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Anthropology Research Topics And Writing Ideas For Students

anthropology research topics

Writing an anthropology research paper is in a lot of ways similar to writing an argumentative essay in other disciplines. Usually, the significant difference between these essays is how you support your idea. While you may use only literature to prove your point in an argumentative essay, you may need to employ textual proofs from artifacts, ethnographies, etc., in an anthropology essay.

Research in anthropology could be thrilling, particularly if you have many anthropology project ideas. Anthropology studies the evolution of human culture and therefore provides a wide range of anthropology essay topics that spill into history, biology, sociology, etc. Many anthropological research projects borrow from other social sciences. It is easy to feel that overwhelming grip on your chest if you’re unable to choose an anthropology research topic.

How to Write an Anthropology Research Paper

Guide how to write an anthropology research paper, the excellent list of 110 anthropology research paper topics, physical anthropology research paper topics, medical anthropology research paper topics, cultural anthropology research paper ideas, best cultural anthropology essay topics, biological anthropology research paper topics.

  • Forensic Anthropology Research Paper Topics

Are you worried because you don’t know how to write an anthropology paper? Writing an anthropology paper could be so much fun if you can nail the basics. It is not as bad as people paint it to be, especially if you get writing help from our professional writers . With the right anthropology paper format, anthropology research topics, and anthropology research paper examples, you’re set to go!

If you’re a big fan of doing lots of things in a short time and with fewer efforts, then you’re in the right place. This guide is full of the tips and skills you need to arrange your ideas properly. It also contains anthropology paper examples, anthropology paper topics, and other life-saving tips you may need. Ready to know how to start an anthropology research paper? Let’s delve right in!

How do you get started on an anthropology research paper? Below is the most comprehensive list on the internet to get you home and dry in record time!

  • Review the Assignment Guidelines
  • Develop a Topic
  • Outline your Paper
  • Do some Library Research
  • Write a Rough Draft
  • Write the Paper
  • Edit the Paper

We shall shortly expound on this list to help you better understand them.

  • Review the Assignment Guidelines: your professor may give you some guidelines to follow. To avoid deviating from the instructor’s expectations, spend some time reviewing your assignment guidelines so that you know the exact things you need to accomplish. For example, confirm if there are any stated anthropology research methods and the likes. It is beneficial to have a writing schedule. If you have a lot of time in your hands before the submission time, spreading out the workload will help to ease some of the stress. If you’re naturally a binge writer, sit at your computer early and bleed!
  • Develop a Topic:  search for some anthropology research paper ideas and choose from the vast array of anthropology research topics available. Select a topic that revolves around a guiding question. This topic should connect on a deeper level to the theme of the course. The length requirement for the paper will help you know if your topic is too big, too small, or just good enough. For a short paper, you may want to focus on a particular culture or event in the context of a broader topic. Ensure that your thesis focuses on anthropology and that it draws from anthropological theories or ideas. Now, do a quick search to confirm if there are scholarly materials available for this topic. It is easier to write a paper with some available references.
  • Introduction/Abstract
  • Library Research: now, start the research on your topic, preferably from course materials. A bibliography at the end of a relevant course reading is also a great way to get other related materials. Depending on the requirement of the assignment, feel free to search for other books or articles.
  • Write a Rough Draft: during your research, endeavor to make proper jottings and references, which will form the rough draft of your essay. A rough draft will help you create dots that you will be able to connect later on.
  • Title: Usually on a separate page and contains the abstract.
  • Introduction/Abstract : A short paragraph showing the road map of your thesis.
  • Body: Leverages your thesis and presenting your research in a detailed and logical structure.
  • Conclusion: The conclusion is a short paragraph that summarizes your fundamental theme and substantiates your thesis.
  • References: A citation of the resources you used in your paper. Follow the referencing style which your instructor chooses.
  • Edit the Paper:  you may engage any of your friends to help you go through your essay. Make some final checks such as the length requirement, the format and citation style, spelling and grammatical errors, logical flow of ideas and clarity, substantial support of the claim, etc. Once you edit your paper, turn it in and accept an A+!

Without further ado, here are 110 anthropology research paper topics for free! With 18 topics each from the six main subcategories of anthropology, you can’t get it wrong!

  • Eugenics — its merits and demerits in the 21st-century world.
  • Human Origin: Comparing the creationist versus evolutionist views on the origin of man.
  • Ancient Egypt: The preservation of their dead and underlying beliefs.
  • Homo habilis: Investigating Contemporary facts supporting their past existence.
  • Drowning: Clarifying the cause of drowning by examining the physical and anatomical evidence.
  • Smoking and its effects on the physical appearance of humans over decades of indulgence.
  • Physical labor: Exploring its long-term impact on the physical appearance of humans.
  • The relationship of Kyphosis with human senescence.
  • Aging in Western Culture.
  • Skin color: Exploring the influence of the environment on human skin color across continents.
  • Species and language: Focus on ways species evolve across the world and ways language acquisition affects and influences culture.
  • Abiogenesis: Research about abiogenesis and how it affects human development
  • Animal stability: How captive animals are different from those that live in the wild.
  • Henry Walter: The ways Henry Walter contributed to the field of physical anthropology.
  • Cephalization: The process of cephalization and what it entails.
  • Genotype: The environment correlation study.
  • Genetics: What does genetic hijacking mean?
  • Altruism: Do people learn altruism or it is an acquired state.
  • Applying the Concepts of Ethnozoology in medicine.
  • Critically Assessing the fundamental posits of critical medical anthropology (CMA).
  • The 2014 Ebola virus outbreak in Africa: Evaluating the success of control interventions.
  • Exploring the applications of Ethnobotany in medicine.
  • Nuclear disaster: A research into the life of survivors of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.
  • HIV/AIDS: The reasons for prevalent societal infamy and the way forward.
  • HIV/AIDS epidemic in Europe: Exploring the roles of commercial sex workers in the spread of the disease.
  • Alternative medicine in China: A comparative review of its weaknesses and possible strengths in the light of Orthodox medicine.
  • HIV/AIDS in Africa: A critical assessment of extensively troubled nations and populations.
  • Depression in South-East Asia: Sheer social noise or severe threat?
  • Adult’s onset diabetes: Research on how diabetes is a major health issue in aboriginal populations in The U.S and Canada.
  • ARV rollout: The role of the ARV rollout and campaigns in Africa.
  • Sexual diversity in Africa: Research on whether sexual diversity in Africa is being taken into account to help fight against AIDS.
  • Chemicals and radiation waste: How the radiation waste and chemicals in the air are affecting people.
  • Mercury poisoning: The effects of Mercury poisoning in Minamata, Japan, and the measures to help put the situation under control.
  • Health: The health ramifications of adapting to ecology and maladaptation.
  • Health: Domestic healthcare and health culture practices
  • Clinic: Clinical interactions in social organizations.
  • Growth: Difference between growth and development.
  • Engineering: Genetic engineering and what it entails.
  • Marriage: Marriage rituals in different cultures.
  • Magic: Belief in magic and the supernatural.
  • Mythologies: The effects it has on modern culture.
  • Anthropology: How to use anthropology as forensic science.
  • Heroes: Studies of heroes in different societies.
  • Education: How education differs around the world.

Cultural anthropology discusses human societies and their cultural origin, vacation, history, and development. Here is a look at cultural Anthropology topics:

  • Women in Africa: The various challenging roles that women in Modern Africa play and how they handle it.
  • Homelessness: How homelessness affects and influences the culture and social landscapes.
  • India: Methods and measures that India is taking to deal with the issue of homelessness and measures they have put in place to deal with social landscapers.
  • Political science: Highlight and discuss the link between cultural anthropology and political science.
  • Superstition: Research ways that superstition affects the way of life.
  • Sexual discrimination: The evolution of sexual discrimination and its effects in modern times.
  • African cultures: Investigating how different religions and beliefs impact African culture.
  • Northern Nigeria: How the basic religious beliefs that influence forced nuptials among the children in North Nigeria.
  • Gay marriage: The background on gay marriage and how it influences the cultural and social backgrounds.
  • Racism: Explain racism and its existence in modern times.
  • Religious practices: Ways how religious practices and beliefs affect culture.
  • Culture shock: What it is and ways that people can work through it.
  • Ethnocentrism: Ways that you can use to minimize it.
  • Ancestors: A view of ancestors in African culture.
  • Religion: Religious practices in a particular society.
  • Culture: About the Rabari culture in India
  • Definition of culture
  • How culture anthropology links to political science
  • Alcoholism: Looking into the socio-economic and cultural history in Eastern Europe.
  • Assessing the effects of radioactivity on populations affected by the nuclear disaster of 2011 in Fukushima Daiichi.
  • Gay marriage: Exploring the biological aspects of same-sex weddings in North America.
  • Minamata disease: A critical look into the origin, populations affected, and transgenerational impact of this disease on Japan.
  • Asthma disease in Yokkaichi: A critical look into the cause, people affected, and transgenerational effect on Japan.
  • Itai-Itai disease: A critical look into the cause, populations affected, and transgenerational effect on Japan.
  • Nuclear bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki: An investigation of the transgenerational effects on the health of affected victims to this present time.
  • Cocaine use in America: A critical look into the health impact on American cocaine users.
  • Making Marijuana use legal in America: Possible woes and beneficial outcomes.
  • Cystic fibrosis: Justifications for its preponderance in white populations in America.
  • Biological Anthropology: Research on the meaning and definition of biological Anthropology and how it influences different fields.
  • Paleoanthropology: Explore ways Paleoanthropology uses fossil records to draw biological anthropology compassion and conclusions regarding human evolution.
  • Human social structures: Explain the development of human social structures using biological anthropology.
  • Biological anthropologies: Research on some primary geographical locations where biological anthropologies used to research their work.
  • Human language: Research how biological anthropology helped in the development of human language and communication.
  • Body projects: The changes and the valued attributes.
  • Political ecology: The Vector-borne and infectious disease.
  • Clinical Interactions: What are clinical interaction and social organization?

Forensic Anthropology Research Paper Ideas

  • Radioactive Carbon dating: A critical assessment of the accuracy of this dating technique.
  • Human Origin: Pieces of evidential support for Creationist and Evolutionist views on the origin of man.
  • Assessing the accuracy of DNA evidence testing and matching on criminology.
  • Neanderthals: Exploring environmental influences and migratory paths on their survival and appearance.
  • Dating Techniques: A critical review of current archaeological dating techniques.
  • Ancient Egypt Mummification: A critical look at the effectiveness of the methods used.
  • Nuclear disaster: A research into the impact of radioactivity on life forms due to the atomic catastrophe Chernobyl in 1986.
  • A critical look into recent evidence supporting the existence of Homo habilis in the past.
  • Crime Scene Forensics: Recent advances in the detection of crime.
  • Postmortem Changes: Investigating the primary agents responsible for biological changes in humans.
  • Criminal procedure: Research a case with a confession scenario and highlight unique features of the case.
  • Criminal procedure: Do your research on the criminal proceedings in a given area and what makes them effective.
  • Computer forensic: Ways that the computer forensic help in preserving electronic evidence.
  • Digital forensic: Research about the history and features of digital forensic.
  • History: Ways that Israel presents itself as a leader in computer forensics.
  • Oncology: The latest archaeological dating methods.
  • DNA: How accurate is DNA evidence in the matching and testing criminology?
  • Crime detention: The recent improvements of crime detection.

So here we are! Fifty juicy topics that are all eager to wear some flesh! Ready to have an A+? Let’s do it!

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195 Top Anthropology Topics For Great Thesis

anthropology research topics

Anthropology is one of the most interesting disciplines that you can pursue at the university level. The whole idea of exploring everything known about human beings, from their origins to evolution, is pretty exciting.

However, the study requires preparing multiple assignments, which can be pretty challenging because you need a deep understanding of biology, history, and culture. The first step, which is even more stressful when preparing an anthropology paper, is selecting the right topic. So, we are here to help.

In this post, we have a list of the best anthropology topics that you can use to get good grades. To help you increase the chances of scoring the best grade in your paper, we have also included a comprehensive guide on how to write your paper like a pro.

What Is Anthropology?

Anthropology is the study of humanity, and it is concerned about human biology, behavior, societies, cultures and linguistics in the past and present. The discipline stretches back to the study of past human species. Because of its broad nature, it is broken down into a number of units, with each focusing on a specific area:

Social anthropology: Focuses on patterns of human behavior. Cultural anthropology: This branch mainly focuses on culture, including values and norms in the society. Linguistic anthropology: Unlike the other two, this branch of anthropology targets determining how language impacts people’s lives. Biological anthropology: This branch focuses on studying the biological development of humans. Archaeological anthropology: This branch of anthropology is concerned with investigating humans in the past. In some jurisdictions, such as Europe, it is considered a full discipline like geography or history.

How To Write Best Quality Anthropology Research Paper

When your professors issue anthropology research paper prompts, one of the questions that you might have is, “how do I write a high level paper?” Here are the main steps that you can use to write a great college paper.

Step One: Understand the Assignment The biggest mistake that you can make is starting an assignment without understanding what it entails. So, read the prompt carefully and grasp what is needed. For example, does your teacher want a qualitative or quantitative research paper? For masters and graduate students, it might be a quantitative anthropology dissertation. Step Two: Select the Preferred Research Paper Topic The topic that you select is very important, and it is advisable to go for the title that is interesting to you. Furthermore, the topic should have ample resources to help you complete the paper smoothly. If there are no books, journals, and other important resources to prepare the paper, there is a risk of getting stuck midway. Once you select the topic, carry preliminary research to gather key points that you will use to prepare the paper. However, these points are not final and will need to get updated along the way. Step Three: Develop Your Research Paper Outline An outline defines the structure of the paper. It makes further research and preparing the paper pretty straightforward. Also, it eliminates the risk of forgetting important bits of the research paper. To make the paper more informative, make sure to add supportive information progressively. Step Four: Write the Thesis Statement of Your Paper The thesis statement of a paper is your stand about the topic that you are writing about. The statement comes in the introduction but will further be restated in conclusion. The information you present on the research paper will approve or disapprove your thesis statement. Step Five: Write the Draft Paper After gathering the information about the topic, it is time to get down and prepare the first draft. So, strictly follow the prepared outline to craft a good paper, starting with the introduction to the conclusion. If you are writing a dissertation, it might be good to tell your supervisor about the progress. Remember that a dissertation is more comprehensive than a research paper. To write a dissertation, you should start with the introduction, followed by the literature review, research methods, results, discussion, and finally, conclusion. Step Six: Write the Final Paper After finishing the draft, it is time to refine it further and make the work exceptional. Therefore, you might want to go through more resources to establish if there is anything more helpful to add. Finally, edit your paper and proofread the paper. You might also want to ask a friend to help with proofreading to identify mistakes that might have skipped your eye.

Next, we will highlight the leading anthropology topics that you should consider. So, pick the preferred one or tweak it a little to suit your needs.

Top 20 Anthropology Paper Topics

  • How does the environment impact the color of a person?
  • The advantages and disadvantages of eugenics in the 21st century.
  • A closer look at the aging process in the western culture.
  • What are the implications of physical labor on the physique of a person?
  • Define the relationship between Kyphosis to human senescence
  • Does smoking impact the appearance of a human being?
  • Death caused by drowning: How to determine it through examination of physical and anatomical evidence.
  • Existence of Homo Habilis is supported by modern facts.
  • Compare two theories that explain the origins of human beings.
  • A review of key beliefs about human body preservation in ancient Egypt.
  • The role played by storytelling in different cultures.
  • Applying anthropology as forensic science.
  • Heroes in society.
  • Closed societies.
  • Emergency of terrorism into a culture.
  • Feminism application in different cultures.
  • A review of the concept of wellness in different cultures.
  • What role does literature play in human development?
  • Analyzing conflicts in Latin American and Asian cultures.
  • Genetic engineering and anthropology: How are they related?

Interesting Anthropology Topics

  • Investigating how religious beliefs impact the Hispanic cultures.
  • A review of the evolution of sexual discrimination.
  • The impact of culture on same sex marriages: A case study of LGBT community in France.
  • A closer look at racism in modern societies.
  • Causes of homelessness among the Hispanic communities.
  • Causes and effects of homelessness among the Indian people in Asia.
  • Comparing the strategies adopted to deal with homelessness in the US and India.
  • Cultural anthropology and political science: How are they related?
  • Identify and review two most important organizations when it comes to advancing anthropology.
  • Peru’s Quechua people.
  • Contemporary policy and environmental anthropology.
  • What influences human social patterns?
  • A review of the impact of western culture on indigenous people in North America.
  • Analyzing the caste systems and ranking in societies.
  • A review of ancient Roman culture.
  • The evolution of the human ear.
  • Comparing the evolution of man to the evolution of birds.
  • What is the origin of modern humans?
  • A closer look at the main issues in female circumcision.

Biological Anthropology Research Paper Topics

  • Exploring the meaning of biological anthropology and its application in different fields.
  • Analyzing how primatologists use primates to understand human evolution.
  • How paleontologists use fossil records for anthropological comparisons.
  • Biological anthropology: How does it explain human behavior development?
  • Identify and review top geographical locations where anthropologists do their work: Why are these locations so important?
  • Define the connection between social sciences and biological anthropology.
  • The evolution of the primate diet.
  • Analyzing the evolution of tapetum lucidum.
  • A closer look at the extinction of giant lemurs in Madagascar.
  • Human resistance to drugs: Human pathogen coevolution.
  • How to determine the age of an animal using its bones.
  • How does syphilis impact bones?
  • Poaching and habitat destruction.
  • The application of natural selection in the animal kingdom.

Good Cultural Anthropology Research Paper Topics

  • Religious beliefs in the Asian cultures.
  • Comparing religious beliefs in African and Aboriginal cultures.
  • A review of the key cultural concepts in a culture of choice in Europe.
  • Comparing the idea of worldview from the perspectives of two societies.
  • Marriage in a traditional society of your choice.
  • A review of early development of economic organizations.
  • The role of women in Indian society.
  • A closer look at the process of language acquisition in African culture.
  • Missionary and anthropology: What is the relationship?
  • What strategies would you propose to minimize ethnocentrism?
  • How can society minimize the notion of cultural baggage?
  • Culture shock: Insights on how to address it.
  • Belief in magic in different societies.
  • A review of the impacts of globalization on nutritional anthropology.

Anthropological Research Questions

  • Should anthropology be merged fully with biology?
  • Is DNA evidence accurate in criminology applications?
  • How does the practice of anthropology application in China compare to that of the US?
  • Use of radiological tools in anthropology: What is their level of effectiveness?
  • What are the main hazards and risks of forensic anthropology?
  • What effect do mythologies have in modern society?
  • How does language acquisition impact the culture of a society?
  • Body project change projects: What are the valued attributes?
  • Halloween celebrations: How have they evolved over the years?
  • What are the impacts of adaptive mutation?
  • How did WWI and WWII impact human societies?
  • What are the impacts of climate change on animal evolution?
  • Location of crime: What can you learn about it?
  • What are the impacts of long-term alcohol addiction on the human body?
  • Magic and science: Are they related?

Easy Anthropological Ideas

  • Development of anthropology in the 21st century.
  • Important lessons about humans that can be drawn from anthropological studies.
  • Anthropological issues in pre-capitalist societies.
  • A closer look at folk roles and primitive society.
  • Urban centers and modern man.
  • How is automation impacting human behavior?
  • How does biology impact human culture?
  • Reviewing racial identity and stereotypes in society.
  • Comparing ancient Aztec to Maya civilizations.
  • Analyzing religious diversity in the United States.
  • Comparing religious diversity in the UK and Italy.
  • Why is studying anthropology important?
  • Comparing different death rituals in different cultures on the globe.
  • What is the relationship between literature and human development?
  • Analyzing the influence of anthropology on modern art.
  • How has social media impacted different cultures on the globe?

