Cultural Anthropology And Human Experience By Katherine Detwyler

What is anthropology? This is a question that can be answered in numerous ways, but we are going to define it as simple as possible. If we break the word down into its two components it means the study of human beings. “Anthropo” means human beings or human kind and “logy” or “logia” is Greek for the study or knowledge of something. When we put it all together, it is the study of human beings which can be very broad. Anthropology can be broken down into four subfields: physical anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and cultural anthropology.

Anthropology is the study of humans in the past and present. Four subfields encompass anthropology; Archaeology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, and physical anthropology. Archaeology is the study of human cultures in the past through material remains. These material remains include artifacts as well as architecture. Archaeologist can focus in prehistoric, historic, or classical archaeology. Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, is an example of archaeology in film. It is not the best example since Dr. Jones does not carry the correct equipment with him in the field (notebooks, trowel, shovel) nor does he take any notes when removing an artifact from a site. However, the film does portray how an archaeologist would dig in order to recover artifacts, like when Indy and the team find the

The chapter discusses how human development is affected by the nature in which a person is born into. It discusses how worldviews regarding child 's development vary among different regions throughout the continents. The chapter goes into the similarities of cultures as well as the differences of how humans develop across the board in all areas of thought in different regions of the world. The author tries to link human development with cultural aspects of how problem solving occurs as far as cultural influences are concerned. The nature of human development may occur in a pattern with all types of cultures and background.

James P. Spradley (1979) described the insider approach to understanding culture as "a quiet revolution" among the social sciences (p. iii). Cultural anthropologists, however, have long emphasized the importance of the ethnographic method, an approach to understanding a different culture through participation, observation, the use of key informants, and interviews. Cultural anthropologists have employed the ethnographic method in an attempt to surmount several formidable cultural questions: How can one understand another's culture? How can culture be qualitatively and quantitatively assessed? What aspects of a culture make it unique and which connect it to other cultures? If

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;

Arriving at a foreign country at the age of eleven years old was and exiting and yet intimidating experience. High buildings, wide roads, newer and nicer cars on the streets were some of the first things I noticed when I arrived to the city of Los Angeles CA. Living in a country where you were not born in could be difficult some times. Although Spanish is spoken at a grand scale in CA, it was difficult to communicate with and understand the teachers from my classes at the elementary level since all they spoke was English. Los Angeles is a city of great diversity, therefore it is believed to be the perfect place for any person arriving from another country to not feel like a foreign, such believe

Khademian's book, "Working With Culture", is similar to Selznick's Leadership in Administration, in that both focus on the less technical aspects of public administration (structure and hierarchy) and instead look at problems that arise "between the lines" so to speak - that of people within the organization, and more specific to her work; the idea of culture within an organization. While this is not something that has been unknown, in fact it has been brought up in almost all of the works we have read so far, what is specific to the work we previously read, by Selznick, and Khademian's is an understanding of culture as something that does exist, not by mere chance as Cook and Wilson took it, but as something that should be acknowledged,

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.

On the other hand applied anthropology (anthropology research) does very much consist of one putting their new found knowledge to use. These anthropologists go into a new region with pencil and paper at hand in order to jot down their observations. They wish to acquire new undiscovered traditions or history of a region so that they may formulate a summary. As Vine Deloria Jr. in Custer Died For Your Sins said, “ The summaries are condensed for two reasons. Some condensations are sent to government agencies as reports justifying the previous summer’s research. Others

Definition of Archeology Uninformed people might think that archaeology is the stuff of Indiana Jones, the character played by Harrison Ford in the classic 1981 Movie entitled Raiders of the Lost Ark. In this movie, Jones was an adventurer and so-called “archaeologist” who sought a golden idol. Jones did not proceed in an orderly, scientific fashion, nor record the surroundings, location, or precise measurements. There are many different definitions for archeology, and here are a few: “Archeology is the study of human history and prehistory through the excavation of sites and the analysis of artifacts and other physical remains” says one source, “It is an area of science that studies people and animals from the past and the things they

Anthropology is the study of society and cultures, when used by historians it can allow that historical narratives to grow. Historians can use anthropology to better explore cultural and social trends as well as deeply explore a certain community in great detail, exploring certain events that may be unique to that community along with its myths and folklore or is the community a part of a larger trend.

How should someone interpret another culture that they are not familiar with? In the study of cultural anthropology there are two terms in which an individual can formulate an opinion on a new cultural setting. The first is ethnocentrism, which is defined by anthropologist as the belief that one’s own way is correct. (Shchultz and Lavenda:2013 28) There are numerous accounts of this ideology throughout history which has resulted into some of worst human acts that were ever committed. When the Europeans began colonization in Africa, Australia and in North America they strongly believed that the Europeans culture was the superior culture. This led to the annihilations of multiple cultures and religions throughout these regions because the European began to convert these indigenous people to the “better civilization”. The next term used to acquaint a new culture is called cultural relativism, which has multiple variations, but in “Cultural Anthropology: A Perspective on The Human Condition” they define this term as someone relating their own culture to another culture that they are not familiar with. Also main goal of cultural relativism is to promote an understanding of seemingly odd cultural practices that rang in morality from bug eating to genocide. (Shchultz and Lavenda:2013 31) Also keep in mind this ideology is meant to be in a neutral stand among these different cultures despite the observers own moral concepts. An example that could be given is female

Park defines archaeology as a subfield of anthropology that studies the past culture of humans and reconstructs the past cultural systems that existed. He goes on to say that they study cultures and people that are no longer living (Park, 2008). Archaeology reconstructs past cultural systems. Archaeology began as a method of

The four subfields of anthropology are physical anthropology, archeology, linguistic anthropology, and cultural anthropology. Physical anthropology examines the evolution of humans and their variability, and adaptations to their environment due to natural selection. Archeology is the historical examination of human life through remnants or artifacts of human past. These artifacts can be used to reconstruct human behavior before written records or to explore the more recent past of humans. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life in the past and present. Cultural anthropology is the branch of anthropology that focuses on the cultural variations among humans and their

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.