Plain-language explanation.
Cultural anthropology studies human cultures — their diversity, complexity, and the practices, beliefs, and social structures that shape how people live. It uses ethnographic fieldwork (participant observation) to understand societies from the inside.
Core concepts and standard treatment.
Core cultural anthropology concepts include culture (Geertz's 'webs of significance'), kinship systems (descent, marriage, residence patterns), ritual and symbolism (Turner, Douglas), economic anthropology (gift exchange — Mauss; reciprocity vs market exchange), political anthropology (power, authority, legitimacy), and the distinction between emic (insider) and etic (outsider) perspectives.
Deeper theory, debates and edge cases.
Advanced cultural anthropology engages with postcolonial critiques of anthropological knowledge production (Said, Asad), multispecies ethnography, digital ethnography and virtual fieldwork, the anthropology of capitalism (Graeber — debt and hierarchy), medical anthropology (illness narratives, structural violence — Farmer), and reflexive ethnography (Clifford & Marcus — Writing Culture).
How it is applied in practice.
At the professor and applied anthropologist level, scholars contribute to American Ethnologist, Cultural Anthropology, and Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute; conduct long-term ethnographic fieldwork; advise NGOs and governments on development projects using participatory action research; apply anthropological analysis to humanitarian response, urban planning, and corporate ethnography (design research, user research).