Linguistic Anthropology Research Topics

  • What led to the emergence of linguistics anthropology?
  • A review of the main theories in linguistic anthropology.
  • Linguistics used by different communities in the same nation.
  • Comparing sign and verbal communication.
  • How did Dell Hymes contribute to linguistic anthropology?
  • Language is the most important component among Bengal immigrants.
  • Language endangerment: What is it?
  • Comparing different categories of arts from an anthropological context for an Asian and Western country.
  • The impact of colonization on the language of a specific society of your choice.
  • Explore three different indigenous languages in America.

Controversial Anthropology Topics

  • Social anthropology is not worth studying because it is very general.
  • Human societies are cultural constructs.
  • The past should be considered a foreign nation.
  • What are your views of petro behavior in chimps?
  • Man is natural killer
  • Infant killing is an important evolutionary strategy.
  • The war on infanticides: Which side do you support?
  • Evaluating the concept of human morality.
  • Should all the political leaders be required to undertake training in cultural anthropology?
  • Human cleansing: Evaluating the driving factors in different societies.
  • Analyzing the concept of political correctness in the 21st century.
  • What are the earliest life forms to exist on the planet?

Medical Anthropology Research Topics List

  • Comparing and contrasting physical and medical anthropology studies.
  • Do we have evidence of evolution over the last 2000 years?
  • Exploring the importance of anthropology in modern medicine.
  • The health implications of adapting to ecology.
  • Domestic health culture practices in two societies of choice.
  • A review of clinical anthropology applications.
  • Political ecology of infectious diseases.
  • What is the relationship between violence, diseases and malnutrition?
  • The economic aspect of political health in a country of choice.
  • Perception of risk, vulnerability and illnesses: A case study of the United States.
  • What are the main factors that drive good nutrition and health transition?
  • The adoption of preventive health practices in society.
  • Important cultural conditions that help shape medical practices.
  • Comparing the medical practices during the colonial and post-colonial eras in a county of choice.
  • Use of mitochondria in forensic and anthropology.
  • Commercialization of health and medicine: What are the implications in society?
  • Analyzing health disparity in a society of your choice.

Current Topics In Anthropology

  • Using anthropology studies to determine the impact of political systems on different societies.
  • Human rights of people who are convicted of crimes.
  • What are the most important organizations when studying anthropology?
  • A closer look at the dialect of a modern feminist.
  • A study of current queer life in Germany.
  • Implications of Barack Obama as the African American President.
  • Reviewing the Pagan rituals and their impacts.
  • Comparing aging in the west and growing old in the African setting.
  • Cultural implications of deviant behavior in society.
  • The new concept of childhood in the emerging economies.

Physical Anthropology Research Topics

  • What does genetic hitchhiking mean?
  • Analyzing the cephalization process.
  • What is adaptive mutation?
  • Altruism: Is it learnt or a natural trait?
  • What is abiogenesis in human development?
  • A study of Australian marsupial’s convergent evolution.
  • Comparing stability of animals in stability and those in the wild.
  • Evolution of different animals in different parts of the globe. What drives the differences?
  • A review of physical anthropology trends.
  • The future evolution of human beings.
  • Physical anthropology: The human and digital culture.
  • What really makes people human?

Special Anthropology Topics to Write About

  • Enlightenment and Victorian Anthropological Theory.
  • Race and ethnicity: The anthropologist’s viewpoint.
  • A closer look at reciprocity in the native aboriginal communities in Australia.
  • What is the relationship between Neanderthal and modern humans?
  • Cultural anthropology versus sociology.
  • Anthropology of Mormonism.
  • What is the biggest change since WWI?
  • What is reflexive anthropology?
  • What is the main purpose of rituals in society?
  • Comparing rituals around childbirth in Asia.
  • Evaluating the connection between religion and myths in different societies.
  • Comparing the 20th and 21st century’s method of collecting anthropological data.
  • Why is medical anthropology so important today?
  • The importance of Benin artifacts in the history of the world.
  • The sociology theory: A review of its structure and shortcomings.
  • Christian believes in anthropology.
  • Comparing Anthropology of Europe to Anthropology of Africa.
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of reflexivity use in ethnographic studies.

Forensic Anthropology Paper Topics

  • What are the primary agents that cause biological changes in the human body?
  • Are the biological change agents in a human being similar to those of other animals?
  • Assessing the accuracy of carbon dating technology.
  • Analyzing the latest improvements in crime detection technology.
  • Analyzing evidence that supports evolution views of human beings.
  • How does radioactivity impact different animals?
  • The main signs of asphyxiation.
  • A review of the latest archaeological dating methods: Are they effective?
  • Mummification: How effective was the process as applied in Egypt?
  • Importance of crime scenes in forensic anthropology.
  • Analyzing the effectiveness of Buccal Swabs when profiling insides of cheeks.
  • Criminal profiling: How effective is it in deterring a criminal’s traits?
  • Footprint in the crime scene: What can they tell you?
  • Soil comparison in forensic anthropology.
  • Insect as important agents of body decomposition.
  • How do you identify blunt force trauma?
  • Comparing and contrasting penetrating and perforating trauma.
  • Analyzing the Rigor Mortis method of establishing a person’s death.

Use Online Help To Prepare Exceptional Papers

This post has demonstrated how you should go about preparing a quality anthropology paper. However, many still find it challenging to prepare even after selecting interesting anthropology research topics. Well, there is no need to worry because you can use experts in research paper and dissertation writers. Using our resources when you buy dissertation with us, you will get exceptional results.

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140 Best Anthropology Research Topics to Focus On

Table of Contents

Would you have to submit a research paper on the anthropology concept? Currently, are you searching for the best anthropology research topics for your final assignment? If yes, then you are at the right spot. We know how challenging it would be to search and find anthropology research paper topics. Therefore, for your convenience, here, in this blog we have shared a list of 100+ impressive anthropology research ideas worthy of fetching top grades. Explore the entire list and select any topic that is interesting to you.

What is Anthropology?

Anthropology is the scientific study of humans, their evolutionary history, behavior, and the ways humans communicate and socialize with each other. The study is mainly concerned with both the physiological and biological features along with the social aspects of humans which include language, family, culture, politics, and religion.

Anthropology Research Topics

List of Anthropology Research Paper Topics

In this section, we have presented a list of 100+ outstanding anthropology research topic ideas in various areas such as cultural, ethnographic, medical, physical, and biological anthropology. Go through the list carefully and choose any persuasive idea that matches your university’s research paper writing guidelines.

Cultural Anthropology Research Topics

  • Conduct an in-depth analysis of the philosophy of two societies of your choice.
  • The significance of cultural diversity in the study of human evolution in anthropology
  • How are burial practices interwoven with religion and myth?
  • The meaning of cultural baggage and the ways to address the concept of cultural invasion
  • A forensic overview of the concept of family, fraternity, and gangs
  • The concept of ancestors in Native American countries and Africa
  • Music, dance, and parties in the contemporary society
  • The concept of social status in any African community
  • The emergence and influence of culture on tourism
  • Feminism in patriarchal societies
  • How does migration promote cultural diversity?
  • The evolving roles of women in Asian countries
  • Assess the structure of family and marriage in two countries of your choice
  • A criticism and distinction of anthropology and art
  • The role of literature in spreading libertarian ideas.
  • Role of women in Islamic societies
  • Analyze how the spread of K-pop had influenced Western culture
  • The impact of terrorism on Islamophobia
  • Describe the influence of language on culture
  • Hindu culture versus Islamic culture
  • How to minimize Ethnocentrism?
  • What is Culture shock?
  • Analyze the culture of Australian Aboriginals
  • Monoculturalism and Ethnocentrism
  • Describe the culture of Ancient Egypt

Anthropology Research Topics

Ethnographic Anthropology Research Topics

  • The role of clinical science in the pharmaceutical science of rural communities
  • The role of Ethnography and its studies in psychology
  • The function of Ethnography in software technology
  • Why abortion is considered the first resort for sexually assaulted and domestically violated victims?
  • How does music and interpersonal relationship improve cognitive behavior?
  • How teachers can adopt the findings of Ethnography in classroom learning?
  • An ethnographic study on the inclusiveness of health care and public access to it
  • How ethnography and its studies could help people with learning disabilities?
  • The ethnographic study of a group of domestically violated victims and how they respond to the violation
  • How has the value of education improved through ethnographic discoveries?
  • The effects of smart homes and privacy in communal Ethnographic studies
  • Use ethnographic information to assess intensive public healthcare.
  • An expository study on the role of psychologists in advancing special education
  • Examine the state of theories of racism
  • How do traditional health beliefs and myths affect contemporary society’s development?
  • Conduct a study on the beliefs of Japanese students while they learn English
  • An ethnographic overview of patient handover in European health care
  • Examine the boundaries of citizens’ involvement in intensive healthcare.
  • Evaluate how journalists cope with stress.
  • The status of spiritual healing through systems of pilgrimage therapy.
  • The ethnographic study of why has it been easier to use religion for influencing people to join terrorist groups?
  • How do stereotypical concepts relate to sexual orientation impact the mental health of children?
  • How are stereotypical concepts related to mental health affecting doctors?
  • Conduct a study to understand why women have been called their worst enemy.
  • Conduct a study to highlight whether “Shariah” is beneficial for Islamic societies or not.

Medical Anthropology Research Ideas

  • The role of ethnobotany in medical sciences
  • Assess the residue of why societal infamy is linked to HIV/AIDS.
  • An assessment of women’s sexuality and how culture affects sexual health
  • What is transcultural nursing?
  • How do nursing ethics become pragmatic in the career of professionals?
  • The complications in the treatment of periodontal disease
  • Assess the connection of income to health.
  • A study on the status of cancer after the Chornobyl nuclear disaster in Russia
  • Explain big pharma and the complications of watchdogs and whistle-blowers.
  • Examine the environmental health disaster of two countries of your choice.
  • Analyze how the Bhopal gas incident in India is still impacting societies in the specific state.
  • Describe how nurses have played a role in helping elder patients cope with stress and other address factors as a result of growing age.
  • Discuss the impact of AIDS on Central African societies
  • Consequences of the traumas of war on families in Sri Lanka and Guatemala
  • Risks associated with In Vitro Fertilisation

Read more: Best Medical Research Topics To Analyze and Write About

Physical Anthropology Research Topics

  • The advantages and consequences of eugenics in today’s society
  • Analyze five pieces of literature on the stages of drowning till death.
  • Aging in Asian countries and what it means for them
  • Analyze the physical concept of re-adjusting newborn babies by nursing mothers.
  • What is the underlying Egyptian belief in preserving the dead?
  • Have Western ideas of superiority affected the acknowledgment of Egypt as the cradle of civilization?
  • The origin of man in different societies of civilization
  • What are the contemporary facts that support past research and experiences of Homo habilis?
  • Examine the influence of the environment on skin color.
  • What are the consequences of smoking on human physical appearance?

Biology Anthropology Research Paper Topics

  • The origin spread, and transgenerational impact of any endemic in any society of your choice
  • Analyze the possibilities of traditional institutions in preserving cultures.
  • How maladaptation affects migrants in any country of your choice.
  • Analyze the concept of vulnerability and risk in public health care.
  • The relationship and comparison between malnutrition, violence, and chronic disease in any society of your choice
  • How do social relationships affect nutritional choices and human healthy living?
  • The clinical interactions in any social association of your choice
  • The challenges of a developing nation in public access to healthcare services
  • How do pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies shape contemporary medicine?
  • The commercialization and commodification of medicine and healthcare in contemporary society .
  • Comparing bones of bipeds and quadrupeds
  • Harry Harlow and his experiments on monkey bonding
  • Why do the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Brown-Eyed vs. Blue-Eyed Student Experiments are considered the two most controversial experiments?
  • Why does Zimbardo’s simulated prison experiment is considered one of the most controversial experiments?
  • Analyze the results derived from The Robbers Cave Experiment
  • Discuss the controversy around The Monkey Drug Trial in 1969

Read more: Top 175 Biology Research Topics for Academic Writing

Captivating Anthropology Research Topics

  • The influence of environmental anthropology on medicine
  • The role of Folklore in the defense and transgenerational retainment of Cultures
  • A review of the latest archaeological dating methods
  • How accurate is DNA evidence in matching and testing criminology?
  • A critical assessment of radioactive carbon dating accuracy
  • Recent improvements in crime detection
  • A detailed analysis of language classification
  • The factors that promote cultural hatred in a diverse society
  • The important changes in theories behind linguistic anthropology
  • Explore the use of fossil records in paleoanthropology.
  • Protective and risk dimensions of cultural norms, human behavior, and social institutions
  • The Role of TV reality shows in the Social Life
  • The influence of cross-cultural experiences in the modern world
  • How does the internet promote Westernization?
  • The connection of political science with cultural anthropology
  • The political ecology of vector-borne and infectious diseases
  • Physical anthropology essentials
  • What is language endangerment?
  • The link between cultural anthropology and political science
  • Explain the existence of racism in modern times.
  • Critical analysis of the Evolutionary theory in anthropology
  • Use case studies related to altered states of consciousness to explain the study of transpersonal anthropology
  • The Art of Disturbance: Transactions in the Mexico-United States Border Scenario
  • Discuss the connections between feminism, technology, and postmodernism

Interesting Anthropology Research Topics

  • The contemporary psychology of traveling between teenagers and their parents
  • The cultural constructions of human society and how they aid evolution
  • A criticism of the monarchy in European politics over Western democracy
  • The influence of the Roman Catholic Church as the center of government, religion, art, and social life
  • The concepts of the American culture of consumerism and the Scandinavian culture of minimalism
  • A detailed overview of how the Roman Catholic Church improved the science of sculpting and architecture
  • The significance of women in ancient Egypt
  • The evolving ideas about matrimony in Asia
  • The benefits and consequences of eugenics in today’s world
  • The process of aging and how it exacerbates fear of old age
  • The disparity in healthcare accessibility in any developing country
  • Examine the greeting gestures in American and Chinese societies.
  • The significance of the Greek culture on Italian languages and culture
  • The development of rock music and its connection to Native American tribes.

Informative Anthropology Research Paper Topics

  • Write about the risks of using artificial intelligence in forensics.
  • How can ethnobotany and its principles be applied in medicine?
  • Describe the role of language in the development of
  • Explain the role of DNA databases in searching for criminals.
  • Analyze the Marriage traditions of different cultures.
  • Tracking the behavior of twins over time.
  • Explain the impact of TikTok on European culture
  • Discuss the effectiveness of alternative medicine in the United States;
  • Explain the origins and generational impacts of Minamata disease.
  • How the dead were preserved in ancient Egypt?

The Bottom Line

Out of the various ideas mentioned in this blog post, pick any ideal anthropology topic suitable for conducting research. Here we have shared only a few impressive research topics. If you want more unique anthropology research project ideas, then immediately reach out to us.

Along with providing trending anthropology research topics, we will also offer assignment help for those who struggle to write their research papers. Simply send your assignment or research paper requirements to us and get quick writing assistance from the subject professionals on our platform. Most importantly, with the support of our team of academic writers, you can submit a plagiarism-free anthropology research paper ahead of the deadline. Note that, the anthropology assignment papers that we dispatch would put you at the top position in your class.

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Top 300 Anthropology Research Topics

Anthropology research Topics

Welcome to a fascinating world of anthropology. DIve into our curated compilation of 300 engaging anthropology research topics that uncover the diversity of human societies and cultures. These topics span a wide range of fascinating subjects, from how people live and communicate to the ways they shape their communities and beliefs.

Explore cultural traditions across the globe, investigate the roots of human evolution, or solve the complexities of language and identity. Whether you’re mesmerized by ancient civilizations, modern urban societies, or the impact of technology on cultures, you’ll find thought-provoking ideas to spark your curiosity and inspire insightful exploration.

From examining social behaviors to understanding environmental adaptations, these research topics offer a doorway to understanding the rich diversity of humanity. Join us on this journey through anthropology’s vast kingdoms, where each topic invites you to solve the complexities of human existence, one subject at a time.

What Is Anthropology ?

Table of Contents

Anthropology is the study of humans’ origins, societies, cultures, behaviors, and physical variations across time and space. It emphasizes understanding the diversity of human experiences and how societies function. Anthropologists explore various aspects of human life, from biological and evolutionary perspectives to cultural and social dimensions.

There are four primary subfields in anthropology:

  • Cultural Anthropology: Focuses on understanding contemporary societies, cultures, customs, and practices.
  • Archaeology: Studies past human societies and cultures by examining material remains, artifacts, and structures.
  • Biological/Physical Anthropology: Investigates human biology, evolution, genetics, and primatology.
  • Linguistic Anthropology: Explores the role of language in societies, communication, and cultural expression.

Anthropologists use diverse methods, including ethnography (participant observation), interviews, archaeological excavations, biological analyses, and linguistic studies, to uncover insights into human societies, their histories, and how they evolve over time.

Here we have compiled 300 research topics under different categories. From how languages evolve to what ancient artifacts tell us, these topics are like treasure maps guiding us to discover the wonders of human life. Ready to dive into stories of our past, present, and future? Let us start.

Top 15 Topics On Biological Anthropology Research Areas

  • Human Evolutionary Genetics
  • Primate Behavior and Ecology
  • Forensic Anthropology
  • Paleoanthropology Studies
  • Human Osteology and Skeletal Biology
  • Biological Adaptations to Environments
  • Comparative Anatomy and Morphology
  • Dental Anthropology Research
  • Bioarchaeology Investigations
  • Human Growth and Development
  • Primatology and Conservation
  • Disease and Health in Past Populations
  • Population Genetics and Human Diversity
  • Evolutionary Medicine and Anthropology
  • Human Paleopathology

Top 15 Research Topics On Cultural Anthropology Research Topics

  • Rituals and Symbolism in Culture
  • Cultural Identity and Globalization
  • Ethnographic Studies of Communities
  • Gender Roles and Cultural Practices
  • Material Culture and Society
  • Language and Culture Interactions
  • Folklore and Oral Traditions
  • Cultural Heritage Preservation
  • Indigenous Knowledge Systems
  • Culture and Power Dynamics
  • Urban Anthropology and City Life
  • Cultural Diversity and Social Change
  • Ethical Dilemmas in Fieldwork
  • Diaspora Communities and Identity
  • Religion and Cultural Practices

Top 15 Research Topics On Archaeological Anthropology Investigations

  • Archaeogenetics and Human Origins
  • Settlement Patterns and Urbanization
  • Environmental Archaeology
  • Ancient Technologies and Innovations
  • Archaeological Excavation Techniques
  • Paleoecology and Human Adaptations
  • Cultural Transmission in Archaeology
  • Dating Methods in Archaeological Studies
  • Maritime and Underwater Archaeology
  • Landscape Archaeology Approaches
  • Cultural Heritage Management
  • Rock Art and Symbolism
  • Archaeology of Death and Burial Practices
  • Archaeology and Climate Change
  • Site Preservation and Conservation

Top 15 Research Topics On Linguistic Anthropology Studies

  • Language Acquisition and Development
  • Sociolinguistics and Cultural Variation
  • Language Revitalization Efforts
  • Language and Identity Formation
  • Ethnolinguistics and Cultural Contexts
  • Historical Linguistics and Evolution of Languages
  • Linguistic Relativity and Thought Patterns
  • Multilingualism and Society
  • Dialectology and Regional Variations
  • Language Endangerment and Preservation
  • Language Contact and Creole Formation
  • Anthropological Approaches to Verbal Art
  • Pragmatics and Cross-Cultural Communication
  • Language and Power Dynamics
  • Ethnography of Communication

Top 15 Research Topics On Medical Anthropology Focus Areas

  • Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Health and Illness
  • Traditional Healing Practices
  • Biocultural Aspects of Disease
  • Global Health and Healthcare Systems
  • Medical Pluralism and Integration
  • Mental Health and Cultural Perceptions
  • Ethnomedicine and Herbal Remedies
  • Health Disparities and Social Determinants
  • Healing Rituals and Symbolism
  • Maternal and Child Health in Cultures
  • Anthropology of Infectious Diseases
  • Indigenous Knowledge in Healthcare
  • Alternative Medicine and Society
  • Medical Ethnography and Fieldwork
  • Healthcare Access and Marginalized Communities

