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Using an anthropological perspective, theres no issue which cannot be better understood. Anthropologists conduct their research in the field with the species, civilization, or groups of people they are studying. It is through comparison that we learn more about the range of possible responses to varying contexts and problems. The fieldwork and participant observation research methods provide cultural anthropologists the opportunity to live with a group of people for several months or years. Critically, none of this implied an extreme relativism, as if every human behavior must be accepted simply because it exists. As such, they cannot be seen or touched, and yet the way we see a. Thinking through a sociological perspective helps us to understand the situations of others and allows us to better understand the reason people are in the situations they are in. It helps us to determine the most efficient means for reaching the goals agreed upon. Each author has written from their experiences working as an anthropologist and that personal touch makes for an accessible introduction to cultural anthropology. Linguistic anthropology studies languages and how they have developed and evolved over time. Alfred is a diverse university with a world class engineering program, a nationally ranked BFA/MFA program, small business, school psychology, and liberal arts and sciences programs, and no anthropology other than what Ive been teaching for 32 years. None existed in an absolute sense; every culture was but a model of reality. Perhaps fittingly it took an outsider to remind anthropologists why anthropology matters. ANTHROPOLOGY It includes topics such as human origin, globalization, social change, and world history. People increasingly find that they must adopt culturally relativistic perspectives in governing communities and as a guide for their interactions with members of the community. The assignment Tell me the story of your relationship with your cell phone has resulted in some of the best papers I have ever received. Anthropology is made up of several branches of study. Following my Peace Corps experience, I entered graduate school in the Anthropology Department at the University of California, Berkeley and became a cultural anthropologist in the mid-1990s, specializing in medical anthropology. How do different languages adapt to new technologies? Race and gender are cultural constructs, derived not from biology but born in the realm of ideas. The key anthropological perspectives are holism, relativism, comparison, and fieldwork. And by understanding human behavior, we hope that it may result in de The very existence of other ways of being, other ways of thinking, other visions of life itself, puts the lie to those in our own culture who say that we cannot change, as we know we must, the fundamental way in which we inhabit this planet. Environmental anthropology deals broadly with culture and environment. Anthropology is an academic field of study with several divisions. Examples of these problems include the impacts of climate change on the health and welfare of diverse peoples throughout the globe; and social structural reasons for nutritional problems, as well as cultural meanings people give to them, such as undernutrition, and illnesses related to increasing weights of people in societies globally. Whether this intellectual potential is exercised through technological innovation, as has been the great achievement of the West, or through the untangling of complex threads of memory inherent in a myth, a priority of many other peoples in the world, is simply a matter of choice and orientation, adaptive insights and cultural emphasis. In recent decades, anthropologists have been reflecting on the significance and relevance of anthropological research. Hence, Anthropology and its study are indeed important from the perspective of knowing more about us. Why do we believe what we believe? Anthropology encourages us to extend our perspectives beyond familiar social contexts to view things from the perspectives of others. While I was a graduate student, I returned to the community in which I lived in Ifugao Province to conduct research for my dissertation which focused on malnutrition, particularly among women and children. helps us to lead an effective social life. By understanding how nonhuman primates behave, we discover more about ourselves (after all, humans are primates)! Augustus Comte, Emile Durkheim, and Herbert Spencer were all sociologists who used the structural-functional approach. 877 Words Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia. Anthropology can be used to answer questions about human origins, evolution, and behavior. Interracial marriage remained illegal across much of the United States until 1967. All animals eat, but we are the only animal that cooks. Basically, this study involves the understanding of humans and the necessary factors that help us survive. No two people will see a situation or issue in exactly the same way . It allows us to move on, to not sweat the small stuff, because the bigger, life-altering problems are still looming. Everything Boas proposed ran against orthodoxy. How do seemingly random beliefs and convictions converge into this thing called culture, a term that he was the first to promote as an organizing principle, a useful point of intellectual departure. Similarly, the anthropological concept of ethnocentrism is incredibly useful when paired with different examples of how people define family, recognize leadership, decide what is and is not edible, and the like. But here is the important idea. 4. Cultural anthropology is also known as the study of human