A fresh wind blows through Maynooth

A new wind has swept through the anthropology department of NUI Maynooth, with the arrival last year of American Professor Larry Taylor. Currently doing research work with a group of young people who live in tunnels along the US/Mexican border, this hands-on academic will be back in time for the start of the new university term at the Co Kildare campus.

Anthropology, he enthuses, is the study of "living cultures - people who can talk back. The thing that got me hooked was that it was a way of getting a better understanding of very different worlds and learning to see my own world. Anthropology makes the strange familiar and the familiar strange."

The subject is "extremely wide and broad compared with other social sciences", he says. "It aims to integrate different realms of experience rather than separate them and to see how this fits together."

Taylor believes that anthropology will become increasingly important as a job skill in an information-based world economy, where an understanding of cultural difference is always crucial - from local to international contexts. The choice of anthropology in combination with other subjects can give one an advantage also in preparing for a career in community work, education, the health professions, aid and development projects, business and administration, or religious life.

Taylor says two types of individual are attracted to this particular area - "those who have a real social concern and they want to know and understand (a problem) and do something about it," and "another type of approach is that of an intellectual concern, they try to understand human behaviour".

For students who are considering anthropology as a career, Taylor explains that it is "the study of humankind in all its aspects". At Maynooth, the emphasis is on a comparative study of human societies and cultures. As a social science, he explains, it seeks to discover and explain patterns of behaviour.

Coming from New York, Taylor finds Irish students differ from Americans in that they don't expect to interact or talk in lectures. However, he says, "I have done everything I can to undermine that. I will talk to people, call on them. At first they're shocked but it's better to be awake and terrified then asleep. Once you get them talking I have to say they're great."

In terms of careers in the Irish context, Taylor says that "a lot tend to go into NGOs (non-governmental organisations) and community development".

Already Taylor has introduced significant changes in the core programme at NUI Maynooth. Dr Abdullahi El-Tom, a lecturer in the university's anthropology department, says the arrival of the new head in the department after a couple of years wait is "a tremendous development . . . we can plan". Anthropology is "an exceptionally exciting subject", says El-Tom. "We live at a time when our understanding of culture has been transformed because of the phenomenon of globalisation. "The subject is now focusing on human cultures everywhere, including Ireland," he adds. "Many find that very exciting - to be able to compare their own culture with other cultures around the world."

In first year there are up to 130 students, with about one-third of the student population in the mature category. In this year students take the subject under six module headings: an introduction, followed by gender, food and culture, talk, sex and the body and death.

The course in second year breaks down into a number of different areas. Students will study a set of eight different courses - economic anthropology; research, writing and computers; psychological anthropology; political anthropology; Europe: visual data; applied anthropology and ethnicity.

In third-year students are required to submit a thesis based on primary research. They also study areas such as medical anthropology; issues in gender and feminist anthropology; language and culture and visual anthropology.

Ruth McLoughlin, the mother of two children, who is a mature student, graduated last week at NUI Maynooth with an honours degree in anthropology and philosophy. She now plans to go on and study anthropology at postgraduate level.

Her interest in anthropology sprang from her experiences while living abroad with her family. She moved to the United States for a year and then to Holland and, she says, having to come to terms with a new culture each time, this sparked an interest in the subject of anthropology.

Anthropology "gives you a deeper understanding of your own culture", she says. "You start to question your own taken-for-granted assumptions. You begin to see the socially-constructed element in them." She now plans to continue with her studies and pursue a post-graduate course in anthropology.