Top 15 Anthropology Research Topics On Economic Anthropology Research

  • Market Systems and Exchange Networks
  • Economic Development and Globalization
  • Cultural Perspectives on Wealth and Value
  • Informal Economies and Subsistence Strategies
  • Gift-giving and Reciprocity in Societies
  • Economic Anthropology of Gender
  • Economic Anthropology of Labor and Work
  • Money and Symbolism in Cultures
  • Land Tenure Systems and Property Rights
  • Resource Management and Sustainability
  • Consumption Patterns and Consumerism
  • Economic Anthropology of Entrepreneurship
  • Economic Anthropology of Food and Agriculture
  • Poverty and Inequality Studies
  • Economic Anthropology in Urban Settings

Top 15 Research Topics On Social Anthropology Themes

  • Kinship Structures and Family Dynamics
  • Social Identity Formation and Group Relations
  • Rituals and Ceremonies in Societies
  • Power Dynamics and Social Hierarchies
  • Community Studies and Social Networks
  • Gender Roles and Social Constructs
  • Ethnicity and Cultural Boundaries
  • Conflict Resolution and Peacemaking
  • Social Movements and Activism
  • Urbanization and Social Change
  • Socialization and Education Systems
  • Marginalized Communities and Social Inclusion
  • Collective Memory and Commemoration
  • Media and Society in Anthropological Contexts
  • Identity Politics and Intersectionality

Top 15 Anthropology Research Topics On Psychological Anthropology Topics

  • Cultural Perspectives on Mental Health
  • Emotions and Cultural Expression
  • Belief Systems and Psychological Well-being
  • Cross-Cultural Studies on Trauma
  • Rituals and Healing in Psychological Contexts
  • Cultural Influences on Perception and Cognition
  • Identity Formation and Psychological Processes
  • Child Rearing and Psychological Development
  • Stress and Coping Mechanisms in Cultures
  • Cultural Variations in Personality
  • Spirituality and Psychological Resilience
  • Psychopathology and Cultural Interpretations
  • Cultural Constructions of Happiness
  • Intergenerational Transmission of Psychological Traits
  • Culture, Mind, and Brain Interaction

Top 15 Research Topics On Evolutionary Anthropology Exploration

  • Human Evolutionary Genetics and Adaptations
  • Evolutionary Perspectives on Social Behavior
  • Evolution of Human Communication
  • Cultural Evolution and Transmission
  • Evolutionary Medicine and Health
  • Primate Evolution and Comparative Anatomy
  • Evolution of Tool Use and Technology
  • Evolutionary Ecology and Human Adaptations
  • Evolutionary Psychology in Anthropological Context
  • Evolutionary Aspects of Human Diet
  • Co-evolution of Humans and Pathogens
  • Evolution of Human Brain and Cognition
  • Biocultural Evolution and Society
  • Paleolithic Archaeology and Human Evolution
  • Evolutionary Anthropology and Human Biodiversity

Top 15 Research Topics On Visual Anthropology Areas of Study

  • Ethnographic Filmmaking and Storytelling
  • Visual Ethnography and Cultural Representation
  • Anthropology of Photography
  • Visual Arts and Cultural Identity
  • Media and Visual Culture in Anthropological Contexts
  • Visual Documentation of Rituals and Traditions
  • Film as Cultural Artifact in Anthropology
  • Ethnographic Film Festivals and Discourse
  • Visual Anthropology and Indigenous Perspectives
  • Ethical Considerations in Visual Representation
  • Digital Visual Anthropology
  • Visual Media and Social Change
  • Visual Methodologies in Anthropological Research
  • Visual Anthropology and Museum Practices
  • Aesthetics and Meaning in Visual Anthropology

Top 15 Anthropology Research Topics On Urban Anthropology Research

  • Urban Spaces and Everyday Life
  • Urban Diversity and Multiculturalism
  • Gentrification and Urban Dynamics
  • Urban Poverty and Marginalized Communities
  • Urban Development and Planning
  • Urban Social Networks and Relationships
  • Anthropology of Urban Public Spaces
  • Informal Economies in Urban Contexts
  • Cultural Diversity in Urban Neighborhoods
  • Urban Health and Well-being
  • Technology and Urban Anthropology
  • Urban Youth Cultures and Identities
  • Migration and Urban Settlements
  • Urban Governance and Citizenship

Top 15 Research Topics On Environmental Anthropology Issues

  • Human-Environment Interactions in Indigenous Societies
  • Climate Change and Cultural Adaptations
  • Environmental Conservation and Indigenous Knowledge
  • Political Ecology and Resource Management
  • Ethnobotany and Traditional Ecological Knowledge
  • Environmental Justice and Marginalized Communities
  • Anthropogenic Impact on Ecosystems
  • Sacred Landscapes and Cultural Preservation
  • Environmental Displacement and Resettlement
  • Sustainable Development and Local Communities
  • Ecological Anthropology and Biodiversity Loss
  • Water and Sanitation in Cultural Contexts
  • Anthropology of Natural Disasters
  • Land Use and Cultural Perspectives
  • Ethical Considerations in Environmental Research

Top 15 Research Topics On Applied Anthropology Focus Topics

  • Applied Anthropology in Healthcare Settings
  • Anthropology in Community Development Projects
  • Cultural Competence in Social Work
  • Anthropological Approaches to Environmental Conservation
  • Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief
  • Cultural Consultancy in Business and Industry
  • Forensic Anthropology and Crime Investigations
  • Ethnographic Evaluation in Public Policy
  • Anthropology in Education and Curriculum Development
  • Participatory Research Methods in Applied Anthropology
  • Urban Planning and Community Engagement
  • Cultural Heritage Management and Tourism
  • Applied Anthropology in Conflict Resolution
  • Technology and Innovation in Applied Anthropology
  • Anthropology in Global Health Initiatives

Top 15 Anthropology Research Topics On Gender and Sexuality in Anthropology

  • Gender Roles and Social Norms
  • Gender Identity and Cultural Constructs
  • Sexuality and Cultural Expression
  • LGBTQ+ Communities and Identity Politics
  • Feminist Anthropology and Theory
  • Masculinity Studies in Cultural Contexts
  • Gender-Based Violence and Cultural Responses
  • Intersectionality and Gender in Anthropology
  • Gender and Power Dynamics
  • Reproductive Health and Cultural Perspectives
  • Sexuality Education and Cultural Variations
  • Gendered Spaces and Social Hierarchies
  • Gender and Economic Empowerment
  • Ethnographic Studies on Gender Diversity
  • Indigenous Perspectives on Gender and Sexuality

Top 15 Research Topics On Indigenous Peoples and Ethnography

  • Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Preservation
  • Ethnography of Indigenous Communities
  • Indigenous Rights and Land Ownership
  • Oral Traditions and Cultural Transmission
  • Indigenous Health and Traditional Medicine
  • Rituals and Ceremonies in Indigenous Cultures
  • Indigenous Languages and Linguistic Diversity
  • Indigenous Governance and Political Structures
  • Environmental Ethics in Indigenous Societies
  • Indigenous Education and Cultural Revitalization
  • Indigenous Women’s Roles and Empowerment
  • Cultural Heritage and Indigenous Identity
  • Indigenous Activism and Social Movements
  • Indigenous Art and Cultural Expression
  • Resilience and Challenges in Indigenous Communities

Top 15 Anthropology Research Topics On Anthropology of Religion Studies

  • Rituals and Symbolism in Religious Practices
  • Sacred Spaces and Pilgrimages
  • Religion and Power Structures
  • Religious Conversion and Adaptation
  • Shamanism and Healing Practices
  • Mythology and Religious Narratives
  • Religious Pluralism and Coexistence
  • Ethnography of Religious Communities
  • Religion and Social Change
  • Gender Roles in Religious Contexts
  • Diasporic Religious Practices
  • Religious Syncretism and Hybridity
  • Religion and Environmental Ethics
  • Supernatural Beliefs and Cosmology
  • Ritualistic Performance and Symbolic Acts

Top 15 Research Topics On Migration and Diaspora Anthropology

  • Identity Formation in Transnational Contexts
  • Cultural Adaptation and Integration of Migrants
  • Anthropology of Forced Migration
  • Transnationalism and Global Diasporas
  • Refugee Resettlement and Integration
  • Gender Dynamics in Migration
  • Remittances and Economic Impacts
  • Homeland Connections and Diasporic Identities
  • Social Networks and Support Systems in Diasporas
  • Xenophobia and Discrimination Against Migrants
  • Politics of Borders and Migration Policies
  • Diasporic Cultural Practices and Traditions
  • Second-Generation Diaspora Identities
  • Urbanization and Diaspora Communities
  • Diaspora Engagement in Home Countries

Top 15 Anthropology Research Topics On Anthropology of Power and Politics

  • Political Rituals and Symbolism
  • Power Dynamics in Social Hierarchies
  • Political Economy and Social Inequality
  • Political Authority and Legitimacy
  • Political Activism and Social Movements
  • Political Representation and Marginalized Groups
  • Ethnography of Governance Systems
  • Political Discourse and Media Influence
  • Political Violence and Conflict Resolution
  • Political Participation and Civic Engagement
  • Power Structures in Indigenous Societies
  • Politics of Memory and Commemoration
  • Anthropology of State Formation
  • Political Agency and Identity Politics

Top 15 Research Topics On Technology and Anthropological Studies

  • Digital Cultures and Virtual Communities
  • Ethnography of Online Spaces
  • Technological Adaptations in Traditional Societies
  • Surveillance and Privacy in Technological Contexts
  • Anthropology of Artificial Intelligence
  • Technological Innovations and Social Change
  • Ethical Implications of Technology Integration
  • Mobile Technology and Global Connectivity
  • Cultural Perspectives on Robotics and Automation
  • Anthropology of Wearable Technology
  • Social Media and Identity Construction
  • Technological Impact on Cultural Heritage Preservation
  • Access to Technology in Marginalized Communities
  • Cybersecurity and Cultural Perceptions
  • Anthropology of Emerging Technologies

Top 15 Research Topics On Globalization and Anthropology Research Areas

  • Transnationalism and Identity Formation
  • Global Flows of Culture and Commodities
  • Globalization and Indigenous Peoples
  • Migration and Diaspora Studies
  • Global Health and Medical Practices
  • Globalization’s Impact on Language and Communication
  • Cultural Hybridity in Globalized Contexts
  • Globalization and Environmental Anthropology
  • Global Economic Networks and Labor Mobility
  • Cultural Imperialism and Resistance
  • Globalization and Urban Anthropology
  • Globalization’s Influence on Food Systems
  • Technology and Global Cultural Exchange
  • Globalization and Social Movements
  • Globalization and Ethical Dilemmas

In wrapping up our big list of 300 anthropology research topics, remember, anthropology’s like a treasure chest filled with amazing things to explore. These topics offer a map to understanding people, cultures, and societies. They’re keys that unlock doors to ancient times, different beliefs, and how our world works today. 

Pick a topic that sparks your curiosity, dive in, and discover fascinating insights about humans and our diverse ways of living. Let these topics guide you on an adventure of understanding, questioning, and learning. So, grab your curiosity, pick a topic, and explore the exciting world of anthropology.

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Cultural Anthropology

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Cultural anthropology.

Cultural Anthropology publishes ethnographic writing informed by a wide array of theoretical perspectives, innovative in form and content, and focused on both traditional and emerging topics. It also welcomes essays concerned with ethnographic methods and research design in historical perspective, and with ways cultural analysis can address broader public audiences and interests.

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Log in or create an account to submit a manuscript to Cultural Anthropology.

Vol. 39 No. 1 (2024)

cultural anthropology research paper topics

We present six original papers in this issue as well as the inaugural guest commentary.

When the Society for Cultural Anthropology selected our distributed, international editorial collective to lead Cultural Anthropology , they did so in part to support our commitment to opening channels of this crucial platform of our discipline beyond the scope of privileged, endowed higher educational institutions in the United States. As one step of this process, in this issue we provide space to the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma to describe their work since the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1990. As Deanna L. Byrd, the NAGPRA Liaison-Coordinator and Research and Outreach Program Manager of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, and Ian Thompson, the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, writes, since that time, “Native American communities gained a measure of say in how ancestral burials are treated on federal lands. The law also established a mechanism to help Native American, Alaskan, and Native Hawaiian communities have open dialogue with institutions across the country about the return of their ancestors, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony.” 

In dialogue with critical disability studies, Eliza Williamson zooms in the everyday practices of Bahian mothers with children diagnosed with Congenital Zika Syndrome. Mothers, she shows, assert their children’s personhood by refusing their medically diagnosed lack of futurity through what she defines as habilitative care: “a bodymind potentializing set of practices” involving a myriad of “substances, technologies and techniques understood to encourage maximum potential development of embodied abilities in young disabled children.”

Leniqueca Welcome delves into unaccounted forms of violence on and in those “who occupy the category of poor black woman in Trinidad” to develop a “capacious, relational and historically layered” approach to entangled forms of gender-based violence and life searching. In so doing, a sharp critique of the masculinist state and legacies of colonial extraction emerges.

By spending time with loggers, timber industrialists, and state technocrats across Peru’s Amazonian region of Loreto, Eduardo Romero Dianderas tracks technical maneuvers and political controversies around timber volumetric calculation. Far from a mathematical abstraction, his ethnography invites us to think that the practice of volume-making—scaling, standardizing, and accounting for timber—is a contact zone in which “power, history and bodily experience” saturate a crucial operation for global environmental governance.

Focusing on demonstrations held outside Yangon, Myanmar, in favor of a plan to build a New Yangon City, Courtney Wittekind’s article intervenes in the binaries of “truth” versus “falsity” and “genuine” versus “fake” to advance an anthropological theorization of demonstration, speculation, and spectacle.

For centuries, the Curse of Ham, the originary anti-Black myth of the Abrahamic faiths, functioned as the foundational and legitimating narrative of white supremacist ideology across the African continent. To Justin Haruyama’s disconcertment, this was also the narrative invoked by some of his Zambian informants to explain the predicament of Black people today. In his paper for this issue, Haruyama stages a conversation with Black liberation theology to suggest that these narratives articulated, however, a profound refutation of liberal egalitarianism and, from the situated premises of a transnational Zambian perspective, put forward an alternative vision for a decolonial abolitionist anthropology.

In his article, Ramy Aly interrogates the anthropology of ethics and revolution in dialogue with a phenomenological and situated account of the 2011 January Egyptian Revolution. He does it through the experiences and narratives of those that were too young to take part in street protests and political movements but for whom the revolution still takes precedent in everyday practices of self-making.

Cover and table-of-contents image by Eduardo Romero Dianderas.

Guest Commentary

No stone unturned.

cultural anthropology research paper topics

Habilitating Bodyminds, Caring for Potential: Disability Therapeutics after Zika in Bahia, Brazil

On and in their bodies: masculinist violence, criminalization, and black womanhood in trinidad, volumes: the politics of calculation in contemporary peruvian amazonia, “take our land” : fronts, fraud, and fake farmers in a city-to-come, anti-blackness and moral repair: the curse of ham, biblical kinship, and the limits of liberalism, the ordinariness of ethics and the extraordinariness of revolution: ethical selves and the egyptian january revolution at home and school, curated collections.

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Cultural Research Paper Topics: Exploring Heritage and Society

Culture is interconnected and ever-changing. It influences how we think, behave, and interact with everything around us. It is also a significant source of variation, as various cultures have varying values, beliefs, and practices.

Understanding different cultures is more important than ever in today’s globalized world. Cultural research can aid in creating a more inclusive and tolerant society by bridging cultural divisions.

Through a range of cultural research paper themes, such as  pop culture essay topics , this article investigates the characteristics of human civilizations and diversity. These issues cover everything from the significance of culture in developing human identity to the influence of cultural variety on disagreements and partnerships.

How to Choose Research Paper Topics about Culture?

Culture is a vast and complex topic, so it can be difficult to choose a research paper topic that is both interesting and manageable.

Listed are a few tips for choosing research paper topics about culture:

  • Consider your own interests

What aspects of culture are you most interested in? What do you know a lot about? Choosing a topic you are interested in will make the research process more enjoyable and rewarding.

  • Consider your target audience.

Who is going to read your paper? What background in culture do they ask for? Choosing a topic that is intriguing and helpful to your readers will improve the quality of your paper.

  • Conduct preliminary research .

Once you’ve developed a few concepts, perform some early research. This will assist you in selecting your topic and figuring out the sources you will use.

  • Make it specific .

To what extent do you want the subject to go? A broader topic will allow you to examine more facets of culture, though it will also be more difficult to investigate.  

  • Consult with your lecturer.

Talk to your professor if you need help deciding on a cultural research topic. They can assist you in filtering your alternatives and selecting the best topic for you.

List of Interesting Culture Topics to Write About

Culture is a diverse and intriguing subject that may be approached from various perspectives. There are several interesting cultural research topics to write about, ranging from multiple civilizations’ history to culture’s influence on the arts and media.

This list is an excellent place to begin if you’re looking for fascinating cultural research topics to write about.

Cultural Anthropology Research Topics

The study of human societies and their traditions is known as cultural anthropology. Cultural anthropology research subjects might range from the study of distinct civilizations to the study of cross-cultural comparisons. These subjects in anthropological perspectives go into the cultural practices, rites, and norms of multiple cultures across all nations worldwide. They may include studies on kinship systems, gender roles, religious ceremonies, language development, and cultural adaptation.

Some examples of cultural research topics include;

  • Cultural Adaptation and Assimilation of Immigrants in Modern Society
  • The Impact of Globalization on Indigenous Cultures and Traditional Knowledge Systems
  • Cultural Expressions and Identity Formation Among Marginalized Communities
  • The Role of Rituals and Ceremonies in Shaping Cultural Beliefs and Practices
  • Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Gender Roles and Sexuality
  • Cultural Responses to Environmental Change and Sustainability
  • The Influence of Technology on Cultural Performance and Communication Process
  • Cultural Perspectives on Healthcare Practices and Healing Rituals
  • Cultural Preservation and the Role of Museums in Safeguarding Intangible Heritage
  • Comparative Study of Cultural Practices Related to Death and Mourning

Cultural Psychology Research Paper Topics

Cultural psychology research paper topics focus on the intersection between culture and human psychology. These subjects explore how cultural factors shape our thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and mental processes.

By examining these topics, researchers aim to unravel the complex interplay between cultural psychology, shedding light on the cultural influences that shape our individual and collective experiences.

At times, students get overwhelmed with the workload at hand and often ask – who can  write my papers  just how I want them? The answer is yes. There are professional writing services that provide this help.

Cultural research topics in this section are:

  • Cultural Variations in Cognitive Processes and Perception
  • The Influence of Culture on Personality Development and Individual Differences
  • Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Emotion Expression and Regulation
  • Cultural Factors in the Development and Treatment of Mental Disorders
  • Cultural Influences on Parenting Styles and Child Development
  • Cultural Variations in Moral Reasoning and Ethical Decision-Making
  • The Role of Cultural Narcissism in Shaping Attitudes and Behaviors Towards Authority
  • Cultural Differences in Motivation and Achievement
  • The Impact of Acculturation and Bicultural Identity on Psychological Well-Being
  • Cultural Factors in Intergroup Relations and Prejudice

Socio-Cultural Essay Topics

Socio-cultural topics explore a wide range of issues related to society and culture. The essays in the socio-cultural context examine the relationship between humanity and culture. Research topics in this field can range from the study of social institutions to the norms and values of cultural studies.

Among the possible cultural research topics are:

  • The Societal Fabrication of Race and Its Consequences for Identity and Inequality
  • Mass Media’s Involvement in Creating Cultural Norms and Values
  • Perspectives on Economic Disparity and Hardship From a Socio-Cultural Perspective
  • Social Media’s Influence on Interpersonal Relationships and Self-Esteem
  • The Impact of Cultural Diversity on Academic Success in Schooling
  • Socio-Cultural Variables Influence Health Inequalities and Access to Healthcare
  • Religious Beliefs Influence Societal Attitudes and Behaviors
  • Migration and Refugee Integration Have Socio-Cultural Elements
  • Cultural Phenomena Influence Environmental Views and Sustainable Practices
  • Race, Class, and Gender Intersectionality in Human Beings’ Socioeconomic Inequity

Cultural Diversity Research Topics

This area of study may investigate the impact of cultural diversity on healthcare inequalities, the role of cultural characteristics on psychological outcomes, or the efficacy of ethnically customized therapies in enhancing patient care and health results.

