Home - Culture Groups Info - Sociology 325: Couples, Family, & Friendship (Thomas) - Research Guides at University of New Mexico

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Getting Started

First, do some quick research on your group. Google them! If there is a Wiki entry - great - get some basic information:

What country/countries does your group live in (sometimes a group is located in several countries and sometimes reference books organize information about groups by country)?
What names (ethonyms) are they known by? For example, the Yanomami can also be called: Yanomama, Yanomamo, Yanoama, Waica... Are there subgroups? What are their names?
If there is a Wiki article on your group, check out the "Further Reading" section at the end of the article to find other sources.

Social Sciences Librarian

Liz Cooper

Email Me

Contact:

Zimmerman Library, 2nd Floor, Herzstein Latin American Reading Room, #296
Liz Cooper's Website

Subjects: Anthropology & Archaeology, Global and National Security Policy, International Studies, Linguistics, Political Science, Psychology, Public Health, Sociology, Speech & Hearing, Women & Gender Studies

Tips for searching culture info in books & articles in the library's catalog and databases

Use the search box on the Library's home page OR Google Scholar (via the link on the library databases page so you can connect to UNM resources) OR the databases in the DATABASES box below to search for your culture group's name. Also try searching the culture group's name with the words:

culture
ethnography
family
kinship
social life and customs

OR add a more specific term related to something you want to know about the group, e.g. marriage.

Reference Books

These books often have chapters on culture groups that include information on kinship, marriage, etc.

The first two in the list (**) are the best for cultures that exist today.

Existing Cultures

**Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life by TL Gall (Editor)
Call Number: Zimmerman Reference, GN 333 W67 1998
Publication Date: 1998
(4 vols), Find the volume for the region of your culture group. Within that volume, groups are listed alphabetically. In each culture group's chapter, see sections for "Interpersonal Relations," "Family Life," "Rites of Passage," etc. The focus is on how people live today.
**The Encyclopedia of World Cultures by D Levinson (Editor)
Call Number: Zimmerman Reference GN 307 E53 1991
Publication Date: 1991
(11 vols), Find the volume for the region of your culture group. Within that volume, groups are listed alphabetically. (NOTE: there is a SUPPLEMENT volume, with groups that were added later). Entries vary in length, some are much more detailed than others. You may find sections on "Kinship," "Marriage and Family," "Sociopolitical Organization," etc. Be sure to look at the bibliography for other books/articles that might give you more information. This set is related to eHRAF database in the box below. Does not include extinct cultures.

Note: there is an abridged 1 volume version of this encyclopedia focusing on larger and more written about cultures, "Cultures of the World: Selections from the Ten-Volume Ency. of World Cultures, MacMillan Compendium," ZIM REF GN 307 E532 1999.
Countries and Their Cultures by M Ember & CR Ember
Publication Date: 2003
(Access this through the Gale eBooks database) Organized by country and focused on the current culture of the country as a whole. Find the country of your group, then in the chapter on that country for your group do a CTRL+F search for your culture group. Some of the info you need may be in the "Marriage, Family, Kinship, " "Gender Roles and Statuses," and "Socialization" sections of the chapters. This tool is a bit clunky!
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers by RB Lee & RH Daly (Editors)
Call Number: ZIM 2nd Floor, GN 388 C35 1999
Publication Date: 1999
Only includes some hunter/gatherer groups. Check the table of contents to see if your group is included.

Existing and Historical Cultures

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures by D Carrasco (Editor)
Call Number: Zimmerman Reference, F1218.6 O95 2001
Publication Date: 2001
(3 vols) Covers pre-Hispanic, colonial, and modern Mesoamerica.

Historical Cultures

Encyclopedia of Prehistory by PN Peregrine (Editor); M Ember (Editor); Yale University, Human Relations Area Files Staff (Compiled by)
Call Number: ZIM REF GN710 E53 2000
Publication Date: 2003
Not too much about family/kinship but often provides useful cultural context info as well as good bibliographies for further reading.

