of a Good Professional Anthropologist" on practicinganthropology.org

Build a Linguistic Corpus & Discourse Analysis

• Corpus Analysis with AntConc (Programming Historian / Heather Froehlich)

Write an Archaeological Survey & Post-Excavation Report

• Report Writing and Publication (BAJR - British Archaeological Jobs and Resources)

Construct a Biological Profile from Skeletal Remains

• The eSkeletons Project (University of Texas at Austin)
• Data Collection Procedures for Forensic Skeletal Material 2.0 (Forensic Anthropology Center / University of Tennessee) - search "Data Collection Procedures for Forensic Skeletal Material 2.0" on Google