To get your cultural research papers crafted to your requirements, Edusson gets the hassle out of writing essays from start to end.

Being aware of various cultural aspects is essential for establishing inclusive and equitable healthcare systems that meet the specific requirements of varied groups.

The following are some cultural research topics to write on:

  • The Effect of Cultural Diversity on Workplace Efficiency and Fulfillment
  • The Impact of Ethnic Diversity on the Medical Industry and How Patients Respond
  • Investigating the Importance of Cultural Phenomenon in Developing the Education System and Practices
  • Cultural Diversity’s Impact on Team Dynamics and Collaboration in a Social Organization
  • Cultural Diversity and Its Consequences for International Advertising Tactics
  • The Link Between Cultural Diversity and Technological Innovation
  • Understanding the Upsides and Challenges of Cultural Diversity in a Multicultural Society
  • The Influence of Cultural Competence on Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding Initiatives
  • Multicultural Diversity’s Impact on National Identity and Social and Emotional Development
  • Investigating and Preserving Native Culture Uniqueness

Cross-Cultural Research Paper Topics

Intercultural studies compare and analyze different cultures and their effects on many parts of society. Exploring disparities in healthcare beliefs and practices, investigating the efficacy of cross-cultural perspectives in hospital settings, or researching the influence of globalization on cultural practices and medical behaviors are all possible research subjects.

Cultural studies facilitate competence in healthcare and ensure culturally sensitive and effective care to individuals from a particular culture.

Writing a very good research paper is tedious, so you may need to find the  best research paper topics  to get ideas flowing.

Cultural research paper topics in this category include:

  • A Comparative Analysis of Cross-Cultural Business Communication Across World Culture
  • Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges and Strategies in International Business Negotiations
  • The Impact of Cross-Cultural Interactions on Intercultural Competence Development
  • Economic Classes in Parenting Styles and Their Effects on Child Development
  • Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Sexually Transmitted Diseases Stigma and Its Implications for Non-verbal Communication
  • Exploring Cross-Cultural Fashion Trends Variations and Experiences of Beauty and Body Image
  • The Influence of Culture on Attitudes and Behaviors Related to Environmental Sustainability
  • Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Aging and Elder Care Practices
  • Understanding Cross-Cultural Psychology in Ethical Decision-Making Processes
  • The Role of Western Culture History in Shaping Attitudes Towards Gender and Sexuality

Art Culture Research Topics for Assignments

The intersection of art and culture provides a rich landscape for research. Research in this field contributes to our understanding of art’s therapeutic and cultural significance and highlights its potential as a tool for healing, self-expression, and cultural values.

Potential cultural research paper topics are:

  • The Influence of Ancient Art on Contemporary Artistic Expressions
  • Exploring the Cultural Significance of Street Art and Graffiti in Urban Environments
  • Female Culture in Art Throughout Ancient Britain
  • Art as a Form of Cultural Resistance and Social Activism
  • Analyzing How Traditional Food Reflects the Cultural Heritage
  • Cultural Appropriation Versus Cultural Appreciation in Art and Its Ethical Implications
  • The Intersection of Art and Technology: Exploring Digital Art and Its Cultural Implications
  • The Importance of Museums in Maintaining and Displaying Various Works of Art and Cultural Artifacts
  • The Study of How Art Reflects and Affects the Stories of Culture
  • Therapeutic Art as a Technique for Boosting Mental Health and Well-Being Across Different Cultures

Good Essay Topics about Culture

Culture is an enthralling and varied part of human society. Cultural essay topics include customs, cultural interchange, cultural identity, cultural appropriation, and cultural preservation. Exploring these themes provides a more in-depth understanding of the values, religious practices, cultural clashes, and conventions that define different cultures.

The following are the best cultural studies selections in this category:

  • Globalization’s Influence on Indigenous Cultural Practices
  • A Critical Appraisal of Cultural Theft
  • The Impact of Cultural Background on Individual Growth
  • Language’s Impact on Cultural Norms and Values
  • Issues and Benefits of Preserving Cultural Diversity in the Workplace
  • A Systematic Examination of Gender Roles and Cultural Expectations
  • Protection of Historic Resources in the Face of the Modern World
  • Finding an Equilibrium Between Cultural Integration and Maintaining Culture
  • Gender Stereotypes and Their Effects on Intercultural Relationships
  • The Influence of Pop Culture on Societal Norms and Values

Topics on Globalization

The process of globalization has changed the global culture into an interlinked village. Globalization essay themes can cover a wide range of issues, including its influence on economics, politics, technology, interpersonal relationships, and cultural interaction in modern society.

Evaluating globalization’s good and bad consequences, investigating its place in influencing global politics, and debating the difficulties and possibilities it brings may provide significant insights into the complex dynamics of our increasingly linked world and mitigate cultural ignorance.

Among the more intriguing cultural research topics include:

  • The Impact of Economic Globalisation on Developing Countries
  • Viral Diseases Spread and Globalization
  • Multinational Corporations’ Role in Globalization
  • The Impact of Globalisation on Isolated Communities
  • Cultural Diversity Versus Globalization in a Modern Society
  • Environmental Sustainability and Globalization
  • Globalization and Trends of Labor Migration
  • Globalization’s Political Implications
  • The Age of Technology and Its Impact on Globalization
  • The Growth of Global Governing Institutions Is a Result of Globalization

American Culture Research Paper Topics

The richness and diversity of American culture make it an appealing subject for study. American culture research paper topics may include the global impact of American pop culture, the development, and history of American cuisine, the representation of American identity in movies and novels, the impact of immigration on modern United States society, or the part of Christian traditions in defining American and African culture.

Popular cultural research topics include:

  • American Political Culture’s Development
  • The Influence of Hollywood on American Culture
  • The Role of Mass Media in Shaping American Societal Norms
  • The Impact of Immigration on American Cultural Diversity
  • American Exceptionalism: Myth or Reality?
  • American Pop Culture and Its Consequences
  • The History and Significance of Jazz Music in African Culture
  • The Portrayal of Race and Ethnicity in American Pop Culture
  • The Influence of American Literature on National Identity
  • The American Dream: Its Changing Meaning and Societal Implications

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  • Pop Culture Essay Topics: Find Out the Pulse of Modern Society
  • Business Research Paper Topics: Management, Commerce, Entrepreneurship, etc

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cultural anthropology research paper topics

Cultural Anthropology research paper suggestions

Some suggested topics for your paper:, note-- these instructions are for students taking the course during a regular semester, not the 5-week bridge module course.

  • A description of key points of a culture in which you are interested (a brief ethnography)
  • An in-depth look at the concept of "worldview" or the comparison of the worldviews of two societies
  • Religious beliefs or practices of a particular society
  • Marriage/family in a particular group or comparison between societies
  • Types of economic organization/systems
  • Language acquisition
  • The influence of language on culture
  • Views about ancestors
  • The role of women in a given society
  • Doing fieldwork as an anthropologist
  • The importance of cultural anthropology to the missionary . . . or to the business executive . . .or to the educator . . . or to the . . .
  • Ethnocentrism and some tips on how to minimize it
  • The idea of cultural baggage and how to minimize it
  • Culture shock : What it is and how to best work through it

These topics are given to you as idea starters. You may use one of these or some adaptation of it or you may come up with a different topic that interests you more. Leafing through any introduction to cultural anthropology book may also stimulate your thinking in terms of a topic.

Ready for some cross-cultural humor?

More for you on cultural anthropology.

  • Cultural bingo icebreaker
  • Bwanda Fusa game
  • Cultural Anthrpology case studies
  • Christianity and culture
  • Cultural Anthropology Course
  • Culture shock (a.k.a. cultural adjustment)
  • Ethnocentrism and monoculturalism
  • Iceberg, onion, and concentric cirlces: models of culture
  • What do we think we see? Light bulb illustration
  • Missions and culture
  • My own culture shock
  • PowerPoint presentations used in class
  • Reentry: Coming home

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Anthropology Research Topics: 100+ Ideas

Anthropology Research Topics

Do you want to frame an anthropology research paper that helps you stand out from the crowd? If this is the case, don’t worry because we have you covered. However, before jumping straight to the writing part, the first step is to select a great anthropology research topic.

A majority of students consider this step to be the most daunting. Choosing a topic and researching it can take time and effort. It requires a broad range of skills. However, since it is an academic compulsion, you must recognize it for a short time. Why not give this your most passionate shot once and for all and fully indulge in it once and all?

Don’t be afraid, as we’re here to navigate you through an enticing list of 100+ research topics in anthropology. These topics will help you frame the outstanding research paper you have always wanted. You can choose these topics as they are or tweak them a little according to your unique requirements.

Table of Contents

Working on Anthropology Research Paper Topics

To frame an outstanding research paper on anthropological topics, the first and foremost thing is to think anthropologically. Thinking anthropologically implies suspending their preconceived notions of how the world functions and what constitutes “normal” or “abnormal.” Anthropology urges anthropologists to be “culturally relative” and to comprehend cultural diversity on their terms. Anthropology rejects ethnocentrism and recognizes divergence without placing it in a hierarchy.

When you are writing your anthropology research paper, you need to ensure the following items are on your checklist:

  • Critically analyze and evaluate cultural norms (both in your own and other cultures).
  • Conduct comprehensive research on ethnographic data (including data and descriptions of everyday events, oral histories, and significant interviews) to understand significant patterns.
  • Organize all the ethnographic or other evidence to expound on a phenomenon or event or support a hypothesis or argument.
  • Evaluate a theoretical viewpoint critically to determine how well it explains cultural occurrences.

100+ Anthropology Research Paper Topics

There are a few subjects that intrigue the majority of students. These are anthropology, psychology, mythology, sociology, and other good ethnography topics.

Drafting a research paper on anthropology comes with a wide spectrum of special subtopics. These subtopics include linguistics, biology, current events, and cultural anthropology topics to choose from. These topics are mentioned below and can help inspire fascinating research and writing about humans and their evolution.

Read Also – Top 100 Position Paper Topics

Top 20 Topics in Anthropology

If you’re looking for the most researched anthropology topics for research papers that most readers will find interesting, you’ve come to the right place. Look at the following anthropological topics and choose one that suits your requirements best:

  • Global forensic anthropology and forensic pathology
  • Evolutionary theory in anthropology
  • Aging cultures and perceptions
  • Anthropology: an introduction to anthropology beyond humanity
  • Women in Lakota Sioux culture
  • Peru’s Quechua people: a living Andean culture
  • The evolution of Islamic terrorism
  • The advantages and disadvantages of eugenics
  • Western civilization: aging and identity
  • The cultural anthropology of time: an applied perspective
  • Aging and kyphosis: a narrative review
  • Theories about the evolutionary origins of humans
  • The Hijra of India: effects of colonization and globalization
  • Mass globalization
  • Unimagined communities: sex, networks, and AIDS in Uganda
  • The long history of gender roles in medicine
  • Developmental anthropology
  • Climate change and global health: anthropology and beyond
  • Eugenics in the 21st century
  • Living in closed societies: ethical and political issues

Read Also – Interesting biology research topics

Biology and Anthropology Topics for Research

Biological anthropologists investigate, document, and explain the evolution of morphological variations among humankind through time in the historical record. They also provide a comparative perspective on the uniqueness of the human race compared to other living primates. It is a very popular subject for students. Thus, if you’re keen to research more about such factors, then consider these biological anthropology topics that will help you get started with a specific mindset for writing:

  • The history of biological anthropology: understanding the natural history of humankind
  • A handbook on paleoanthropology: the history of our tribes
  • Minimizing the risk of maladaptation: a developmental perspective
  • Understanding the current stage of paleoanthropology in the USSR
  • Biological anthropology with other allied fields of science
  • How biological anthropology explains the genesis of human behaviour and social structures
  • Applying biological anthropology to interpret human evolution
  • How do the biotech and pharmaceutical industries influence modern medicine?
  • Biological anthropology and aging

Controversial Anthropology Topics for Research

Writing and researching controversial topics is always the cherry on the cake. You can easily expound on these topics by corroborating a huge spectrum of data and resources. Thus, instead of choosing drudgery research topics in anthropology, give another penny for your thoughts and choose controversial topics. Topic ideas relating to controversial topics are here.

  • Ancient Egyptian civilization: the culture of life and death
  • Validation of social anthropology
  • The ethnographic paradigms
  • The war on infanticide has a global scope and magnitude.
  • Cultural construction or anthropology: theory and empirical evidence
  • The criticism of the European monarchy over western democracy
  • The relationship between social anthropology and allied disciplines
  • Hidden voices: Unveiling women in Ancient Egypt
  • Understanding Italian culture: Greek culture’s influence on Italian languages and culture
  • The origins and natural history of human morality
  • Analyzing male aggression against women from an evolutionary perspective
  • Understanding personality, cognition, and behavioural changes in chimpanzees
  • Infanticide as an evolutionary strategy: reality or myth?
  • The myth of man as a natural hunter
  • Analyzing the dart and the Seville statement on war
  • The history of Samoan sexual conduct and the Mead-Freeman controversy
  • Menopause: adaptation or epiphenomenon?
  • Who owns the past?
  • The repatriation of anthropology

Read Also – 295 Sociology Research Topics

Cultural Anthropology Research Topics

Cultural anthropology is the branch of anthropology that studies human societies, patterns, cultures, and developments. Some of the contentious cultural anthropology topics are given below:

  • Cultural anthropology and linguistics
  • The evolution of sexism: a critical analysis of past problems and future possibilities
  • The flourishing of libertarian literary writings
  • The history of women’s struggles
  • Cultural anthropology and psychiatry
  • The development of sociology and social anthropology
  • Fundamental religious principles govern child forced marriages in northern Nigeria.
  • The battle of African women for equality
  • Patriarchy and the representation of women in Asian nations
  • Green and Roman mythology: a comparative analysis
  • African traditional beliefs and spirituality in Africa
  • Cultural violence and the Nigerian woman: a narrative review
  • The ultimate journey of widow-burning in India
  • Exploring cultural spaces and technologies in contemporary societies
  • The biological myth of human evolution: a phylogenetic approach
  • Erasing culture and race: practising “self-determination.”
  • The American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World
  • The 16th and 17th-century philosophy of India
  • Understanding Mexican culture from a religious point of view
  • Migration and cultural diversity
  • The native American ancestry of African-Americans
  • Muslim women and forced marriages
  • A theoretical analysis of culture clashes in American anthropology
  • Anthropology of religion
  • Christendom’s worlds and Christianity’s future

Physical Anthropology Research Paper Topics

Physical anthropology is the study of human origins, evolution, and diversity. If you’re interested in researching and writing about physical anthropology, then here are some interesting topic suggestions that you can consider:

  • Genotype-environment correlation study: an overview
  • The evolution of human beings
  • Genetic hitchhiking: the controversy and its implications
  • The altruistic personality: the heritability of individual differences
  • The cephalization process
  • Amazonian Anthropology: Henry Walter Bates
  • Homo sapiens and early human migration
  • The evolution of human history and the first man
  • The ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs
  • The issues and challenges of aging in Asia
  • Influence of environmental factors on skin tone
  • Examine five literary works that discuss the stages of drowning and dying.
  • Evidence of somatic acceleration from recent investigations
  • The relationship between psychological and physiological constitutions
  • A review and comparison of dissolution profiles
  • The advantages and disadvantages of eugenics in the 21st century
  • Aging across cultures: a comparative analysis
  • Genetic engineering and medical anthropology: ethics and challenges

Read Also – 100+ Compelling Linguistics Research Topics

Linguistic Anthropology Research Paper Topics

Linguistic anthropology is the branch of anthropology that studies the connection or relationship between languages and cultures. It study how people negotiate, think, compete, and reproduce cultural forms and relations through the medium of languages. If you’re interested in learning more about linguistic anthropology, here are a few suggestions for you:

  • The anatomy and physiology of speech
  • Language, Race, and Popular Culture
  • The relationship between language and culture
  • Understanding intercultural communication: a current perspective
  • Linguistics and the politics of representation
  • Representational barriers and issues in linguistic anthropology
  • Language and gender: a comprehensive research work
  • American-African women’s language: talking that talk
  • Journeys into the past: understanding different language cultures
  • Language endangerment and language revitalization: an active approach

Forensic Research Topics in Anthropology

Generally speaking, forensic anthropology studies the examination of human remains for law enforcement agencies to solve atrocious crimes. Have a look at some of these great forensic anthropology research topics:

  • Analyzing the latest perspectives on forensic anthropology
  • Criminal profiling and computer forensic processes: assumptions, challenges, and probable solutions
  • Fundamentals of forensic anthropology: current methods and practices
  • Forensic anthropology and medicine
  • Forensic anthropology and forensic pathology
  • A handbook on crime scene investigation
  • Comparison of soils in forensic anthropology: a detailed study
  • Reactive oxidants and human diseases
  • An investigation of the fundamental factors that cause biological alterations in the human body
  • A study on the recent advancements in forensic science
  • Criminal profiling: a powerful tool against criminal offences
  • Current tools and future concepts of forensic anthropology
  • Common techniques in the study of forensic anthropology
  • Progress and prospects of DNA testing procedures
  • Narratives of forensic psychology and criminal personality profiling
  • Moral issues in forensic anthropology
  • The workings of forensic anthropology: ethics and professionalism
  • accuracy of carbon dating technology
  • Asphyxiation: an autopsy study
  • Analyzing the methods of determining the time of death

Medical Anthropology Topics for Research

Interested in medical anthropology? If so, look at the below-provided research topics on anthropology.

  • Exploring medical anthropology
  • Ethno zoology: applications and principles
  • A reflection on medical anthropology
  • Medical anthropology and epidemiology
  • Medical ethno botany: applied principles and applications
  • An overview of the spread of the Ebola virus in 2014
  • Maladaptation: The effects of adaptation to ecological conditions and improper adaptation on health
  • Mapping the concepts of vulnerability, risk, and responsibility for healthcare and illness
  • Critical and clinical engagement in anthropology
  • Ethno medicine modalities in a healing process

The Bottom Line

Each option in the article can help you develop an outstanding research paper in anthropology. Anthropology is indeed a complex subject. Thus, you can also consider some good ethnography topics for your research. You need to conduct extensive research on the different sections of societies and how they have evolved over the past few years. These research paper topics are meant to inspire you and help you score high marks in your academic research programs. You can use these topics as they are or modify them accordingly.

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100 best anthropology topics to write about.

April 1, 2021

anthropology topics

However, anthropology is a complex subject. And writing about any topic in this subject requires knowledge of different societies, traditions, and cultures. What’s more, social anthropology topics combine studies like sociology and history.

As such, researching and writing about some topics related to anthropology can be a challenging task. Nevertheless, this subject largely covers almost all human life’s aspect. Here is a list of some of the best anthropology topics from our customer writing service .

  • The Top 10 Anthropology Topics

Controversial Topics in Anthropology

Medical anthropology research topics, physical anthropology topics, biology anthropology topics, cultural anthropology topics, linguistic anthropology research topics, forensic anthropology research topics, the top 10 anthropology topics.

Maybe you are looking for anthropology research topics that most people will be interested to read about. In that case, consider these anthropology paper topics.

  • The merits and demerits of eugenics during the 21st century
  • Exploring how the environment influences the human skin color
  • Explain the aging process in the Western culture
  • How Kyphosis relate to human senescence
  • The long-term effects of physical labor on the physical appearance of a person
  • How smoking affects the human physical appearance
  • Clarifying what causes drowning through the examination of anatomical and physical evidence
  • Investigating modern facts that support the existence of homo habilis
  • Theories about the origin of humans
  • The underlying beliefs behind the preservation of the dead in ancient Egypt

Most people will be interested in reading about such anthropology research paper topics. However, you should be ready to research any of these ideas extensively to come up with a brilliant paper.