Gale eBooks
This multidisciplinary resource includes a wide variety of encyclopedias and almanacs. Formerly called Gale Virtual Reference Library.
Community researchers in New Mexico can access this resource at http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=GVRL&u=nm_p_elportal

Databases for Ethnographies & Culture Information of Existing Groups

eHRAF World Cultures (Human Relations Area Files)
This tool helps you learn about contemporary (and also historical) cultures as documented by anthropologists (NOTE: some of the ethnographies are quite old, so check the publication date). The World Cultures database includes full text ethnographies you can search or browse by culture group or topic. Note that each paragraph is coded for the subjects covered in that paragraph, so searching by subject codes can make your search more efficient.

First use the BROWSE CULTURES tab to see if your culture is included (you can BROWSE by culture name or use the SHOW FILTERS tab to filter by region or country by clicking on one of the boxes on the left side of the page).

Click on the culture name, then click on the FULL PROFILE link at the bottom. From the full profile, be sure to click on the SUMMARY button at the top to see a very useful Cultural Summary AND click on the DOCUMENTS button to see a list of the full text documents included about that group. Choose a document, under TABLE OF CONTENTS click on BODY to see the full document and browse for a chapter on the info you need.

You can also use the ADVANCED SEARCH to choose your culture and add your SUBJECTS (which work better than keywords - using the database's OCM codes for searching is much more effective). This will take you to specific paragraphs about your subject.

When searching the databases below, see the tips in the first box on this page about searching the Catalog and Google Scholar:

Anthropology Plus
This database (along with "Sociological Abstracts") helps you identify articles and book chapters (from the anthropology literature) related to cultures and is good for identifying ethnographies on a group. Try searching for your culture group name and also some aspect of what you are interested in, e.g. "kinship," "marriage," etc. Note that the search only searches titles and subject headings (no abstracts or full text is included).

Sociological Abstracts
This database (along with "Anthropology Plus") helps you identify articles and book chapters (from the sociology literature) related to cultures and are good for identifying ethnographies on a group. Try searching for your culture group name and also some aspect of what you are interested in, e.g. "kinship," "marriage," etc.

Bibliography of Indigenous Peoples in North America
Find articles related to history, culture, and contemporay issues related to Native North American (includes scholary articles as well as magazines, newspapers, gov documents, etc.).
PRISMA Database with HAPI Index
Spanish and Portuguese-language portal for scholarly journals in the social sciences and humanities on Hispanic and Latin America and the Caribbean Basin. Coverage: 1960-present.
Web of Science Core Collection
Multidisciplinary collection of citations and abstracts for scholarly journal articles, proceedings, data sets, and other resources. Has a tool for citation analysis. Includes the Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index, among others.

UNM Library Catalog
Use the UNM catalog to find books and articles in the library.

Databases for Historical Culture Groups

eHRAF Archaeology (Human Relations Area Files)
Includes full text of archaeological studies. This tool helps you learn about historic cultures as documented by archaeologists.

Note that archaeology uses "BP" (Before Present) to specify dates. BP is different than BC and you will have to convert to determine if the timeframe listed in the database matches the timeframe you need. Here is some info about how to do that:

"By convention AD 1950 is the date arbitrarily selected as the zero point (the present), however, when talking informally archaeologists often use AD 2000 as the present merely because it is convenient. To convert a BC date to a BP date you basically just need to add 2000 to it, e.g. 8000 BC = 10,000 BP; a 400 BP date is roughly equivalent to AD 1600 (using AD 2000 as present); AD 1560 =390 BP (using AD 1950 as present)." Adapted from Hurst & Kelly 2006
Annee Philologique
Articles about ancient Greek and Roman civilizations.
International Medieval Bibliography
Articles related to the European middle ages from 400-1500.

Historical Abstracts with Full Text
Articles related to historical peoples and events (back to 1450) from around the world.
Bibliography of Indigenous Peoples in North America
Find articles related to history, culture, and contemporay issues related to Native North American (includes scholary articles as well as magazines, newspapers, gov documents, etc.).