Digital Scholarship Guide: Anthropology
Essential Skills and Tools
Dissemination
- Consider whether individuals with cultural ties to your research could benefit from hearing about your work. Digital dissemination platforms like StoryMaps can help you reframe your research for a public audience. These websites are also effective ways to showcase your career and research.
- Showcase your career and research online with a custom website.
- Visualize how different ideas and doctrines spread through time or space. Useful for your publications, or for your classroom.
Digital Surveys
Are you interested in ethnographic data collected via survey? Learn the best practices for survey design. There are a number of platforms, many of which can support collection, storage, and analysis of responses.
Text Analysis
- Our methods and theories improve daily, and our vocabularies shift in turn. Unpack the impact of word choices. Use analytical tools to measure the occurrence of key words and phrases, as well as authors’ tone.
- JSTOR and SCOPUS have embedded visualization tools and you can use them to model what anthropologists are publishing about over time. Consider a comparative analysis between the two, and examine how JSTOR’s Humanities and Social Sciences-focused content different from SCOPUS.
Spatial Analysis
- GIS (Geographic Information Systems) is critical for this discipline. Learn how to record locations of people, places, and objects and analyze spatial relationships.
- Even if your project isn’t about landscapes, you will need to situate readers in space. Make your own map for your publication or conference presentation.
3D Objects and Spaces
- Preserve objects and biological remains; carry out your hands-on analyses. Learn how to 3D print artifacts and bones.
- Virtual reality simulations and interactive 3D spaces can help us envision what ancient landscapes were like.
Data Management and Visualizations
- Data management is critical, especially when it comes to managing ethnographic field research. Think about all of the lists anthropologists make – names, dates, places, etc. Learn how to effectively store these in a spreadsheet and how you can format your entries to support future analyses.
- Coding can be hugely useful. Python and R are great options for anthropologists, and can speed up the process of editing datasets, creating graphs and visualizations, as well as customizing GIS tools. Contact the Data Services team to find out which coding language is best for your needs, and find out about upcoming free workshops.
Digital Anthropologists at Brandeis
Are you a Brandeis staff/faculty member and would like to be listed? Contact Dr. Natalie Susmann.
Digital Anthropology Training Resources
Coming Soon!
Digital Anthropology Publications
This Zotero library is regularly updated with publications discussing digital scholarship’s impact on Archaeology.
Many thanks to Brandeis PhD student Cat Rosch for contributing to this page. This page was last updated on August 20, 2024. If you would like to contribute, please contact Dr. Natalie Susmann.