Do you enjoy the idea of researching and writing about controversial issues? If yes, you will find these anthropology essay topics quite fascinating to research and write about.

  • Social anthropology is nothing because it generalizes science
  • Society is a theoretically obsolete concept
  • Human worlds are cultural constructions
  • Language is the culture’s essence
  • Humans should see the past as a foreign country
  • Patrol behavior in Chimpanzee
  • The myth of man as a killer
  • Human morality evaluation
  • Biology as the human behavior’s bases
  • Anthropology and ethnic cleansing

This category comprises controversial issues that make interesting anthropology topics. Nevertheless, take your time to explore any of these topics to come up with a great essay or paper.

Maybe you love reading and writing about different medical anthropology topics. This anthropology subfield draws upon cultural, social, linguistic, and biological anthropology. It aims to understand factors that influence the wellbeing and health, distribution and experience of illness, as well as, treatment, prevention, and the healing processes. Here is a medical anthropology research topics list worthy of your exploration.

  • The health ramifications of adapting to ecology and maladaptation
  • Local interpretations of different bodily processes
  • Domestic health care and health culture practices
  • Body projects’ changes and the valued attributes
  • Critical and clinical engagement in anthropology applications
  • The political ecology of vector-borne and infectious diseases
  • Chronic diseases, violence, and malnutrition- how they relate
  • The political healthcare provision- the economic aspect
  • The perceptions of vulnerability, risk, and responsibility for healthcare and illness
  • Protective and risk dimensions of cultural norms, human behavior, and social institutions
  • Harm reduction and preventative health practices
  • Illness experience and social relations of a disease
  • Factors that drive nutrition, health, and healthcare transitions
  • Clinical interactions in a social organization
  • Pluralistic and ethnomedicine modalities in a healing process
  • The historical and cultural conditions that shape medical policies and practices
  • The interpretation of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals
  • Medical practices within the colonial, post-colonial, and modernity social formations
  • The commodification and commercialization of medicine and health
  • Health disparity and disease distribution

This category also has some of the most current topics in anthropology. These are ideas that touch on issues that affect the current healthcare and medical systems in most countries. However, you should be ready to research any of these topics extensively.

Physical anthropology research topics entail studying and writing about the human body. If this is something you find interesting, here are good topics for physical anthropology research paper to consider. Feel free to check more physics topics .

  • Genotype-environment correlation study
  • Genetic hitchhiking- What it means
  • Do people learn altruism or is it a trait?
  • The cephalization process
  • The contribution of Henry Walter Bates to the Anthropology field
  • Adaptive mutation- What is it?
  • The effects of adaptive mutation
  • Human development and abiogenesis- what are they about?
  • Discuss the placental mammals and Australian marsupials’ convergent evolution
  • Explain animal stability variation after being in captivity compared to those in the wild
  • Variations in the evolution of different species in various parts of the globe
  • Physical anthropology essentials
  • Physical anthropology trends

These are interesting topics to explore if you love physical anthropology. Nevertheless, take your time to research your topic to come up with a brilliant paper.

Biology anthropology research topics revolve around the origin, diversity, and evolution of humankind. Until the late 20th century, this field was also called physical anthropology. If interested in researching and writing about the origin, diversity, and evolution of humankind, here are interesting topics in biological anthropology to consider.

  • Explain how biological anthropology differs from the other science fields
  • How does biological anthropology attempt to interpret and explain human evolution?
  • Explain the use of biological anthropology by primatologists in improving the understanding of evolutionary developments in primates
  • Explore the use of fossil records in paleoanthropology
  • How biological anthropology attempts to explain human behaviors and social structures’ development
  • Explain how studying modern humans enables scientists to draw conclusions and insights from the biological anthropology viewpoint
  • Identify the primary geographical areas where biological anthropologists explore
  • How geographical locations help in explaining the human evolution

Pick any of these topics and then research them extensively before you write your paper.

Cultural ethnography entails the study of behavior and patterns in humans, as well as why and how they differ in modern societies. Some cultural anthropology research topics may also include ethnohistory, ethnography, and cross-cultural studies. Here is a list of possible topics to consider for your paper.

  • The underlying religious beliefs that influence forced nuptials among children in Northern Nigeria
  • The challenging roles played by women in modern Africa
  • Investigating how religious beliefs influence the African cultures
  • How superstitions affect the African way of life
  • The evolution of sexual discrimination in modern times
  • The influence of cultural and social backgrounds on gay marriage
  • Explain the existence of racism in modern times
  • Assess the causes of homelessness among the Indian people
  • How can India deal with homelessness?
  • How homosexuality influences the cultural and social landscape
  • Influence of homosexuality on societal attitudes in Africa
  • How culture influences human society
  • The link between cultural anthropology and political science
  • Cultural imperialism and contemporary media
  • Describe culture shock and how to overcome it
  • How to minimize cultural baggage
  • The key points of any culture
  • How religious practices and beliefs affect culture
  • How language acquisition influences culture

These are interesting cultural anthropology research paper topics you can explore. Nevertheless, take your time to research any of these ideas before you write about them.

Linguistic anthropology entails the study of the link between culture and language. This includes how a language relates to social action, thought, power, and identity. Here are interesting topics to explore if interested in linguistic anthropology.

  • Discoveries and events that led to the emergency of linguistic anthropology
  • Important changes in theories behind linguistic anthropology
  • Dell Hymes’ contribution to linguistic anthropology
  • How some methodological changes affected linguistic anthropology from the 1980s
  • The language with the most social life’s influence among the Bengali immigrants
  • Language rediscovery and culture renaissance
  • What is language endangerment?
  • Language is an abstract concept
  • Exploring Latin America’s indigenous languages
  • A detailed analysis of language classification

Explore these topics if you love learning and writing about language and its development over time.

Forensic anthropology entails studying human remains with a focus on skeletal analysis. This field is commonly used to solve criminal cases. Here are topics to consider in this category.

  • Discuss the primary agents that cause biological changes in the human body
  • A critical assessment of radioactive carbon dating accuracy
  • Recent improvements in crime detection
  • Evidential support for evolutionist and creationist views about human origin
  • Recent evidence that supports Homo habilis’ existence in the past
  • How accurate is DNA evidence in matching and testing on criminology?
  • The effect of radioactivity on different forms of life because of the 1986’s atomic catastrophe Chernobyl
  • A review of the latest archaeological dating methods
  • Exploring migratory paths and environmental influences on Neanderthals appearance and survival
  • How effective were the methods used in Egyptian mummification?

Any of the topics listed here can be a good idea for an essay or research paper. Nevertheless, understand your assignment requirements first, and then take your time to research your chosen topic extensively before writing.

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cultural anthropology research paper topics

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Artificial intelligence and illusions of understanding in scientific research

The proliferation of artificial intelligence tools in scientific research risks creating illusions of understanding, where scientists believe they understand more about the world than they actually do.

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The golden section in the art of ancient Greece: an anthropometric study of the young warrior of Riace

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cultural anthropology research paper topics

The mothers: contesting health-illness status and cultural authority in the age of AIDS

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cultural anthropology research paper topics

The cultural evolution of collective property rights for sustainable resource governance

Understanding the forces behind the successful governance of common-pool resources is crucial to sustainable development. This study reveals the importance of establishing and enforcing ‘access rights’ in the face of intergroup conflicts over resources to facilitate the evolution of sustainable ‘use rights’.

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Early humans out of Africa had only base-initial numerals

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Recent years have seen an increase in calls for ethnography as a method to study Artificial Intelligence (AI). Scholars from diverse backgrounds have been encouraged to move beyond quantitative methods and embrace qualitative methods, particularly ethnography. As anthropologists of data and AI, we appreciate the growing recognition of qualitative methods. However, we emphasize the importance of grounding ethnography in specific ways of engaging with one’s field site for this method to be valuable. Without this grounding, research outcomes on AI may become distorted. In this commentary, we highlight three key aspects of the ethnographic method that require special attention to conduct robust ethnographic studies of AI: committed fieldwork (even if the fieldwork period is short), trusting relationships between researchers and participants, and, importantly, attentiveness to subtle, ambiguous, or absent-present data. This last aspect is often overlooked but is crucial in ethnography. By sharing examples from our own and other researchers’ ethnographic fieldwork, we showcase the significance of conducting ethnography with careful attention to such data and shed light on the challenges one might encounter in AI research.

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cultural anthropology research paper topics

Global supernatural beliefs

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cultural anthropology research paper topics

The Process of Writing Anthropology Research Paper Topics

Ethnology is attractive because any student can study other people’s cultures and share the knowledge gained through research work. If you study physical anthropology, you have a unique opportunity to plunge into the life of other nations and learn valuable facts that will allow other people to explore the values ​​​​of the inhabitants of a particular area several hundred years ago.

Despite the fascination of studying this discipline, it involves studying a huge amount of material, as well as writing many medical anthropology research papers, including linguistic anthropology and physical anthropology essays. Having the right approach to this process will not cause difficulties but will only bring joy. Let’s consider a simple guide to anthropology research paper topics right now. ‘

Anthropology Paper Topics Selection

Choosing anthropology essay topics is very important when writing a research paper in forensic anthropology since this discipline is not very popular and quite difficult. Suppose you have the opportunity to choose interesting physical anthropology topics. In that case, you should focus on the theme with which you are more or less familiar and in which you are personally engaged. Interesting cultural anthropology or physical anthropology essay topics or even a somewhat shocking ones will attract your reader’s attention from the start.

At the same time, when choosing anthropology research paper topics, make sure that it is relevant to the discipline. This will allow you to write a forensic anthropology paper professionally. In addition, it will be valuable to cultural anthropology or biological anthropology science.

Notes and Planning Before Anthropology Paper Writing

After choosing cultural anthropology, biological anthropology or physical anthropology topics for a more efficient organization of the process of writing an anthropology paper, you need to take notes. For example, messages can take the form of text entries from literary sources that you will refer to in your work. Such notices should contain the name of the head, its creator, and the page number.

At the end of the work, these notes will be useful for compiling a list of references and identifying citations. It’s useful for cultural anthropology, medical anthropology and biological anthropology.

Be careful when working with numbers and quotes; organization and accuracy, in this case, are the best assistance while writing cultural anthropology or biological anthropology essay.

Also, at this stage, remember that quotations should only make up 10-15% of the entire article, so you should concentrate on using the most important information that will reveal the forensic anthropology paper topics.

At this stage, you can make a plan for completing all the tasks necessary for writing an anthropology paper. If you have a deadline, define goals for every day. This will allow you to evenly distribute the workload while you will not experience stress and turn in the work on time.

Outline Creation for Anthropology Research Paper Topics

Before you begin writing your anthropology research paper topics:

  • Create a structure for your future cultural anthropology or biological anthropology essay
  • Briefly describe what each section will include
  • Identify key phrases that will open up the anthropology research paper topics

At this stage, it is great to use the citations that were defined earlier. The formation of the structure of the cultural anthropology or biological anthropology essay has a beneficial effect on the purposeful execution of tasks.

Write the thesis of your forensic anthropology research paper. The theory indicates your position on the subject you are working on. The statement should be placed in the introduction of the essay, but it will also be duplicated in conclusion. The information given in the cultural anthropology or biological anthropology essay will confirm or refute this thesis.

Anthropology Research Paper Topics Draft Creation

After researching the anthropology essay topics and collecting information that can be used in work, you should start writing a draft. Follow the steps you defined in your anthropology paper plan.

First, use facts as the basis for an article. The author’s ideas are not chaotic; each statement has its background, confirmed or refuted by facts. So, you must back up all claims with reliable data from truthful sources. With this approach, the work will be valuable to readers. At this stage, it is worth checking the facts mentioned in the biological anthropology essay several times, their reliability, and the appropriateness of using them in this anthropology paper.

Anthropology Topics Final Version Creation

After writing a draft of a biology anthropology essay, it is recommended to pause. A fresh look at the anthropology paper topics will allow you to understand which components need to be improved.

At the stage of writing the final version of the biology anthropology essay, you can look at additional sources, but if you think that the text perfectly reveals the anthropology paper topics and the work contains enough facts to substantiate a particular statement, then you can safely proceed to edit and correct the text. These tasks can be delegated to third parties, such as friends or a dedicated service.

The Structure of Anthropology Research Paper Topics

Good anthropology essay writing is different from writing other types of anthropology topics. So, if your task is to write an anthropology essay, then when writing it, you should follow the features that distinguish it from other types of anthropology topics. But, first, let’s look at its structure.

Introductory Part of Anthropology Research Paper Topics

An essay, like any other anthropology paper, contains an introduction. The purpose of this part of the text is to interest the reader in reading the entire essay. In the introduction, as a rule, writers talk about the problem – it can be formulated as a rhetorical question or a quote. The author needs to create a unique emotional mood that will inspire the reader to explore the problem with the writer.

Main Part of Anthropology Research Paper Topics

The main part of the anthropology essay is intended to reveal different points of view on the described statement. This part of the text is divided into several parts, each of which has its plan:

  • Thesis (a statement that the author seeks to confirm or refute)
  • Justification (the facts used to confirm or deny the idea)
  • A brief conclusion (a short answer to the main question of the anthropology paper)

Facts in an essay mean statements the author makes to prove to the reader the truth of his thoughts. Arguments can be various situations from life, opinions of scientists, etc.

If we talk about the sequence of providing arguments in the anthropology essay, then the author can focus on the following plan:

  • Explanation

Conclusion of Anthropology Research Paper Topics

At this stage, the author mentions all the conclusions made for each statement in the body of the paper on anthropology topics. In this part, the problem under consideration and the final decision should be re-described.

Remember that the purpose of the introduction of the paper for anthropology topics is to interest the reader; the conclusion is to inspire the reader to think, to leave a mark on his memory.

How to Find the Most Relevant Anthropology Essay Topic?

If the teacher compiles the anthropology paper topics, and you need to choose one of them, you should rely on your analysis:

  • Will you be able to work with unfamiliar forensic anthropology essay topics in your anthropology essay? If not, you should look at other tasks.
  • Will you be ready to navigate the thesis? It is necessary to indicate not only terminology but also a personal opinion. To do this, all questions on the anthropology essay topics need to be worked out.
  • Will you cope with the professionalism of other writers? If the anthropology research paper topics are familiar, you must work out its questions from different angles in your anthropology essay. Personal opinion will be the defining vector of how well the author knows and understands this niche.

Undoubtedly, some interesting anthropology topics sound too abstract. To decide on the choice of one of them, it is often necessary to mark the boundaries of a large-scale area to detail and designate your subject.

If there are no anthropology essay topics for an anthropology essay, this is most difficult to define boundaries. At the same time, the author usually is allowed to choose from the majority – of what he wants to write about in the paper about anthropology topics. In order not to fall into the abundance of diversity, the following tips will help the author:

  • Choose anthropology research paper topics that sound familiar to everyone.
  • Decide on the model – a contradiction or agreement with other authors.
  • Indicate those boundaries you cannot go beyond when drawing up a plan. Write point by point: what will be analyzed, the arguments for this, and further down the list. If the direction is already chosen, for example, ethnologist, you can confine yourself to specific events or facts that have occurred in history.

Below you can view the most interesting anthropology topics for writing an anthropological essay and, if you wish, reveal the subject more interestingly, backing it up with facts.

  • The role of ethnology in criminology
  • Funeral rituals in American culture
  • The beginning of human life
  • Bigfoot existence
  • Why don’t people repay their debts?
  • The influence of ethnology on music
  • Different views on the supernatural
  • The impact of TikTok on European culture
  • Gender issues and gender equality in Southeast Asia

The Best Linguistic Anthropology Essay Topics

Linguistic anthropology has interesting anthropology paper topics. Below we will look at the most relevant issues that you can use in your anthropology essay:

  • The role of mythology in the culture of Europe
  • Basic theories of linguistic anthropology
  • The part of non-verbal communication in raising a child
  • Approaches to learning a foreign language in different cultures of the world
  • The role of language in the development of Bengali immigrants

The Best Ethnographic Anthropology Essay Topics

Do not confuse ethnographic anthropology essay topics with cultural anthropology paper topics. Instead, look at the following themes to understand the difference:

  • Differences in academic performance of children from wealthy and low-income families
  • The impact of school uniforms on children’s performance
  • The attitude of US service personnel to people
  • How European immigrants express their identity
  • The attitude of the inhabitants of Eastern European countries to gays
  • Association of poor academic performance with homeschooling
  • Homeschooling and low grades
  • Differences in children’s behavior at home and school
  • Features of the behavior of homeless children in Africa

The Best Physical Anthropology Essay Topics

Physical anthropology studies man, including his origin, evolution, his adaptation to various societies. Physical anthropology is a good chance for students to write an interesting and unique paper. There are a lot of physical anthropology essay topics, but let’s consider the most interesting for your essay.

  • The effect of smoking on women’s skin quality
  • Features of aging people in Asian countries
  • The connection between breastfeeding and the intellectual development of the child
  • The harmful effects of drugs on American culture
  • Classical music influence the fetus’s growth in the womb

The Best Biological Anthropology Paper Topics

Biological anthropology studies the variability of normal human biology in time and space. Although this is a very interesting discipline, there are many directions to reveal one or another phenomenon from a different angle in an anthropology essay.

  • Impact of Minamata Disease on the Population of Japan
  • The effect of coronavirus on humankind: panic attacks in recovered patients
  • How do military activities in Ukraine affect the lives of the people of the country?
  • Comparison of strategies to combat the depression in Europe and the USA
  • The severity of mental disorders in Japan
  • Cultural implications of same-sex marriage in the United States

The Best Unique Anthropology Paper Topics

Uniqueness always adds value, so students who want to demonstrate the depth of their knowledge and ability to explore in a forensic anthropology essay can use more interesting anthropology topics. Let’s look at the options.

  • Consequences of the presidency of Barack Obama for the country’s black population?
  • Linking climate change to the threat of world hunger
  • The connection between social media and hate between nations
  • The evolution of sex discrimination in modern US society
  • The impact of video games on the performance of high school students

The Best Forensic Anthropology Paper Topics

Forensic anthropology is the same interesting discipline as medical anthropology and biological anthropology. Feel free to choose one of the themes below:

  • The role of DNA databases in the search for criminals
  • The Importance of creating approaches for the identification of new drugs
  • The feasibility of involving animals in forensic research in the 21st century
  • Risks of using artificial intelligence in forensics
  • The value of crime scene photography in forensic science

Tips to Write a Quality Anthropology Essay

Please do not use too long sentences while writing anthropology research paper topics. Instead, it is recommended to dilute the text with short, understandable sentences. This is especially important when you work with medical anthropology research topics, forensic anthropology essays, cultural anthropology paper, biological anthropology works, linguistic anthropology essays, and physical anthropology paper. With this approach, your linguistic anthropology text will look more dynamic, and the reader will understand the essence of the statements and your forensic anthropology research paper topics.

  • It is not recommended to use incomprehensible terms. If you still want to use words unfamiliar to the reader in your linguistic anthropology or medical anthropology research topics, then you need to use them so that the meaning is clear.
  • The use of statements without sense should be avoided. Your phrases should be unique, reflecting your approach to researching forensic anthropology topics.
  • Use humor in your linguistic anthropology or forensic anthropology essay carefully; for example, sarcasm can irritate the reader.
  • Use your personal experience to back up your beliefs and back them up with research evidence.
  • When writing an anthropology essay, stick to the main anthropology research paper topics and do not use unnecessary details in the text.

Common Mistakes Made by Students While Writing Anthropology Research Paper Topics

Knowing the most common mistakes students make when writing a forensic anthropology essay will allow you to reduce the likelihood of making them to a minimum.

  • Mistake 1. Poor quality work on details for your anthropology research paper topics. Students often cannot support their thesis with reliable arguments, as they did not work with literature well enough. This mistake is common for linguistic anthropology and medical anthropology research topics.
  • Mistake 2. Exclusion of important statements from the text for fear that they will remain incomprehensible to the reader. The result of such actions is not a unique text.
  • Mistake 3. Misunderstanding the meaning of the forensic anthropology research paper topics on which the anthropology essay is being written or incorrect interpretation of the main idea.
  • Mistake 4. Using other people’s statements without indicating their authorship, the lack of formed personal opinions. This mistake often happens in linguistic anthropology and medical anthropology research topics.

