The potential of human populations to grow, stabilise or decline is realised through events which are often strongly marked culturally and always crucial for individuals: birth, migration and death. The prospects and hazards of survival, mobility, marriage and raising a family vary greatly between populations, and are often related to sociocultural factors including religion, education, gender roles, valuation of children, political organisation and economy. Yet if sociocultural factors are to influence the dynamics of fertility and mortality, they must do so through their effects on those very biological events, giving birth and dying. This course explores in an anthropological context the complex interplay between culture and biology in producing population dynamics of different kinds, as well as the implications of those population dynamics for the societies in question. Course topics include: population size and structure in the past and present; the biology of natural fertility; social factors controlling fertility; mortality and the impact of varying life expectancies; population pressure on resources and consequences for migration; marital mobility, marriage practices, kinship systems and sex ratios; the demography of small-scale societies; health, nutrition and the demographic effect of epidemics; demographic implications of warfare; change, development and demographic transitions. Quantitative demographic techniques are introduced but not pursued in depth. Examples are drawn mainly from the mass societies of Asia and the small-scale indigenous societies of the Australia-Pacific region. The course is designed on the premise that what is distinctive about the anthropological (in the broad sense) approach to population is its concern with the processes that lie behind population numbers more than the numbers themselves, and its comparative perspective across cultures and from the distant past to the present.

2,500 word essay (45%), examination (40%), tutorial presentation (15%).

Normally offered in even-numbered years
Up to 2 hours lectures and one hour of tutorial per week

Two first-year courses to the value of 12 units in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology (ANTH, ARCH or PREH) and/or the School of Botany and Zoology, or enrolment in the Population Studies major.

McFalls, J. A., 'Population: A Lively Introduction', Population Bulletin�58 (4), Population Reference Bureau, Washington, DC, 2003

Scheper-Hughes, N., 'Demography without Numbers', in Kertzer, D and Fricke, T (eds), Anthropological Demography, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1997