cultures, their beliefs, practices, values, ideas, technologies, economies and other domains of social and cognitive organization. And if you believe that wisdom may be found in all spiritual traditions, that people in all places are always dancing with new possibilities for life, that one preserves jam but not culture, then you share a vision of compassion and inclusion that represents perhaps the most sublime revelation of our species, the scientific realization that all of humanity is one interconnected and undivided whole. Using my own anthropological biography as an illustration, I want to stress that the discipline does not showcase diverse human lifeways to further exoticize those who live differently from us. Acknowledging the validity of different cultural backgrounds and expressions. Anthropology Is A Holistic Approach Holism is the idea that humans, their thoughts, people, society, and the environment are all interrelated. It is just one way among a multitude of others. Everything Boas proposed ran against orthodoxy. ", Though remembered today as the giants of the discipline, Boas and his students in their time were dismissed from jobs because of their activism; denied promotion because of their beliefs; harassed by the FBI as the subversives they truly were; and attacked in the press simply for being different. They exist in the realm of ideas and thoughts. I hope my research on wife abuse will contribute to the emergence of a deeper understanding of the social and cultural sources of gender violence in order to end this violence, and greater awareness of its scope and its negative effects on women. This quote is taken from a survey of students in an Introduction to Cultural Anthropology course at the Community College of Baltimore County, 2018. Boas would not live to see his insights and intuitions confirmed by hard science, let alone define the zeitgeist of a new global culture. Concepts like oppression, inequality, and intersectionality are realities in society that . To understand human behavior. To address these questions, anthropologists are obligated to follow a professional code of ethics that guides us through ethical considerations in our research.[6]. Im convinced that an anthropology major is not necessary for our discipline to play a significant role in students understanding of the messy, amazingly diverse, interconnected world after graduation. Anthropology matters because it allows us to look beneath the surface of things. Harrison, Anthony Kwame. Social anthropology uses practical methods to investigate philosophical problems about the nature Advertisement One of the most effective writing exercises I give students allows them to examine an essential part of their lives, their cell phones. Anthropologists also study our ancient past and human origins, particularly through the subfield of archaeology, which recovers and analyzes material and physical remains.Students who major in anthropology are curious about other cultures and other times. To me, an anthropological perspective combines a comparative (cross-cultural), holistic view with a sense of history and social structure, and asks functional questions like what effect does that have? Never has the voice of anthropology been more important. This research is inductive: based on day-to-day observations, the anthropologist asks increasingly specific questions about the group or about the human condition more broadly. It is important because it gives you exposure to other humanities subjects, relating them to draw conclusions and critical evaluation of different . Anthropology is the systematic study of humanity, with the goal of understanding the origins and distinctiveness of our species and the great diversity in our forms of social existence through space and time. It was a shattering of the European mind, the sociological equivalent of the splitting of the atom. Race, he notes, was accepted as a given, a biological fact, with lineages dividing white from Black reaching back through primordial time. Sociology is important because it helps us to maintain awareness of society, and human behavior, respect others, solve the issues of the community, and make decisions. The LibreTexts libraries arePowered by NICE CXone Expertand are supported by the Department of Education Open Textbook Pilot Project, the UC Davis Office of the Provost, the UC Davis Library, the California State University Affordable Learning Solutions Program, and Merlot. The opposite of cultural relativism is ethnocentrism, the tendency to view ones own culture as the most important and correct and as a measuring stick by which to evaluate all other cultures that are largely seen as inferior and morally suspect. So cooking becomes A prime example of using ethnography for success is in US foreign relations, particularly where the work of anthropologist Ruth Benedict was . Anthropology is a comparative discipline: anthropologists compare and contrast data in order to understand what all humans have in common, how we differ, and how we have changed over time. Through hypothesis testing, they collect and analyze material data (e.g. Anthropology is the antidote to nativism, the enemy of hate, a vaccine of understanding, tolerance and compassion that silences the rhetoric of demagogues, inoculating the world from the likes of the Proud Boys and Donald Trump. It is a fact that society and culture are interrelated and interdependent concepts. In contrast, anthropology showcases cultural variation to illustrate the possibilities and potential for human life, and to demonstrate that the way of doing things we know best is neither normal nor necessarily right. I also spent one year studying abroad at Philipps Universitt in