Introducing Cultural Anthropology Summary

According to the Guest textbook, what is cultural anthropology (summarize in your own words in a sentence or two), and what is a key method used to conduct research in cultural anthropology. How does one employ this method, according to Guest (pp. 7-19)?

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.

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.

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

a. Herbicide: a substance that is toxic to plants and is used to destroy unwanted vegetation.

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.

According to the novel, Paradigms for Anthropology Edited (An Ethnographic Reader) by E. Paul Durrenberger and Suzan Erem explained people consider their religious rituals as being their most creative expressions in indication of their cultural values as well as perspective. To study a religious belief including a ritual practice in another culture than one's own creates a series of difficulties. With such religious rituals cause their to be a search for attention and an explanation. Oftentimes, such beliefs cause there to be drama amongst others. Then all of a sudden, the people who were once considered reasonable become unsure if their beliefs when it's examined closely.

How do anthropologists define marriage? What types of marriage are also identified? Also, watch one of the films in the course playlist pertaining to polygamy. Remember to think like an anthropologist and provide advantages and disadvantages to each type of marriage.

Below is a book written by Lee D. Baker at Berkeley, specifically the University of Carolina Press, which encompasses ten chapters along with a dedication, acknowledgment’s, introduction, appendix, and bibliography. Within the introduction, Baker discusses the notion of race in the United States and the illusion of race being a “scientific fact” within the beginning of our nation’s history (Baker 1998,1). Moreover, Baker highlights the intention in writing this work, for Baker wanted to explore the relations between the changing debate on race within the realm of anthropology. By examining the association between race and anthropology, Baker is able to explain racial constructs that underwent transformation from the early 1800s-1900s. Additionally,

There are many lost civilizations that today anthropologists and archaeologists are slowly finding. They go into these places and dig up artifacts and information about the people that live in these places. They also try and find what happened there to see what government they had, what they usually did in these places, and how they became lost. There are three places where each has an old, small, lost culture or civilization. These three places are Peru, Bangladesh, and Florida. Here is some information found in three videos about the civilizations in each country or state.

Kinship influences that one could marry and it governs many other aspects of everyday life.

What is often lost in theology today is not necessarily the knowledge of Scripture but the proper application of this knowledge in all areas of life. All areas of life refer to one’s everyday world, or better yet, one’s culture. Culture encompasses every aspect of life, whether it be the customs and learned behavior of everyday, the entertainment and messages that listeners absorb or the commercial products that seemingly define consumers. In order to effectively share the Gospel, believers must possess a consensus of their place in culture and how to embody their faith in the midst of the world around them. Additionally, believers must develop a keen eye for cultural trends, similar to how a preacher must relate to both to

I serve as a pastoral intern at the Vineyard Christian Church of Evanston. This marks my second year of internship at this church. I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience of becoming familiar with the culture of a non-denominational setting of the church. The Evanston Vineyard comprises of 57 nations of the world. The church is not only unique because of this particular diversity (for example, there is a Spanish-speaking congregation that convenes every Sunday in the La Viña auditorium, one of multiple auditoria in this church) but also because of its hospitable and welcoming environment. This church context serves as the backdrop for the events and discussions that comprise the remainder of this paper.

Anthropology is the social sciences discipline that looks to understand humanity. In this discipline there are subdivisions such as cultural anthropology and primatology, and the beauty of anthropology is that you can more than you think, link some of your life event to some anthropological context.

All institutions within society facilitate communication, and in that way, they all contribute to the creation, spread, and evolution of culture (Crouch, 2008). When Christians speak of engaging with culture it usually means consuming culture with discernment. We teach one another how to analyze and evaluate culture in its myriad forms. The only way to change culture is to create more of it” (Crouch, 2008, p. 66) This is right and important. We are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so we are not