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50+ Out of the World Cultural Research Paper Topics

Cultural Research Paper Topics

You have all needed to develop fast and quality articles, essays and research projects by examining and selecting your chosen topic. The writing ideas in this post were developed by experts and professionals in the cultural field, and thus we highly recommend the topics to all writers, including online writers.

With our back, you will waste none of your energy and time figuring out what and how to write about a given topic. Select your topic today as it makes time and energy cheap.

Let’s begin with defining what culture is:

Culture refers to the way of life of a particular group of people – the behaviours, values, beliefs, and symbols they accept, generally without thinking about them. They are passed on through communication and imitation from one generation to the next.

Below are some of the professionally tailored cultural research paper topics guaranteed to give you a first-class in your assignment. Be sure to use them as inspirations towards substantive writing prompts.

Cultural Research Paper Topics

  • Investigating the benefits of cultural studies in promoting brands in international markets.
  • Perception differences among youth and the old population of disabled people.
  • Examination of different coping mechanisms of being culturally different in society.
  • Impact of films, songs, and feminism on promoting women equality.
  • Conservation of culture in isolated communities.
  • Influence of religion on culture: A case study of the Muslim community
  • Cultural commonalities for all human beings on earth.
  • Correlation between attitude and sex as tools of culture.
  • Exhibition of cultural traits in indigenous and exotic animals.
  • How association to particular languages influences culture.

Cultural Anthropology Research Paper Topics

  • An evaluation of the cultural anthropology of our time

The effects of cultural anthropology to the missionary.

  • The role of women in modern society as opposed to the traditional roles.
  • What are the peculiarities of the Zulu community culture in Southern Africa?
  • Examination of various religious practices in the United States of America.

The influence of English as a common language on American culture.

  • Exploration of the long-term impacts of physical labour on the physical appearance of humans.
  • How stigma affects efforts on stopping the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
  • How is the concept of death viewed in Africa?
  • What is the anthropological perspective on the development of the modern United States of America?

Cultural Diversity Research Paper Topics

  • Evaluate the significance of preserving cultural diversity in the 21st century.
  • What is the role of cultural diversity in modern society?
  • How pluralism and multiculturalism have impacted the lives of American citizens.
  • Associations of psychological counselling to cultural diversity.
  • Demonstrate critical thinking about psychology with a special mention on multicultural issues and diversity.
  • Effects of cultural diversity in the medical industry as a whole.
  • Evaluate the role of cultural diversity in schools
  • Impacts of migration on the cultural diversity of Asian land, especially on mental health.
  • Cultural diversity’s impact on the interaction process and performance.

Cultural Psychology Research Paper Topics

  • Personality and filial piety among British citizens.
  • What are the cross-cultural perspectives on human developments in Central America?
  • The self and social behaviour among Red Indians in the United States of America.
  • Factors that influence cross-cultural psychology.
  • Implication of cultural psychology on diversity.
  • Life experiences of unemployed graduates in the United Kingdom.
  • The relationship between parenting stress and stigma with parent-child interactions in mothers with autistic children.
  • Comparative analysis of gender stereotypes of superior thinking in men and emotions in women among students
  • How has Covid-19 affected the political atmosphere in the United States of America?
  • Analyze the impact that famous artists have on world culture.
  • Discuss the evolution of cultural psychology as a topic since the 17th century.

Cross-Cultural Research Paper Topics

  • How does culture affect social and emotional development?
  • Compare and contrast the features of language and culture.
  • Impacts of social organization and history in modern society.
  • Members of any culture perceive their behaviour as logical. Validate this statement.
  • Determinants of cross-cultural business communication.
  • The roles of attitudes toward accents and dialects in creating barriers in international business communication.
  • Description of socio-linguistic as a tool of differentiating economic classes.
  • Influence of environmental factors on the development and character of cultures.
  • Climate and topography affect the transport and logistics, settlement, and territorial organization. Elucidate.
  • Describe how Africa’s population size and its density and the availability of natural resources influence the continent toward export and domestic markets.
  • Discuss ways in which conceptions of authority affects cross-cultural psychology, more so in India.
  • The role of non-verbal communication in promoting culture.

Best Cultural Research Paper Topics

  • The evolution of the amount and type of sexism over the years.
  • Analysis of the impact of Michael Jackson on popular culture in the world.
  • How has the Black Lives Matter movement affected discussions and view about racism in the US?
  • Reasons for the emergence of female culture in closed communities.
  • Influence of native culture on human psychology.
  • Causes of assimilation of people in the foreign culture.
  • How cultural studies in colleges and universities have helped demystify cultural myths and misconceptions.
  • Why children need to stay with their grandparents at least once in a while

You might have considered this task a hard nut to crack, but with the comprehensive guide and topics above, I am sure that you can now navigate your way easily.

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List of Interesting Cultural Research Paper Topics

Cultural Research Paper Topics

Cultural research paper topics allow students to explore people’s historical aspects, actions, ideas, and narratives that they have copied or altered over time. People express their cultures via various symbols and language. Additionally, different aspects of culture affect people’s mindsets.

When pursuing cultural students, students write research papers, essays, and articles on varied topics. However, most learners struggle to select the best titles for their papers. That’s because the topic that a student selects influences the path they take when completing this assignment. For this reason, we’ve come up with this guide with a list of interesting cultural research topics for learners to consider.

Discover a vast array of captivating cultural research paper topics with the expertise of our professional dissertation writers . Our dedicated team is ready to assist you in selecting compelling topics and crafting high-quality research papers that meet the highest academic standards.

How to Choose Cultural Research Topics

The internet is awash with cultural research ideas from which students can choose what to explore. However, not every topic you come across will be suitable for you. For that reason, consider the following aspects when choosing your cultural topic for research.

  • Select a topic that meets your writing assignment requirements
  • Settle on a topic you find interesting
  • Pick a topic that meets the scope of your assignment

In addition to these criteria, check the available research to select a topic you will find sufficient information for before you start writing your paper. Also, brainstorm concepts and create a research question around the topic. Here are different categories of cultural research paper topics from which you can choose your favorite title.

Cultural Anthropology Research Topics

If you find cultural anthropology interesting, pick your topic from the following ideas.

  • How traditional food can reflect a nation’s history
  • Analysis of the refugees’ impact on the cultures of the European countries
  • How Christian traditions differ from one culture to another
  • How countries in the Soviet Union moved from communism
  • Effects of liberalism on the education system
  • Analysis of a communistic nation’s cultural values
  • Causes of political division in the United States
  • Why most people in the Netherlands love cycling
  • How people view the death concept in Africa
  • How the English language influences the American culture as the common language

Cultural Diversity Research Paper Topics

Perhaps, you’re interested in cultural diversity. In that case, consider these ideas for your research paper.

  • Analysis of cultural diversity’s role in schools
  • How cultural diversity influences modern society
  • How significant is cultural diversity in this century?
  • How multiculturalism and pluralism affect the American citizens’ lives
  • Psychological counseling associations to cultural diversity
  • How cultural diversity affects the medical industry
  • How migration affects cultural diversity of the Asian land
  • How cultural diversity affects people’s interactions
  • Demonstrating critical thinking with special attention to diversity and multicultural issues
  • Cultural diversity as a reason for not tolerating racism

Cross-Cultural Communication Research Topics

Cross-cultural communication is among fields with excellent topics for cultural research. Here are some of the best ideas in this field.

  • Approaches to cross-cultural information exchange
  • Practical cross-cultural dialogue strategies
  • Intercultural dialogue and translation
  • Teaching cross-cultural communication and culture
  • Cross-cultural information exchange artifacts
  • Factors enhancing cross-cultural dialogue competence
  • Cultural and health-related issues between ethnic minorities and healthcare providers
  • The adaptation of international students to American campuses
  • Low-context cultures versus high-context cultures- Cross-cultural perspective
  • Assessing cross-cultural effectiveness

Cultural Psychology Research Topics

If interested in cultural psychology research, consider these ideas for your papers and essays.

  • How cultural psychology has evolved over the years
  • How cultural psychology affects diversity
  • Filial piety and personality among the British citizens
  • Impacts of famous artists on the global culture
  • Impacts of COVID-19 on the US political atmosphere
  • Comparing women’s emotions and gender stereotypes as exhibited by men’s superior thinking
  • Influences of cross-cultural psychology
  • Social and self behavior among the United States’ Red Indians
  • Analyzing the unemployed graduates’ experiences in the United Kingdom
  • How parenting stress relates to the stigma of a mother with an autistic child

Cross-Cultural Research Topics

Cross-cultural research paper topics cover psychological behavior and processes across different cultures. Here are topic samples in this category.

  • Communication styles among different cultures
  • How attitudes towards conflicts differ among cultures
  • How people from different cultures approach the same task differently
  • How different cultures approach knowing
  • Why humans should respect and work with people from different cultures
  • The attitudes of different cultures towards disclosure
  • How decision-making styles differ among cultures
  • How non-verbal communication promotes a culture
  • What determines business communication across cultures?
  • How history and social organization affect modern society

Cultural Studies Research Paper Topics

When pursuing cultural studies, writing research papers is unavoidable. Here are cultural research paper topics to consider for your papers and essays.

  • How stigma affects the efforts to prevent sexually transmitted diseases from spreading
  • Challenges encountered by people with social disorders and anxiety
  • How films influence the audiences’ cultures
  • How songs promote feminism
  • Coping mechanism for culturally different people
  • How cultural studies facilitate the promotion of brands in global markets
  • How people perceive the old and the youths in their cultures
  • How cultural studies can help in promoting businesses internationally
  • Cultural traits exhibition in exotic and indigenous animals
  • Influence of associating with a particular language on a person’s culture

Cultural Geography Research Topics

Cultural geography focuses on cultural changes in various geographical settings. Here are topics to explore in this category.

  • Explaining the cultural concept
  • Analyzing a culture area and the culture itself
  • Analysis of cultural landscapes
  • Cultural ecology and culture history
  • Focusing on the institutions
  • Understanding cultural geography
  • The history of cultural geography
  • Understanding feminist geography
  • Explain the evolution of urban geography
  • Analysis of the geography of space and sexuality

Chinese Cultural Research Topics

Are you interested in studying Chinese culture? If yes, this list has the best cultural topics for research paper that you can explore.

  • Evaluating Cultural Revolution in China
  • The Chinese government and Tibet
  • Culture-bound psychiatric syndromes in China
  • The Chinese culture and silk road
  • Cross-cultural competency in China
  • How culture influences the Chinese politics
  • Effects of Buddhism on the Chinese culture
  • Chinese medicine and culture
  • Childhood illness treatment in traditional China and religion
  • The cultural perspective of the human stomach in China

Research Topics on Community-Centered Cultural Adaptation

Are you interested in community-centered cultural adaptation research? If yes, here are topics to consider for your papers.

  • Stage-setting and professional consultations for cultural adaptation purposes
  • Preliminary cultural content adaptation
  • Iterative cultural content adaption with members of the community
  • Cultural adaptation with meetings and community feedback
  • Role of language during cultural adaptation
  • The concept of cultural adaptation
  • Factors that limit community-centered cultural adaptation
  • How conflict of interest can hinder community-centered cultural adaptation
  • How gender influences community-centered cultural adaptation
  • How to enhance community-centered cultural adaptation

Cultural Analysis Topics for Research

Perhaps, you’re interested in analyzing a cultural aspect or phenomenon. In that case, consider these ideas for your research paper.

  • Analysis of cultural phenomenon in your community
  • Analyzing the influence of TikTok on local culture
  • Analysis of “the dab” popularity
  • Analyzing the effects of bandwagon on the culture
  • Analysis of the normalization of the holocaust in some cultures
  • Analyzing religious beliefs as a cultural phenomenon
  • Analyzing the popularity of sitcoms
  • Analyze the fan base of your favorite celebrity
  • Analysis of social media as a cultural phenomena
  • Analyzing cross-cultural fashion trends

Cultural Analysis Essay Topics

If interested in analyzing the culture, pick the idea to write about in this list.

  • Analyzing drug use by sportspeople
  • Analyzing homelessness in America
  • Communication differences between males and females
  • Analyzing obesity trends across age brackets
  • How sports influence culture
  • Analyzing multicultural identity
  • Analysis of modeling and body size aspects of a culture
  • Effects of multicultural families on the involved parties
  • Analysis of gender role changes over time
  • How being raised by a single parent affects a child- A cultural perspective

Unique Cultural Analysis Paper Topics

Are you looking for a unique topic for cultural research? If yes, this section has a good idea for you.

  • Why are cultural studies essential?
  • How society treats people based on their cultures
  • How the minorities cope in a different culture
  • How feminism affects the culture
  • How isolated communities can conserve their cultures
  • How religion influences culture- Use the Muslim community as a case study
  • Describe the cultural commonalities among human beings
  • Explain the correlation of sex and attitude as cultural tools
  • The influence of associating with a particular language on a person’s culture
  • How exotic and indigenous groups exhibit cultural differences

Pick your topics from this list and then take your time to develop them through research to come up with solid papers or essays that will earn you the top grades.

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Applied Anthropology Research Paper Topics

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Applied Anthropology Research Paper Topics:

  • Action Anthropology
  • Anthropology and Business
  • Bioethics and Anthropology
  • Careers in Anthropology
  • Clinical Anthropology
  • Ecology and Anthropology
  • Economic Anthropology
  • Ethics and Anthropology
  • Forensic Anthropology
  • Human Rights and Anthropology
  • Justice and Anthropology
  • Law and Anthropology
  • Medical Genetics
  • Native Studies
  • Political Anthropology
  • Practicing Anthropology
  • Twin Studies
  • Urban Anthropology
  • Visual Anthropology
  • Women’s Studies

What is Applied Anthropology?

Applied anthropology, in its broader sense, is distinguished primarily from academic anthropology as anthropological methods and data put to use outside of the classroom. This is not to say that all anthropological methods and data put to use outside of the classroom is applied anthropology; field research also is anthropological methods and data put to use outside of the classroom, but it can be used for academic purposes, as well as for practical application. Applied anthropology is used to solve practical problems outside of the academic world, and it has appeared under such names as action anthropology, development anthropology, practicing anthropology, and advocacy anthropology among others.

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In its narrower sense, applied anthropology is distinguished from practicing anthropology. Practicing anthropology is the application of anthropology strictly outside of academia by nonacademics; applied anthropology can be practiced outside of academia or within academia by academics. To some, the differences are considered to be minimal, but to others they are of great importance.

Origins of Applied Anthropology

Early in the 19th century, anthropology was a religious philosophy that examined how to view the place of humans in the cosmos. This began to change by the mid-19th century, and people who were to become the founders of what is called anthropology today began to look at the more earthly nature of humanity. One of these individuals was Lewis Henry Morgan. Morgan, who was an attorney, began to work with the Iroquois in the 1840s on legal issues involving railroad right of ways. This may have been one of the first, if not the first, application of the nascent but as yet still inchoate discipline.

Across the Atlantic, Sir Edward BurnettTylor, the “father of anthropology” who defined “culture,” considered anthropology to be a “policy science” that should be implemented to ameliorate the problems of humanity. James Hunt, who founded the Anthropological Society of London, began to use the term practical anthropology by the 1860s, and in 1869, the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (this was later to be titled the Royal Anthropological Institute) was formed.

In North America, the federal government formed the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) under John Wesley Powell in order to perform research that was intended to guide government policy toward Native Americans, and in 1879, Powell dispatched Frank Hamilton Cushing to the Zuñi pueblo to perform some of the first anthropological field research. By 1895, the BAE had hired anthropologist James Mooney to research a revitalization movement, the ghost dance. It also was in the 1890s that Franz Boas, the “father of American anthropology,” worked outside of academia with the Chicago Field Museum.

Early History of Applied Anthropology

Boas developed a lifelong hatred of racism arising from anti-Semitic experiences he had had in school in Germany. This led him to attempt to dispel the prevailing racist notions of the day in anthropology. From 1910 to 1913, Boas applied anthropometry to disprove a basic racist assumption: Cranial shape was a factor of race. To accomplish this, he measured the heads of Jewish immigrants in New York City ghettos. Presumably, they were members of the dolichocephalic (long-headed) Mediterranean race, and indeed, the immigrants tended to fit that pattern. However, their children, born in America, were members of the brachicephalic (round-headed) Alpine race. Apparently, they had changed race within one generation of having moved to America. Boas explained this anomaly as being the product of different diets between the parents and their children during their growth years and not the result of race at all.

Boas’s first PhD student, Alfred Louis Kroeber, and Kroeber’s students spent the first two decades of the 20th century conducting “salvage ethnology” to preserve cultures that were, or already had, become extinct. The most famous of these cases, both within and outside of anthropology, is the story of Ishi, the last member of the California Yahi tribe, whom Kroeber brought to Berkeley to serve as the key respondent from a vanished people. In 1919, Kroeber applied anthropological techniques to discover the rapprochement between fashion and economic cycles in his hem-length study. He demonstrated that one could determine (and perhaps predict) economic cycles by the rise or fall of women’s dress and skirt lengths. The 1920s also found Margaret Mead (1928/1973) making recommendations on sex education to the American educational establishment in the last two chapters of her doctoral dissertation, published as Coming of Age in Samoa.

In Europe, it was common during this time for anthropologists to seek employment in colonial governments: Anthropologists from the Netherlands were employed by their government to provide ethnographic data on its Indonesian colony; Northcote Thomas used anthropology to aid in administrating the British colony in Nigeria; and Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown served as director of education on Tonga. Somewhat later, in the 1930s, Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard (1969), in the employment of the government of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, spent several research periods among the Nuer to determine why they did not consider it necessary to uphold their treaty with the British government, among other projects. Also in the 1930s, Radcliffe-Brown first used the term applied anthropology in the article “Anthropology as Public Service and Malinowski’s Contribution to It” (although the term already had appeared in 1906 in a degree program at Oxford). Bronislaw Malinowski himself, had coined the term practicing anthropology for nonacademic anthropology.

In 1932, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed the anthropologist John Collier to Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Collier then employed fellow anthropologists Julian Steward, Clyde Kluckhohn, and others in the applied anthropology office to investigate Native American cultures and to counsel the BIA in regard to the Indian Reorganization Act. The anthropologists served as intermediaries between the BIA and Native Americans during the drawing of tribal constitutions and charters. Also in the 1930s, Edward Sapir’s student, Benjamin Lee Whorf, applied anthropological linguists to the analysis of fire insurance investigations, and anthropologist W. Lloyd Warner was hired by the Western Electric Company to study worker productivity in its bank-wiring facility. Warner employed qualitative ethnographic techniques, such as participant observation and informal interviewing, that previously had been used in nonindustrial, non-Western societies in one of the first applications of “industrial anthropology.”

The 1940s brought about the efflorescence of the field with the founding of the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) by Margaret Mead, Conrad Arensberg, and Eliot Chapple. They published the journal Applied Anthropology to counter what they saw as academic bias against practical, nontheoretical work. In 1949, the name of the journal was changed to Human Organization, and the SfAA code of ethics was created. Despite this, Melville Herskovits taught in the late 1940s that applied anthropology was racist and should not be practiced, according to one of his former students.

Today, a variety of organizations specialize in applied anthropology. The Consortium of Practicing and Applied Anthropology Programs (COPAA), chaired by Linda A. Bennett of the University of Memphis, lists and gives a brief description of some of these organizations on its Web site, including the  COPAA , the  SfAA , and the  National Association for the Practice of Anthropology  within the  American Anthropological Association .