Marburg, Germany, and saved some me time for hitchhiking and traveling around Europe. Every Friday I encourage my students to Have an anthropological weekend and ask them on Monday to describe how this happened. About fifteen years ago, there was a study of sociology instructors asking them to identify the most important concepts, topics, and skills for the introduction to sociology class and the sociology curriculum. Stallings told the students that it is important for people to be part of the "citizen-government.". Does the Gillette Fusion Five Razor, with its five blades, really offer a better shave than the four-bladed Schick Quattro? This encourages students to appreciate that anthropology happens all around them and isnt something that can only be studied in a faraway society. His latest book is Magdalena: River of Dreams (Knopf 2020). Kwiatkowski, Lynn. Why Anthropology Is Important SHARE BACK TO TOP Why Anthropology Is Important Recently retired Professor Gordon McEwan, an expert on the Incas and their predecessors, has helped students thrive in our multicultural world What's Inside: The Nursing Resource Center A Taste of Home I also explore the ways in which abused women, and other Vietnamese professionals and government workers, contest this gender violence in Vietnamese communities. Both men shared stories with students about their experience in Congress. This approach, known as cultural relativism, is an essential methodological tool for studying local life-worlds on their own terms. After finishing my PhD, I had a one-year post-doc in biostatistics in Chapel Hill before I took my first job at Davidson College where I taught for several years.[9]. Yes, anthropology helps to see the familiar in a new light. So when you are working with people and building relationships with them, it helps to have some perspective and understanding of their cultures. Boulder: Westview Press, 1998. Knowing who you are will always be more important than others knowing who you are. Sociologists1 believe that multiculturalism is defined by the following actions: Recognizing that there are tons of different cultures and they're all individually diverse. Knowledge about the State is of great significance to modern man. Using these patterns, functionalist can see how they bring people together. Anthropologists then describe interactions and customs, a process known as ethnography. There are also both scientific and humanistic tendencies within the discipline that, at times, conflict with one another. A new introduction, written by Katie Nelson and Lara Braff, places cultural anthropology in a four-fields context and offers students information about the variety of careers and perspectives in the discipline of anthropology. Because of the diverse subject matter it encompasses, anthropology has become, especially since the middle of the 20th century, a collection of . Often times, informants actively participate in the research process, helping the anthropologist ask better questions and understand different perspectives. So, I opened the course catalogueback then it was a physical bookand started going through it alphabetically. To those who suggest that indigenous cultures are destined to fade away, he would reply that change and technology pose no threat to culture, but power does. What is the importance of knowing the perspective of anthropology sociology? Thanks for reading Scientific American. It has also been described as 'the most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities' (Eric Wolf). We listen to and discuss the late writer David Foster Wallaces This is Water commencement address emphasizing empathy and awareness because anthropology fosters these qualities as well. Social anthropology plays a central role in an era when global understanding and recognition of diverse ways of seeing the world are of critical social, political and economic importance. Myron J. Aronoff Recipient of the 2013 AIS-Israel Institute Lifetime Achievement Award " Anthropology and Political Science does the important work of demonstrating fruitful openings in two fields of study. I also periodically lived with a family in the center of a mountain town. After graduating from college, I served as a Peace Corps volunteer where I worked in primary health care in an upland community in Ifugao Province of the Philippines. Marital sexual violence is an important but understudied form of domestic violence in societies throughout the world, including in Vietnam. Every culture really does have something to say; each deserves to be heard, just as none has a monopoly on the route to the divine. We asked three cultural anthropologists Anthony Kwame Harrison, Bob Myers, and Lynn Kwiatkowski to describe what drew them to the discipline and to explain how they use anthropological perspectives in their varied research projects. As we hope you have learned thus far, anthropology is an exciting and multifaceted field of study. Through my research experiences, I have participated in the rich daily lives of farmers, woodcarvers, hospital personnel, government employees, shopkeepers, students, and other groups of people. Of course, learning to see the world through someone else's . Accessibility StatementFor more information contact us atinfo@libretexts.orgor check out our status page at https://status.libretexts.org. Anthropologists aim to study and present their human subjects in a clear and un biased way. The comparative approach can be historical: How do humans today differ from ancient Homo sapiens? They study the past to help interpret the present. Sadly, considering its rapidly rising importance, it seems very rare that individuals outside of a university setting even know what anthropology is.