Anthropology Essay

In order to understand any culture, it is essential to acknowledge the importance of taking a holistic view. This approach, which gained recognition and validation in the twentieth century, stresses the importance of accounting for all of the components of a culture. The concept requires an understanding of each subsystem, which dictates certain aspects of the culture being studied. With this theory as basis for her approach, Myerhoff is faced with the difficult task of piecing together the many parts contributing to the formation of the culture at the Center, while simultaneously recognizing the distinctions between the acting subsystems. Sometimes it seems that realizing what leads to specific cultural constructs would be extremely difficult; this is especially the case with traits that have become so naturalized that only an outsider would recognize them as distinct and significant. That said, it is obvious that there are advantages to studying a completely exotic culture, as the majority of anthropologists do; however, Myerhoff chose to do her fieldwork in a culture that is centered

In society today, the discipline of anthropology has made a tremendous shift from the practices it employed years ago. Anthropologists of today have a very different focus from their predecessors, who would focus on relating problems of distant peoples to the Western world. In more modern times, their goal has become much more local, in focusing on human problems and issues within the societies they live.

This is about a culture called Nacirema that is practiced in many different place and was brought to the attention of the Anthropologist attention by Professor Linton to talk about this culture that was poorly understood. The Nacirema is a type of culture that is summed up as that these people that believe in this culture that the human body is ugly and that the natural tendencies are meant to debilitate and cause disease. They are also big believes in rituals and ceremonies in the household to preform these ceremonies either as a family but in most cases it was privately. Where they would receive charms and other items form the medicine man of the community that would help with a certain problem. They would use these magic items to help with

"Body Ritual Among the Nacirema" is significant as it establishes the issue of representation in ethnography. The purpose of the article is to raise the question of how can we study a different culture from the outside and how can we understand our own culture from within. Culture can be defined in many ways, Tylor (1871) stated that culture is; “…that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” Therefore, the article presents the topic of cultural relativism, arguing that there is no impartial viewpoint from which to assess cultures, that every culture should be interpreted and understood from the

Anthropologists have always had their discrepancies with the word culture and its background significance. There have been numerous definitions that have filtered through the field, yet not one that everyone can accept or agree with. Franz Boas, an anthropologist in the early 20th Century, and his students, had a difficult time figuring out the objective of what culture is. Culture is about learning and shared ideas about behaviour. Although Boas and his students had a slightly different idea in mind. They ultimately reached a conclusion, a definition of culture in their view that is a contradiction in terms. Boas sates that, “ culture was expressed through the medium of language but was not reducible to it;

When I and two other people left class and walked to the Anthropology open house, we were stopped outside of the door to receive the paper. We were told we needed 6 other stamps in total to get the extra credit for the assignment. One stamp was given to use at the door.

An anthropologist will try to read and understand the Nacirema culture with the notion of being culturally relative. With this way of thinking in mind, we could study the Nacirema peoples without any judgment. If we can come to terms with our ethnocentric views, we can quickly analyze the wrong way of thinking. Therefore, we can try to understand the Nacirema culture through their shoes. If we keep looking at their cultural in a primarily ethnocentric perspective, we would not have found the similarities between the Nacirema culture and our own.

The Mbuti is an indigenous pygmy group who lives in the Ituri Forest in Zaire. In doing research for this paper it was found that the Mbuti is referred to as Bambuti quite frequently, however, they are only one of four cultures that make up the Bambuti. Researchers believe that pygmy people have lived in the rainforests of central Africa for more than 6000 years. Mbutis are primarily foragers who hunt or gather most of their food. The culture of the Mbuti or Bambuti is one of egalitarian where there is no defined leader. Conflicts are resolved by community consensus. The Mbuti culture holds the forest in which they live in high esteem. Their belief is that they are one with the forest. They even refer to the forest as “mother” or

Modern Culture instills a misguided perception of why charitable acts are performed. In Alfie Kohn’s article, “ The Wrong Way to Get People to Do the Right Thing,” the author uses research evidence, from newspaper articles, to explain his thesis that rewards and praise promotes charitable acts. This article exposes the sad truth behind the natural tendency for human generosity.

Cold Water, directed by Noriko Ogami is a documentary from 1986 about cross-cultural adaptation and culture shock. It is about diving into a new culture and having it feel, as one foreign student puts it, like a “plunge into cold water.” Twelve Boston University foreign students express their perceptions of their experiences in the U.S. as each of them (plus one American student and three specialists) is interviewed about living and studying in a new culture. Initial focus is on the arrival and immediate post-arrival period and the culture shock which, for most of the interviewees, follows on its heels. It becomes clear that central to the problems encountered

Anthropology has come a long way in getting people to understand its unique work. It is not just for the benefit of the study itself, but it allows people to be aware of how other groups of people of different backgrounds and cultures view the world. Nowadays in modern society, ignorance and prejudice have made acknowledgement and understanding of one’s cultural identity harder because many believe that their ideals or methods of living are correct. Aside from culture, anthropology aims to reveal how people interact and are able to form coherent societies despite their similarities or differences. This can be done by “making the familiar strange and the strange familiar,” which means taking a familiar phenomenon and describing it to make

Examining the ideas and beliefs within ones own cultural context is central to the study of Anthropology. Issues of Race and Ethnicity dominate the academic discourses of various disciplines including the field of Anthropology. Race and Ethnicity are controversial terms that are defined and used by people in many different ways. This essay shall explore the ways in which Anthropologists make a distinction between race and ethnicity and how these distinctions serve as frames for cross-cultural comparison and analysis. It is important to accurately define these coined terms before one is able to make accurate comparisons and distinctions between them, and their relation to the concept of

The earliest fossil of the primate can go back before the extinction of the dinosaur over 65 million years ago. Bones and teeth were discovered in Montana and Wyoming (Park, 2008). Even though there was primate like evidence before the dinosaur extinction, (Shipman, 2012).

“It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.”

Cultural anthropology is one of the four fields of anthropology. It looks for patterns of beliefs or behaviours in a group and how they are connected. Anthropologist looks at differences and similarities between different groups and different cultures. They obtain their data through field work. There is actually two method of for anthropologist to study a culture of a group; ethnography and ethnology. Ethnography is a detailed description of a particular group based on the information you get with field work. Most anthropologist actually go live with this particular group for a certain amount of time to get the more information possible and write the most detailed and accurate description of this group. The other method, ethnology, is a study of different cultures from cross cultural comparison. In this method, they generalized a lot and they using the information of some ethnographic studies already done.