Cultural Anthropology: Find Articles

This guide provides resources for your cultural anthropological research

How to start looking for academic articles or studies

To find scholarly articles or studies, you will need to use a database (not CLIO).

We recommend anthropology research start with: 

  • ​​EBSCO: Includes "Anthropology Plus". 
  • JSTOR: Provides access to more than 12 million academic journal articles, books, and primary sources in 75 disciplines.
  • Project MUSE: Current collection of journals in the humanities and history, maintained by Johns Hopkins University Press. Full-text searching available. It also provides access to individual titles within the collection, such as Africa Today, American Imago, Contemporary Pacific, Ethnohistory, and Public Culture, as well as to other interdisciplinary journals which may also prove useful to anthropological research.

General, interdisciplinary databases:

  • ProQuest: This resource includes citations and full-text articles in academic & professional disciplines, e.g., business, economics, gender studies, health, literature, management, political science; as well as news and general interest items. 
  • Sage Research: Coverage includes more than 555 SAGE journals, more than 175,000 articles, book reviews, and editorials, with original graphics and tables in the following disciplines: Communication Studies, Criminology, Education, Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology.
  • Science Direct: Web database for scientific research that contains abstracts, tables of contents, and full text of articles in the sciences, technology, medicine and social sciences.

On this page, you will find a lot of options to start your research, but these are not all of the databases that you have access to as a Columbia University student! Explore the other research guides to find other databases for different disciplines, take a workshop like database demo, or make an appointment with a librarian. 

Anthropology Databases

  • Abstracts in Anthropology: 1970-present, References to journal articles, miscellaneous papers, and books, arranged under sections on archaeology, ethnology, linguistics, and physical anthropology. 
  • Annual Review of Anthropology: Full text of the articles in these volumes from vol. 1, 1972 to present.
  • AnthroSource : Includes current and archived issues of the American Anthropological Association's journals and bulletins.
  • eHRAF World Cultures: A collection of full-text primary source materials on ca. 400 different cultural, ethnic, religious and national groups in the following regions of the world: Asia, Europe, Africa, Middle East, North America, Oceania, Eurasia and South America. Access is via keyword, as well as through geographic (OWC) codes and a topical (OCM) classification scheme.
  • Ethnomusicology : global field recordings
  • Food and Drink in History
  • Hispanic American periodicals index (HAPI online)
    Citations to articles and book reviews in scholarly journals published in Latin America and the Caribbean, or those dealing with topics relating to Latin America, the Caribbean and Hispanic Americans.
  • North American Indian thought and culture
    North American Indian thought and culture contains biographies, auto-biographies, personal narratives, speeches, diaries, letters, and oral histories.

Health and Mental Health Databases

For all three of these resources you must select the database in EBSCO, by clicking "Choose databases." EBSCO does not automatically apply CINAHL, PsycINFO, or MEDLINE because of limited amounts of users at once. 

CINAHL: This is the definitive research tool for nursing and allied health professionals. 

PsycINFO: American Psychological Association's resource for behavioral science and mental health resources. 

Medline: Created by the National Library of Medicine. 

 

And for the next, follow the link. 

PsycARTICLES : Provides full text access to articles from journals published by American Psychological Association. Covers general psychology as well as applied, clinical, developmental, and social psychology.

Art Databases

  • Art full text: Print version in Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library - N1 Ar756. Indexes, abstracts and full-text from international periodicals, yearbooks, and museum bulletins, 1929 to the present. monthly updates.
  • Accunet/Associated Press Multimedia Archive: Image archive of the Associated Press.
  • American Memory: Library of Congress: A rich collection of images and full-text documents relating to U.S. history and culture from the Library of Congress.
  • Archive of Americana: Comprehensive historical collections including the American Broadsides and Ephemera Collection containing scanned images of playbills, photographs, poems, advertising cards, passenger lists and more.
  • ARTstor: Digital images of architecture, painting, photography, scultpure, decorative arts, design and material culture.
  • Black Studies Center: Cross-searchable gateway to Black Studies. Includes full-text articles and newspapers such as the Chicago Defender, still and moving images documenting African American experience and history.
  • Avery index to architectural periodicals: Includes not only scholarly and popular periodical literature, but also publications of professional associations, American state and regional periodicals, and the major serials on architecture and design of Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Australia. Coverage is mainly from 1934 to the present, with selective coverage back to 1741.
  • Early Encounters: peoples, cultures, and the environment: Contains 1,482 authors and over 100,000 pages of letters, diaries, memoirs and accounts of early encounters. Includes more than 1,700 images.

Other Helpful Databases

  • FRANCIS: A multilingual and multidisciplinary bibliographic database with international scope, covering Humanities and Social sciences. Coverage 1984 to the present.
  • Historic Map Works. Library edition (ProQuest): The core of the collection consists of land ownership (cadastral) maps illustrating the geographic and developmental history of the United States.
  • The HistoryMakers: Provides streaming access to more than 2,340 video oral history interviews highlighting the accomplishments of individual African Americans and African-American-led groups and movements. Interview transcripts are fully searchable. Includes interviewees from across the United States, from a variety of fields, and with memories stretching from the 1890s to the present.

Science Databases

  • Scopus: Provides indexing, abstracting of and citation linking to journals in biology, physics, chemistry, geosciences, agriculture, medicine, business, social work, and the social sciences.
  • Web of science core collection: Consists of seven databases containing information gathered from thousands of scholarly journals, books, book series, reports, conferences, and more.

Gender Databases

  • Contemporary women's issues: Provides information about women in over 190 countries.
  • Gender Studies Database: Women's studies, gender studies, feminist theory and criticism. Coverage 1972 to the present
  • LGBT life: Provides indexing and abstracts of worldwide literature on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues.

  • Women's studies international: Provides citations and some abstracts to the core areas of Women's studies. Covers journals, newspapers, newsletters, bulletins, books, book chapters, proceedings, reports, theses, dissertations, NGO studies, websites and grey literature. annually.

Anthropology Extras

Many databases that used to have their own platforms have been absorbed by other providers. If you have any questions about this, please let me know.

EBSCO now includes:

  • AnthropologyPlus: Combines Anthropological Literature and the Anthropological Index, includes all core periodicals in the field in addition to lesser-known journals, covers from late 19th century to the present.
  • ATLA (American Theological Library Association) Religion Database.
  • ERIC
  • Family & society studies worldwide: Provides citations and some abstracts in social work, social science and family practice.
    Citations to articles, reviews, and books in the fields of religion, theology, and ethics, 1975 to the present, updated quarterly.
  • Gender Studies Database: Women's studies, gender studies, feminist theory and criticism. Coverage 1972 to the present
  • LGBT life: Provides indexing and abstracts of worldwide literature on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues.
  • SocINDEX with full text:  Offers comprehensive coverage of sociology and its related disciplines, including ethnic & racial studies, gender studies, marriage & family, political sociology, social psychology, and, social work.​

ProQuest now includes:

  • Last Updated: Sep 27, 2022 11:38 AM
  • URL: https://guides.library.columbia.edu/anthropology
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