The COPAA also lists regional organizations, which include the Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists; the High Plains Society for Applied Anthropology; the Chicago Association for Practicing Anthropologists; the Sun Coast Organization of Practicing Anthropologists; the California Alliance of Local Practitioner Organizations that embraces the Southern California Applied Anthropology Network, the Bay Area Association of Practicing Anthropologists, and the Central Valley Applied Anthropology Network; and the Mid-South Association of Professional Anthropologists. It was during World War II that Margaret Mead headed a group of anthropologists who served in the Office of Strategic Services. In addition to Mead, Ruth Benedict, Ralph Linton, Julian Steward, and Clyde Kluckhohn, among others (including such interdisciplinary notables as Erik Erikson), worked on the Committee on Food Habits, the Culture at a Distance national character project, theWar Relocation Authority, and others, in order to aid in the U.S. war effort. A description of their work and methods was published (Mead & Rhoda, 1949) after the war as The Study of Culture at a Distance. Following the war, anthropologists also worked for the U.S. Pacific protectorates’ administrations.

Applied Anthropology in the Mid-20th Century

The fox project.

In the late 1940s, Sol Tax of the University of Chicago wanted to develop a program that would give field experience to anthropology students. To do this, he began the Fox Project in 1948 to look into social organization and leadership in the Fox/Tama settlement, which was facing acculturative pressures from the neighboring Euro-American community. Although they tried to become involved in the amelioration of the acculturative process, they had no authority to do so. Thus, they developed a theoretical agenda that became known as “action anthropology.” In 1953, the group consulted with the Fox project and developed a framework for action that was funded by a private foundation. University of Iowa students joined the University of Chicago group, and together they created the Fox Indian Educational Program and began the Tama Indian Crafts industry.

About the time that the Fox project was nearing its completion in 1952, Edward Spicer’s book, Human Problems in Technological Change, was published. That same year Allen Holmberg began Cornell University’s 14-year experiment: the “Peru Vicos Project.” Cornell University had rented Vicos, a feudal estate in Peru, as a living laboratory to study social engineering on the Quechua-speaking peasantry, to test theories of modernization, and to develop models for community advocacy and culture brokering.

1964: Project Camelot

Project Camelot had the potential to be a low point in the application of anthropology in the late 20th century. In December 1964, the Office of the Director of the Special Operations Research Office of the American University in Washington, D.C., announced a new program to be funded by the army and the Department of Defense. The program extensively would employ anthropological fieldworkers in government research for 3 to 4 years. In theory, it was a project that was intended to develop a systems model that would enable the prediction of social changes that in turn could develop into political movements in third world nations that might threaten the United States—specifically in Latin American countries (where a field office was planned) but with plans to expand globally. Its objectives were to formulate means to predict civil wars and revolutions; to identify means to prevent civil wars, insurgency, and counterinsurgency movements in particular societies; and to develop a system of field methods to collect the information to accomplish the two previous objectives. The budget was expected to be in the $1.5 million range annually.

Some anthropologists feared that applying anthropology to aid Latin American government’s repression of political movements was unethical and would hinder development of societies in those countries. A more horrific potential outcome to the field ethnographers was the possible executions of their field respondents. In response to the outcry from the social science community, Project Camelot was cancelled in July 1965.

Nonetheless, not all social scientists found Project Camelot to be totally objectionable. Beyond the satisfaction of the obvious and never-ending quest for research funding, which it would have provided, albeit from sources that are suspect to many in the academic community, there is the less obvious appeal of ethnography finally having some input into government international policy, something that had been called for over decades. Likewise, many anthropologists in that era had gotten their starts in the military by having had their first international experiences during the second World War and their educations financed by the government issue, or GI, Bill. Rather, it was the possible outcomes of their research that convinced the community to object to Project Camelot.

Also in the 1960s, medical anthropologists working with the Foré tribe of New Guinea traced the origins of a deadly neurological disease, kuru, to cannibalism by using traditional qualitative techniques, such as collecting life histories; Margaret Mead testified before Congress on birth control and marijuana, and she coined the term generation gap to describe a global phenomenon that had never occurred previously in human history; Jules Henry’s Culture Against Man described the Orwellian nature of popular advertising in American society; Jomo Kenyatta applied his PhD in anthropology from the London School of Economics under Malinowski to running the government of Kenya, with its diverse ethnic makeup, as its first president under the slogan Harambe, or “let us pull together” in Kiswahili. Oscar Lewis conducted his “family life histories” in Mexico City (The Children of Sanchez) and New York (La Vida) and described the poor as living in a selfperpetuating “culture of poverty.” Although this was criticized widely as an attempt to blame the poor for their condition, it also could be said that Lewis was acknowledging the wisdom of people who lived on the edge and their ability to survive and fully exploit their economic niches.

James P. Spradley conducted a Herculean application of ethnoscience to “tramp” culture in Seattle in the 1960s to determine the emic structure of the society in order to make recommendations for improved treatments to social workers, police, psychiatrists, and alcohol treatment centers. It was published as You Owe Yourself a Drunk: An Ethnography of Urban Nomads in 1970. In 1969, George Foster wrote the first textbook on development and change agency, Applied Anthropology, in which he cited changes in human behavior as a primary goal in order to solve social, economic, and technological problems. He followed this up in 1973 with Traditional Societies and Technological Change.

Applied Anthropology in the Late 20th Century

In 1974, the University of South Florida began the first master of arts degree program to focus specifically on training students for careers in applied anthropology. The options available to those students form a wide range of topics that define applied anthropology. Among them are archaeology, Cultural Resource Management, economic development, educational anthropology, immigration, medical anthropology, race, gender, ethnicity, and urban policy and community development. Among the reasons for such theoretical breadth is the realization that many master of arts students do not choose to pursue a doctor of philosophy degree, and this curriculum, then, qualifies them to work in specialized professions outside of academia. The reader will note that work outside of academia is known as practicing anthropology, and in 1978 the University of South Florida first published the journal Practicing Anthropology. Graduate programs in applied anthropology are becoming more widespread in the United States since that time; for example, the master’s program in applied anthropology at California State University, Long Beach, has three program options: communities/ organizations, health, and education. Northern Kentucky University’s anthropology program is long known for its award-winning Web site with information on where undergraduate anthropology majors, who cannot or do not choose to attend graduate programs, can find jobs outside of academia; currently, it is in the process of developing a master’s program in applied anthropology.

Programs in Applied Anthropology

COPAA lists member programs on its Web site for those interested in pursuing a career in applied anthropology. The Web site notes that there are other programs that are not currently COPAA members. Among the universities in consortium are the University of Alaska, Anchorage; American University; University of Arizona; California State University, East Bay; California State University, Long Beach; University of Florida, Gainesville; The GeorgeWashington University; University of Georgia; Georgia State University; Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis; University of Kentucky; University of Maryland; University of Memphis; Mississippi State University; Montclair State University; University of North Carolina at Greensboro; University of North Texas; Northern Arizona University; Oregon State University; Santa Clara University; San Jose State University; the University of South Florida; the University of Texas at San Antonio; and Wayne State University.

The first doctoral program in applied anthropology was begun at the University of South Florida (USF) in 1984. Although the master of arts curriculum had been intended for nonacademic professions, the PhD curriculum trained students for university careers, as well as for practicing anthropology. USF’s Center for Applied Anthropology combines these two objectives in ventures such as the Human Services Information System database and the Alliance for Applied Research in Education and Anthropology.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Napoleon Chagnon and James Neel conducted genetics research for the American Atomic Energy Commission in an ethnographic setting. Chagnon was the ethnographer, and Neel was the geneticist. Their work was designed to determine the effects of the forces of evolution (such as the founder effect) on small populations in order to determine how genes might affect survival following a nuclear destruction of modern civilization. Their research took them to the Orinoco River basin in southeastern Venezuela where they established contact and conducted research among the Yanomamo, an isolated, horticultural, tribal society. Out of this research came Chagnon’s ethnography, The Yanomamo: The Fierce People. From its very early days, the project was heavily documented on film, and their classic documentary, The Yanomamo: A Multidisciplinary Study, became a standard in both cultural and physical anthropology classrooms. In the film, Chagnon and Neal become aware of a measles epidemic sweeping up the Orinoco Basin toward the Yanomamo. They acquire a vaccine that contains a weakened strain of the live virus and conduct mass inoculations of the Yanomamo against measles.

Although their work was met with criticism from the outset, none was quite as virulent as the later criticism contained in Patrick Tierney’s 2000 book, Darkness in El Dorado, and its aftermath. Tierney claimed that Chagnon and Neel had been conducting Josef Mengele-like genetics experiments on the Yanomamo by injecting them with the live measles virus to see who would live and who would die—not, as shown in the documentary, to protect them from an epidemic. By that time, Neel was dead, and although Chagnon was retired, he filed a lawsuit against Tierney in which he and Neel eventually were vindicated. Currently, calls are being made in anthropology to disband the “El Dorado Task Force” set up to investigate this case.

In the 1980s, Philippe Bourgois conducted field research among Hispanic crack (“rock” cocaine, which is smoked) dealers in the Harlem area of NewYork. This was not an update of Elliott Liebow’s Tally’s Corner nor of Oscar Lewis’s La Vida. Rather, it is what Bourgois refers to as a “culture of terror” that exploits an underground economy. Bourgois argues that this renders the crack dealers unexploitable by the larger, legal society as they pursue their interpretations of the “American dream.”

Across the Atlantic, anthropologists and other social scientists began to influence government policies in the Republic of Ireland in the late 1980s, according to ThomasWilson and Hastings Donnan, via what are called the economic and social partnerships with government. This should not be confused with hegemony as may have been the case with the 1960s American “military-industrial complex.” Rather, in a country in which anthropology traditionally had been practiced by foreign scholars investigating semi-isolated rural communities, it was a remarkable innovation for anthropologists and other academics to have creative input, with their governmental partner, in the policies that led to the Celtic Tiger economy in what had been one of the poorest countries in Europe and the social structural transformations that allowed the “boom” to filter down to the public at large. Anthropologists also have been called on more recently in Ireland to assist the government with ethnic minority issues, especially those of the indigenous minority, the travelling community.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, nonacademic jobs for anthropologists have increased, and more anthropologists have found themselves involved in the business world, especially in marketing, although the irony of this may not be lost on those who were students when Jules Henry’s anti-MadisonAvenue research, published as Culture Against Man, was a popular textbook in the 1960s and 1970s. Much of the new material centers around cultural miscues that corporations and individuals make in advertising— physical gestures, slang, and so on—when acting crossculturally (e.g., Chevrolet’s attempt to market the Nova automobile in Latin America where the homonym of the name means “does not go” or Gerber’s attempt to market baby food with an infant’s picture on the label in parts of Africa where labels routinely showed the containers’ contents for consumers who could not read). Other businessoriented approaches fall more along the lines of the Western Electric bank-wiring study (noted above) conducted by W. Lloyd Warner in the 1930s.

Nonetheless, some members of the anthropological community still consider business anthropology to be “colluding with the enemy,” according to Jason S. Parker of Youngstown State University in a recent article in the Society for Applied Anthropology Newsletter. Parker points out that these same critics, who stigmatize those applied anthropologists that work in business, are not offering any jobs to their recently minted bachelor’s degree graduates, who must then look elsewhere. Parker argues that the anthropological perspective can benefit the employees, as well as the corporations, through the inclusion of their input in the manufacturing processes.

Ann T. Jordan has written a persuasive argument for the use of anthropology in the business world in her book Business Anthropology. Jordan cites a number of cases in which anthropologists have ameliorated conditions that had the potential to lead to labor disharmony through managerial insensitivity to working conditions. Likewise, she explains that cross-cultural conflicts and misunderstandings on the job could easily be avoided with anthropological input.

Applied Anthropology Today

Louise Lamphere suggested a convergence of applied, practicing, and public anthropology in 2004. Lamphere argues that anthropologists in the 21st century should collaborate with each other, as well as with the groups that they are investigating, on archaeological research, health, urban, and environmental topics to unify their work on critical social, educational, and political issues. The traditional research populations increasingly want greater degrees of jurisdiction over what is written about them, and applied anthropologists, especially those influenced by the feminist critique, have advocated more collaboration with their respondents on ethnographic publications and museum exhibits in order to express more emic perspectives. This joint participation in the research and presentation process (whether by publication or museum display) fosters skills and generates capacities for indigenous change within communities.

Charles Menzies erects a paradigm to foster these joint ventures based on his work with the Gitkxaala Nation in British Columbia, which consists of four stages. First, the anthropologist opens a dialogue with the community that may suggest modifications to the research protocol. Then, research continues to grow and change in consultation with the respondents—who now are becoming “coethnographers.” Next, the research is conducted jointly between academics and members of the society. Finally, the data and results are analyzed by the joint team and the reports are coauthored. Lamphire advocates training students to conduct collaborative research of this nature as anthropologists increasingly find themselves employed by nonacademic public and private organizations.

21st-century anthropologists increasingly find themselves involved in policy-making jobs in areas as diverse as libraries and the army. The University of Rochester library hired anthropologist Nancy Fried Foster, under a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, to study undergraduates’ term paper research, to steer library renovations, and to make suggestions on the redesign of its Web site. Foster used traditional anthropological research methods to discover that not only are many students extremely uncomfortable with the increasing technological changes that universities are forcing on them but also that they use the libraries to escape from them.

Anthropologists and the Military

A recent Society for Applied Anthropology Newsletter reports that anthropologists increasingly may become involved in work with the military via a program called the Human Terrain System under the Department of Defense (DoD). According to Susan L. Andreatta, president of the SfAA, the DoD wants to employ graduate-level anthropologists in Iraq and Afghanistan. Opinions on this are divided, but one may note that the Society was founded by anthropologists who worked for the war effort in the 1940s.

The anthropologist and senior consultant to the Human Terrain Systems project is Montgomery McFate. William Roberts of St. Mary’s College, Maryland, describes her argument as one in which a military that has greater understanding of indigenous civilians in war zones will reduce loss of life and cultural destruction.

Also, archaeologists may be involved with the military on sensitive issues. As of this writing, archaeologist Laurie Rush serves as a cultural resources manager at the United States Army’s Fort Drum, where she works with the Integrated Training Area Management unit of the DoD’s Legacy Program to develop a consciousness for archaeological treasures. This project arose out of a British Museum report that detailed the construction of a helicopter pad by U.S. Marines on the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon, the destruction of a 2.5-millenniaold brick road, and the filling of sandbags with artifacts. Part of Rush’s program involves building models of archaeological sites, mosques, and cemeteries for soldiers to train to avoid.

Forensic Anthropology, Ethnic Cleansing, and Political Dissidents

Television programs such as Crime Scene Investigation (CSI), CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, and Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) have sparked an international interest in forensics. This, in turn, has led to a student population interested in forensic anthropology. Cable television’s Discovery Health channel has created a true-life version of the CSI phenomenon with its Forensic Files program, which features cases solved by forensic anthropologists, such as Elizabeth Murray of the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati who works regularly with law enforcement agencies across the country.

The ABC News and Christian Science Monitor Web sites occasionally report on the applications of forensic science. They describe forensic anthropologists and archaeologists who have been involved in the identification of the remains of the nearly 3,000 victims of the September 11, 2001, attack; Jon Stereberg, a forensic archaeologist, has tried to trace the evidence of 1992 gas attacks in the clothing of victims in the Balkans; and Clyde Collins Snow, a retired forensic archaeologist, has investigated grave sites in Guatemala, Bosnia, and Iraq. Currently, forensic specialists, such as Ariana Fernandez, are examining the bodies of Kurdish people who were found in mass graves and who are believed to have been massacred in a genocide attack during the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.

Applied Anthropology and Tourism

The travel and tourism industry is in dire need of the services of anthropologists, and this is becoming an attractive employment option to anthropology graduates, according to Susan Banks, an anthropologist involved in the travel industry. Too often, tourists will go to exotic locales where they believe that they are seeing the actual types of lives lived in those places, unaware that they are being fed a fabricated culture designed, not to expose them to life in other places, but to screen them from the true ways of life found in those locations. Commonly, tourists are discouraged from visiting local towns and actually learning something about the countries that they have visited. Anthropology can offer a remedy to this problem and provide some much-needed income to the local economies. Exploitation and insensitivity to indigenous people by culturally uninformed tourists does little to change the image of the “ugly American.” Likewise, the international sex trade both exploits and victimizes indigenous peoples and furthers the spread of dangerous diseases, such as HIV/AIDS.

Environmental degradation of local ecologies is another problem of culturally ignorant tourism. For this reason, Susan Charnley, in an article in Human Organization in 2005, suggests a change from nature tourism to ecotourism. She cites the case of Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) in Tanzania. Nature tourism involves traveling to pristine locations where tourists can experience and enjoy nature; ecotourism involves traveling to natural areas that conserve the local ecology while respecting the rights of the local cultures and encouraging sustainable development. Charnley makes the case for the increasingly difficult position of the Massai people since the creation of the NCA and the negative effect it has had on their economy. Charnley argues for culturally appropriate involvement of local people in tourist destinations in ways that will provide actual benefits to their communities. These benefits would include social and political justice and involvement in decision-making processes that directly influence their lives.

A selection of articles from Human Organization from the first decade of the 21st century includes such topics as the administration of federally managed fisheries, including a discussion of the role of James A. Acheson who was the first applied anthropologist hired by the National Marine Fisheries Service in 1974 to conduct policy research and implementation through conservation and stewardship of marine ecosystems.

Another article described the importance of beer parties among Xhosa labor cooperatives on homesteads in South Africa. An article that has to do with changes in gender relations and commercial activities, as the global market expands to countries such as Mali, explores how the outside world can force local peoples to change the structure of their society by giving advantages to one gender over the other when that may not have been the case previously. What can be seen as a parallel between the popular use of family trusts in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s and a move from individual land tenure to collective, kinbased ownership on Mokil Atoll in Micronesia, as the region’s political, economic, and demographic transformation has imperiled the rights of absentee owners. By placing the land ownership in the kin group, it is protected from individual alienation.

A 2007 article by Kathryn Forbes is especially topical in the current social, economic, and political climate of the United States today. Forbes’s article examines how the regional land use of ideologies and popular images of farm workers has contributed to a housing crisis for Mexican agricultural laborers in Fresno County, California. Stereotypic descriptions of Mexican farm workers have resulted in the formulation of zoning codes that exacerbate demographic segregation in Fresno County. Most farm workers live in rural areas, which are more economical and more convenient to their sources of income but where there are fewer retail outlets—including groceries. The arrival of seasonal laborers, combined with a lack of affordable housing thanks to local policymakers, has engendered a regional overcrowding crisis for Mexican farm workers. Forbes’s role in this discussion is similar to the review of the roles that anthropology can play in public policy cited by Wilson and Donnan (2006) in Ireland.

Future Directions in Applied Anthropology

Forbes’s article is especially relevant to the United States today as the influx of immigrant labor, thanks in part to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), has made the appearance of Hispanic laborers a topic of vituperative discussion on national radio talk shows and political campaigns. This is a point that falls clearly within the purview of social science rather than politics as anthropological demographers and gerontologists clearly can demonstrate that not only does the country require immigrant labor because of statistical “full employment,” but also it needs to save social security from the influx of baby boom retirees.

The bankruptcy of social security was predicted in university classes as long ago as the 1970s. The increase in life spans, coupled with the potentially disastrous demographic effect of a baby boom generation that will retire to be supported by a much smaller (thanks to the introduction of the birth control pill in the 1960s) birth dearth/baby bust cohort, has the potential to lead to economic disaster for the latter group as their increasing social security taxes erode their quality of life. The baby boom retirees’ social security taxes must be replaced from somewhere—if not by eroding the birth dearth/baby bust cohort’s quality of life, then by an influx of tax contributors, for example, immigrant laborers.

Anthropologists are in a unique position to act as the social partners of policymakers on this issue not only by means of their demographic and gerontological expertise but also by their ethnographic contributions to allay the concerns of the extant non-Hispanic population of the United States over its possible perception of cultural drowning by immersion in a neo-Hispanic society del Norte (“land of the north”).

