importance of knowing perspective of anthropology

She was previously Lecturer in Race and Ethnicity in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey. Its the antidote to nativism,the enemy of hatea vaccine of understanding, tolerance and compassion that can counter the rhetoric of demagogues. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. And though his research took him to esoteric realms of myth and shamanism, symbolism and the spirit, he remained grounded in the politics of racial and economic justice, the promise and potential of social change. Different from other introductory textbooks, this book is an edited volume with each chapter written by a different author. This approach, known as cultural relativism, is an essential methodological tool for studying local life-worlds on their own terms. Anthropology is made up of several branches of study. To offer just one example, many of my students are surprised to learn that among my (matrilineal) family in Ghana, I have a distinctly different relationship with cousins who are children of my mothers brother as compared with cousins who are children of her sister. Early anthropologists were interested in human relations with the environment as factors in cultural development. Thanks for reading Scientific American. Anthropology can be used to answer questions about human origins, evolution, and behavior. From the study of race in the United States, to health experiences on the island of Dominica, to hunger and gender violence in the Philippines, these anthropologists all demonstrate the endless potential of the discipline. People need the anthropological perspective because it shows patterns of behavior and those patterns can be helpful to avoid possible repeating of history. Amongst the disciplines: Anthropology, sociology, intersection and A. Anthropology places such ideas within the broader context of human lifeways, or what anthropologists call culture. anthropology, "the science of humanity," which studies human beings in aspects ranging from the biology and evolutionary history of Homo sapiens to the features of society and culture that decisively distinguish humans from other animal species. There is no hierarchy of progress in the history of culture, no evolutionary ladder to success. My family moved to the United States when I was still a baby; and I had witnessed my Asante mother struggle with adapting to certain aspects of life in America. To address these issues, I am researching the abuse of women by their husbands, and in some cases their in-laws as well, in northern Vietnam. in fact, rather than recognizing archaeology as one of the subfields of the discipline (along with linguistic, social/ Most are surprised at the far-flung origins of what they wear. The word ethnography also refers to the end result of our fieldwork. Published Mar 18, 2016. In 1871 Darwin published The Descent of Man, which argued that human beings shared a recent common ancestor with the great African apes. 1. After much debate, the word science remains in the mission statement and, throughout the United States, anthropology is predominantly categorized as a social science. Stallings told the students that it is important for people to be part of the "citizen-government.". He even asserted that racial intermixture can upset the genetic as well as the social equilibrium of a group. Coon at the time of his retirement in 1963 was a respected professor and curator at the University of Pennsylvania. Anthropologists conduct their research in the field with the species, civilization, or groups of people they are studying. Anthropological perspective is very important because it looks at shared aspects of humanity like language, cultural connections, economics, and curiosity to find the common thread. 1.2: Anthropological Perspectives is shared under a CC BY-NC license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts. Where a fascination with the exotic initially brought me to anthropology, it is the disciplines ability to shed light on what many of us see as normal, common, and taken-for-granted that has kept me with it through three degrees (bachelors, masters, and Ph.D.) and a fifteen-year career as a college professor. Anthropologists do not judge other cultures based on their values nor do they view other ways of doing things as inferior. Social structure is patterns of social behavior. For anthropologists, cultural relativism is especially important. Anthropologists of all the subfields use comparison to learn what humans have in common, how we differ, and how we change. If you find it normal, for example, that an Irish boy would have an Asian girlfriend, or that a Jewish friend might find solace in the Buddhist dharma, or that a person born into a male body could self-identify as a woman, then you are a child of anthropology. Today, not two generations on, it goes without saying that no educated person would share any of these bankrupt certitudes. No two people will see a situation or issue in exactly the same way . is shared under a CC BY-NC license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts. One division, called cultural anthropology, focuses on an understanding of the way that people live in different societies or cultures around the world. It is through comparison that we learn more about the range of possible responses to varying contexts and problems. Anthropology has different branches and each of the branches provides for a certain aspect of the inquiry into our origins and evolution as a species. Environmental anthropology deals broadly with culture and environment. Like. 15 Reasons Why Anthropology Is Important - Curious Desire And yet they stood their ground, and because they did, as Charles King writes, anthropology came into its own on the front lines of the great moral battle of our time [as it] anticipated and in good measure built the intellectual foundations for the seismic social changes of the last hundred years from womens suffrage and civil rights to sexual revolution and marriage equality.. 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. Both men shared stories with students about their experience in Congress. The top five responses for the sociology curriculum were: sociological critical thinking; sociological imagination; how to use and . Death and the belief in the soul and the spirits play important roles in the evolutionist-intellectual theories of origin written by Edward Burnett Tylor . Ethnocentrism is not a useful perspective in contexts in which people from different cultural backgrounds come into close contact with one another, as is the case in many cities and communities throughout the world. 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]. Kwiatkowski, Lynn. Respecting the cultural differences between one another. In 2012, bothKiplinger andForbes ranked anthropology as the least valuable undergraduate major, unleashing a small wave of indignation as many outside the field rushed to defend the study of culture as ideal preparation for any life or career in an interconnected and globalized world. Being an anthropologist at a major university that doesnt have an anthropology program, I believe, gives me a unique perspective on the disciplines key virtues. Acknowledging the validity of different cultural backgrounds and expressions. Katharine Tyler is Lecturer in Social Anthropology in the Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology at the University of Exeter. 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. Marital sexual violence is an important but understudied form of domestic violence in societies throughout the world, including in Vietnam. I was initially drawn to anthropology because of its traditional focus on exoticness and difference. All animals eat, but we are the only animal that cooks. Anthropologists ask questions like: How do chimpanzees differ from humans? 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. 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. For instance, the study of language is the domain of linguistic anthropology. The comprehensiveness of anthropology stems from its emphasis on context, reflected in the perspectives offered by the discipline's four fields: sociocultural, biological, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology. A lot of issues we have today (racism, xenophobia, etc.) By using a holistic approach, anthropologists reveal the complexity of biological, social, or cultural phenomena. What is the importance of knowing the perspective of anthropology, sociology and political science. Hip Hop Underground: The Integrity and Ethics of Racial Identification. They study the past to help interpret the present. Differences in customs and beliefs reflected differences in intelligence and destiny, with every culture finding its rung on an evolutionary ladder rising from the savage to the barbarian to the civilized of the Strand in London, with technological wizardry, the great achievement of the West, being the sole measure of progress and success. Why Perspective is Important - The Odyssey Online For example, a cultural anthropologist studying the meaning of marriage in a small village in India might consider local gender norms, existing family networks, laws regarding marriage, religious rules, and economic factors. Yes, anthropology helps to see the familiar in a new light. Anthropology is the broadest, most fundamental of academic subjects and should be at the core of a modern undergraduate education. 1.4: Why is Anthropology Important? Introduction to Biological Anthropology - Explorations 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. How perspective of anthropology help you? Explained by Sharing Culture Other subdisciplines, like cultural anthropology and linguistic anthropology, use humanistic and/or inductive approaches to their collection and analysis of nonmaterial data, like observations of everyday life or language in use.
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