Likewise, anthropological expertise in indigenous Latin American medical beliefs, such as hot and cold, wet and dry bodily conditions derived from the ancient Mediterranean medical concept of humors where illnesses were believed to be caused by an imbalance of humors; folk illnesses, such as susto (“fright”), a culture bound syndrome found in southern Mexico in which an individual who does not recover from an illness is believed to have had a terrible fright in the past that prevents recovery from the unrelated illness (Rubel, O’Nell, & Collado-Ardon, 1991); and cultural sensitivities to variations in conceptions of sexual modesty and familial responsibilities will form a necessary component in the rapprochement of the two larger cultures although this may be difficult in cases of smaller subcultures.

Other areas for future research in applied anthropology include human trafficking (briefly cited in the discussion of tourism); indigenous rights (e.g., salmon fishing among the native Northwest coast peoples in North America, cattle grazing in the Burren in County Clare, Ireland, or the effects of water control on the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq); anthropometry and gender (in the cultural sense, not the linguistic sense) stereotypes and gender rearing roles; cultural relativism versus cultural interference, including whether or not Muslim women need to be “saved” or if Western hegemonists even have the right to do so; genital mutilation (male as well as female); the role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in distributing information and treatment of HIV/AIDS; food waste, diet and health, and body image; intelligent design, globalization and hightech industry; and the role of biology and culture in psychiatric illnesses, to name but a few of the possibilities open to applied research in anthropology.

In an article titled “Making Our Voices Heard—Ethical Dilemmas and Opportunities,” in the November 2007 Society for Applied Anthropology Newsletter, Mark Schuller of Vassar College gives a good review of the future of applied research in anthropology. Schuller writes that many anthropologists believe that their contributions are considered marginal and irrelevant and are passed over in policy making based on a review of the leading anthropological journals and newsletters. He argues that applied anthropologists with a holistic viewpoint can inform policymakers regarding the integrated structural correlation among debt and poverty, education, health care, and local welfare via their engagement with local communities. Schuller calls for local, global, and ethical analysis of current concerns to make anthropology applicable in the “real” world. He suggests that a good way to apply anthropology is through teaching; his students investigate public policies and then send letters to the editors of newspapers in order to introduce anthropological viewpoints into current policy discussions.

Schuller has been keyword-searching “anthropology” on Google and reports that he has found at least two stories a day in which anthropologists are interviewed or have authored stories in media outlets. Among the included issues that his students or other anthropologists have written about in daily news publications is the part played by anthropologists in clandestine activities, inequalities of globalization, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) health care bill, the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, No Child Left Behind, prison reform, disclosure of hormone content in milk, Hurricane Katrina “fatigue,” and the cancellation of international debt in impoverished nations of South America.

In the same issue, Amanda Stronza of Texas A&M University describes a new program in applied biodiversity science, which also will tackle poverty and cultural inequality. The interdisciplinary research program integrates cooperation between social and biological sciences and conservation organizations at the applied level. Research topics are to incorporate biodiversity with local legislative policy in partnership among academia, governments, NGOs, and local societies in four regions of the Americas.

This article has explored the subject of applied anthropology and provided the list of applied anthropology research paper topics. It was done from a historical perspective in order to gain a processual understanding of how it arrived at the state in which it is found in early 21st-century anthropology.

A brief definition of applied anthropology was followed by a review of the origins of applied anthropology in the 19th century and a history of the field through WorldWar II, the Fox Project, the PeruVicos Project, and Project Camelot. The section on the later 20th century led into applied anthropology today and topics for future research.

Bibliography:

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  • Bourgois, P. (1995). In search of respect: Selling crack in El Barrio. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Carlson, S. (2007). An anthropologist in the library. Chronicle of Higher Education, 53(50), A26.
  • Chagnon, N. (1997). Yanomamo (5th ed.). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College.
  • Colburn, L. L., Abbott-Jamieson, S., & Clay, P. M. (2006). Anthropological applications in the management of federally managed fisheries: Context, institutional history, and prospectus. Human Organization, 65(3), 231–239.
  • Dobyns, H. F., Doughty, P. L., & Lasswell, H. D. (Eds.). (1971). Peasants, power, and applied social change: Vicos as a model. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
  • Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1969). The Nuer: A description of the modes of livelihood and political institutions of a Nilotic people. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
  • Forbes, K. (2007). Bureaucratic strategies of exclusion: Land use ideology and images of Mexican farm workers in housing policy. Human Organization, 66(2), 196–209.
  • Foster, G. M. (1973). Traditional societies and technological change. New York: Harper & Row.
  • Harris, M. (1968). The rise of anthropological theory. New York: Harper & Row.
  • Henry, J. (1963). Culture against man. New York: Vintage Books.
  • Horowitz, I. L. (Ed.). (1967). The rise and fall of project Camelot: Studies in the relationship between social science and practical politics. Cambridge: MIT Press.
  • Jordan, A. T. (2003). Business anthropology. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
  • Kroeber, A. L. (1919). On the principle of order in civilization as exemplified by changes of fashion. American Anthropologist, 21(3), 253–263.
  • Lamphere, L. (2004). The convergence of applied, practicing and public anthropology in the 21st century. Human Organization, 63(4), 431–443.
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  • Lewis, O. (1966). La vida: A Puerto Rican family in the culture of poverty—San Juan and New York. New York: Random House.
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cultural anthropology research paper topics

A List of 185 Interesting Cultural Topics to Write About

Culture is a set of knowledge, behaviors, and beliefs shared by a group of people. You would probably agree that it’s an integral part of humanity. It’s no wonder that students are often assigned to write about it.

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That’s why we came up with a list of interesting and creative culture essay topics. Whether you are writing a research paper, an essay, or a speech, our list of culture topics is for you. You can find various topics from popular culture and funny aspects of culture to cultural diversity. They will be useful for middle school, high school, and college students.

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  • 🔝 Top 10 Topics
  • 🏺 Western Culture Topics
  • 📚✍️ Cultural Criticism
  • 🎥 Cultural Phenomena
  • 🧔👓 Subculture Topics
  • 🧑🤝🧑 Socio-Cultural Topics
  • ⛩️🕌 Cultural Diversity
  • 👥 Cultural Anthropology

🔝 Top 10 Cultural Topics

  • What causes culture shock?
  • Cultural appropriation in fashion
  • The Cold War’s impact on culture
  • Women’s role in Italian culture
  • Global impact of American culture
  • How to preserve cultural diversity
  • Pros and cons of cultural globalization
  • Cultural differences in East Asian countries
  • How do people assimilate into a foreign culture?
  • Cultural background’s effect on one’s personality

🏺 Western Culture Topics to Write About

Much of today’s culture takes roots in the Western world. With this subject, the possibilities are endless! You can write about ancient civilizations or modern European culture. Sounds interesting? Then have a look at these topics:

  • Write about a Greek myth of your choice.
  • Research the history of the ancient Roman theater.
  • Pick a Greek philosopher and describe their legacy.
  • The heritage of the Roman Empire in the modern world.
  • Discover the history of the Olympic Games .
  • How did Christianity spread throughout Europe?
  • The architecture of ancient Britain.

Mahatma Gandhi quote.

  • How did the Great Plague influence western culture?
  • Write about the key Renaissance artists .
  • How did humanism emerge in British culture?
  • Pick a European country and analyze how its traditions developed.
  • The impact of the Renaissance on Europe’s worldview.
  • Research the latest archeological discoveries of western civilization .
  • How did the Protestant Reformation influence German culture?
  • The legacy of the Renaissance artworks.
  • What was the effect of the 1848 revolution on art?
  • The role of scientific discoveries in Europe’s socio-cultural formation.
  • Analyze the influence of colonization of African culture.
  • Describe the highlights of the Enlightenment period .
  • How did Brexit affect the British lifestyle?
  • Did the American Revolution bring change in culture?
  • What attitude does Poland have about their World War II heritage?
  • How did the technological revolution impact everyday life in Europe?
  • The influence of World War I on French culture.
  • Write about European fashion during a specific period.

📚✍️ Cultural Criticism Essay Topics

Cultural criticism looks at texts, music, and artworks through the lens of culture. This type of analysis suggests that culture gives an artwork a specific meaning. The following topics will guide you towards an excellent critical essay:

  • Analyze the cultural aspects of your favorite novel.
  • Ethnicity in Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates .
  • What’s the meaning of financial stability in The Great Gatsby ?
  • Discover social changes in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind .
  • The effect of industrialization in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath .
  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and its context.
  • Representation of race in Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison .
  • Note the cultural features of The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais.
  • Write about the main character’s mindset in The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini .
  • What are the main character’s values in A Bronx Tale ?
  • Hispanic customs in The Tortilla Curtain by T. C. Boyle.
  • Discover cultural clashes in Fury by Salman Rushdie.
  • Pick a movie and analyze the cultural impact on your perception of the plot.
  • Discuss the beliefs of white women in The Help .
  • Does the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding portray Greek-American culture correctly?
  • How did the background story in Slumdog Millionaire change your perception of the main character?
  • What’s the meaning of gender in Bend It Like Beckham ?
  • Far and Away : integration into a new society.
  • Pick a painting and analyze its cultural background.

Culture can be divided into two equally categories.

  • Compare depictions of Christ from different continents.
  • Discover the context of Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People .
  • What’s the context of Punjabi Ladies Near a Village Well ?
  • Discuss the symbolism of Girl with a Pearl Earring .
  • Write about social roles based on Homer among the Greeks by Gustav Jäger.
  • Select a song and analyze how culture is reflected in the lyrics.

🎥 Cultural Phenomena Topics for an Essay

Cultural phenomena refer to developing certain beliefs or preferences among many people. It is also called the bandwagon effect . Keep in mind that the fact of something becoming popular is not a phenomenon. This notion is more concerned with the process of gaining fame than with fame itself. Take a look at these helpful topic ideas for your paper:

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  • Describe any cultural phenomenon in your area.
  • Reasons why TikTok gained popularity in the U.S.
  • How did the Pokemon Go! fad spread across the world?
  • Analyze the percentage of people worldwide who like McDonald’s .
  • What factors made “the dab” popular?
  • Can the bandwagon effect explain bullying ?
  • Discover cross-cultural fashion trends.
  • Does social media facilitate cultural phenomena?
  • Pick a celebrity and analyze their fanbase.
  • How can you explain the high demand for Apple products?
  • What made sitcoms popular?
  • Write about Thanksgiving celebrations outside the U.S.
  • Reasons why famous authors from the past remain influential.
  • Does effective marketing cause the bandwagon effect?
  • Discuss the tendency to follow trends for social acceptance.
  • Choose a classic movie and analyze its popularity.
  • Examine similar TV talent shows across nations.
  • Discover why some dishes are considered “America’s favorite.”
  • Explore the psychological side of cultural phenomena.
  • List criteria needed for becoming a famous musician.
  • Analyze the bandwagon effect in history.
  • Why was holocaust normalized in some nations?
  • Explain why Nike products are popular all over the world.
  • Did the bandwagon effect play a part in the Renaissance?
  • Can the spread of religious beliefs be called a cultural phenomenon?

🧔👓 Subculture Topics for an Essay

The term “subculture” means “a culture within a culture.” In other words, it’s a smaller group, inside a larger one, with its own beliefs and interests. You can write about a specific subculture or discover why such groups form. Feel free to use these essay topics:

  • Write about the athletic community.
  • Are marketing strategies aimed at subcultures effective?
  • Why is the deviation from social norms considered dangerous?
  • What makes the Amish stand out?
  • Can a subculture serve as a basis for a culture?
  • Does the U.S. benefit from cybersport?

Some of the most prominent subcultures.

  • Tell about a social group that you’re a part of.
  • Clothes as an identifier of a subculture.
  • Pick a religious organization and describe it.
  • Why did the anime community grow worldwide?
  • Explain why some subcultures are considered dangerous.
  • How do social groups emerge?
  • Should parents encourage children to join an interest group ?
  • Describe the way people develop mutual beliefs cross-culturally.
  • How does social media influence one’s lifestyle?
  • Which interest group does your family belong to?
  • Do subcultures benefit society?
  • Analyze the Social Disorganization Theory concerning subcultures.
  • How did hipsters influence global fashion trends?
  • What are the requirements for becoming a skater?
  • Discover the history and lifestyle of Goths .
  • What is the basis of scumbro culture?
  • Belonging to an interest group as a healthy social practice.
  • What are the most popular subcultures amongst generation Z ?
  • Discuss the importance of the hairstyle for subcultures.

🧑🤝🧑 Socio-Cultural Essay Topics

Let’s break the word “socio-cultural” in two parts. Social aspects include people, their roles, and available resources. Cultural factors refer to language, laws, religion, and values. Therefore, socio-cultural issues revolve around the unique design of a specific culture. Here are some topic ideas on this subject that you might find helpful.

  • Describe the social stigma attached to single mothers .
  • What pushes the elderly to the edge of poverty?
  • Do marketing strategies vary from country to country?
  • Is receiving psychological assistance culturally accepted in developing countries?
  • Can art be misunderstood because of the socio-cultural context?
  • Compare the average wage in the U.S. and the country of your choice.
  • Does the increased use of technology in schools affect society?
  • What factors push Americans to abuse drugs ?
  • Which socio-cultural aspects make drunkenness acceptable?
  • Describe the social environment in a country that legalizes slavery .
  • Why do Christians get persecuted in some countries?
  • How does information overload impact modern teenagers?
  • Is child abuse justified outside the U.S.?
  • Does technology affect the emotional maturity of children?
  • Free education in Europe: pros and cons.
  • Prove that the U.S. healthcare system should help the homeless.
  • How often does cyberbullying occur worldwide?
  • What does successful life mean for a third world country citizen?
  • Does globalization put the national identity in danger?
  • The importance of developing cultural sensitivity .
  • Write about various religions in America .

Religions practiced by Americans.

  • Discuss the correlation between the economic level and crime rates .
  • Manifestations of ethical egoism in modern society.
  • Cross-cultural missionary work: pros and cons.
  • Does social stigma towards HIV contribute to its spread?

⛩️🕌 Cultural Diversity Topics for an Essay

America is one of the most diverse nations in the world. Each culture has its language, customs, and other factors that enrich a country like the U.S. The life of a culturally diverse community has its advantages and challenges. In your paper, unpack one of the aspects of such an environment. Take a look at these essay topics:

  • Discuss ethnic groups within the U.S. which have the highest suicide rate .
  • Is it essential for American psychologists to develop cultural competence ?
  • Describe the basic principles of cultural respect.
  • Prove that racism should not be tolerated.
  • Does the American education system embrace ethnic minorities?
  • Analyze the benefit of ethnic inclusiveness for the U.S. food industry .
  • How can managers encourage a multiethnic environment in the workplace?
  • White about the challenges of second-generation Americans.
  • Should the term “ immigrant ” be banned?
  • Discuss the advantages of the U.S. as a multicultural nation.
  • Prove that the English language proficiency test shouldn’t be required for U.S. citizenship.
  • What is the effect of prejudice against ethnic minorities?
  • How does diversity find a place in American traditions ?
  • Describe the culture shock experience of an international student.
  • Is transracial adoption becoming more common in the U.S.?
  • What is cultural narcissism, and how can you avoid it?
  • Effective strategies for conflict resolution in a diverse environment .
  • What multiculturalism policies currently exist in the U.S.?
  • Analyze the heritage of a specific nation.
  • Should learning a second language be mandatory in America?
  • What are the stereotypes associated with different ethnicities?
  • Describe the benefits of ethnic diversity.
  • Write about the widespread interracial marriages in the U.S.
  • How can one avoid cultural ignorance?
  • Are the Americans guilty of ethnocentrism ?

👥 Cultural Anthropology Topics for a Paper

Cultural anthropology is a study of beliefs, practices, and social organization of a group. The shaping of ideas and the physical environment are in the focus of this study. In other words, anthropology discovers why people live the way they do. This list will help narrow down your attention on this subject.

Cesar Chavez quote.

  • Why are social networks commonly used in the U.S.?
  • Explain the popularity of online shopping worldwide.
  • Will e-books replace paper books in developed countries?
  • Artificial intelligence technologies in Japan.
  • Pick two American states and compare their laws.
  • Why is cycling so prevalent in the Netherlands?
  • How architecture reflects a nation’s history.
  • Why is it easier to receive citizenship in some countries than in others?
  • Explain why Americans have a strong sense of national pride.
  • Analyze the perception of time in tropical countries.
  • Are most Swiss households wealthy?
  • Discover how language reflects a cultural worldview.
  • Does the country’s economy affect the self-esteem of its citizens?
  • Reasons for the political division in the U.S.
  • Analyze the difference in lifestyles between the Northern and the Southern states .
  • Why is it common in some countries to be bilingual ?
  • Analyze the cultural values of a communistic nation.
  • How can liberalism affect the education system?
  • What’s the social meaning of disease in third world countries?
  • Examine how the two-child policy affects the Chinese lifestyle.
  • Free health care: pros and cons.
  • Write about the way the former Soviet Union countries transitioned from communism.
  • Do Christian traditions vary from culture to culture?
  • Analyze the impact of refugee presence in European countries.
  • Does traditional food reflect the history of a nation?

We hope you were able to pick a culture topic for your paper after reading this article.

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Good luck with your assignment on culture!

Further reading:

  • 497 Interesting History Topics to Research
  • 137 Social Studies Topics for Your Research Project
  • 512 Research Topics on HumSS (Humanities & Social Sciences)
  • How to Write an Art Critique: Examples and Simple Techniques
  • 430 Philosophy Topics & Questions for Your Essay
  • 267 Hottest Fashion Topics to Write About in 2024

🔍 References

  • So You’re an American?: State.gov
  • A Brief History of Western Culture: Khan Academy
  • What Exactly is “Western Culture”?: University of California, Santa Barbara
  • What is Cultural Criticism?: University of Saskatchewan
  • What is a Subculture?: Grinnell College
  • Socio-Cultural Factors and International Competitiveness: ResearchGate
  • Cultural Diversity: Definition & Meaning: Purdue Global
  • What Is Cultural Anthropology?: US National Park Service
  • Cultural Anthropology: Encyclopedia Britannica
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ScienceDaily

Uncovering the mystery of Dorset's Cerne Giant

For centuries, the Cerne Giant, a figure carved into a hillside in Dorset depicting a nude man carrying a club and stretching some 180 feet high, has fascinated locals and visitors to the area. The history of the giant, however, and in particular, its age, has long been a mystery. A new paper in Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies proposes that the Cerne Giant can in fact be dated to the early Middle Ages, and, as a result, its cultural context and significance more clearly understood.

"The Cerne Giant in its Early Medieval Context," by authors Thomas Morcom and Helen Gittos, acknowledges that previous attempts to date the giant placed its creation either sometime in prehistory or in the early modern period. Using a technique called optically stimulated luminescence, researchers for the National Trust theorize that the hillside monument was actually constructed in the period between 700 and 1100 A.D, and potentially used as a mustering site for West Saxon armies.

This dating breakthrough also sheds new light on various historical interpretations of the Cerne Giant's identity. Many scholars had posited that the giant was modeled on the myth of Hercules, and although, as the authors write, "[a]t first glance, an early medieval date seems odd for a figure which looks like the classical god Hercules," there was in fact a swell of interest in the Greek hero during the ninth century, lending credence to this hypothesis.

Another popular theory regarding the inspiration for the giant was its basis on a Saint Eadwold. The authors propose that the residents of a Benedictine monastery, built in Cerne in the late tenth century, actively propagated this idea, redirecting interest in the giant away from Greek affiliations and towards Christian ones.

One final persona bestowed upon the giant was that of a pagan god called Helith. The authors of the Speculum paper write that this identification was a mistaken one, the result of a misreading, in the thirteenth century, of an account of the giant written in Latin.

The new findings concerning the Cerne Giant's age and history make greater sense of this string of theories regarding its identity. Ultimately, as the authors write, this complicated biography is all "part of the history of the giant and what continues to attract so many people to him."

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Materials provided by University of Chicago Press Journals . Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

  • Thomas Morcom, Helen Gittos. The Cerne Giant in Its Early Medieval Context . Speculum , 2024; 99 (1): 1 DOI: 10.1086/727992

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  24. Uncovering the mystery of Dorset's Cerne Giant

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