Examples Of Reflexive Anthropology

Ethnographic research is the scientific description of specific human cultures, foreign to the ethnographer. Each ethnographer has his or her own way of conducting research and all of these different ideas can be transmitted and understood in a number of different ways. Because there is no one set idea of how an ethnographer should go about his or her research, conflicts arise. In Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco, Paul Rabinow uses a story like process to discuss his experiences during his research in Morocco. This makes it easier for the reader to understand his ideas then just having a technical book about the many different aspects of Moroccan life that he may have discovered. In Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of

The essay is directly comparing and contrasting the education in America versus the education of Japan. The essay is organized into eight sections, with each section starting off with Mori’s experience in Japanese school and then to American school. With the use of mainly personal experiences and anecdotes the essay is governed through emotional appeal,

As a beginning of this film, a myth is told by the Nyinba people of Nepal: a story of fearsome spirits thought to kill children and the weak. Their crime was adulterous passionate love and it was this that had condemned them to live eternally between life and death. In this film, we learn about and explore marriages in tribal societies. We can clearly identify the differences that challenge both side’s ideas and sensibilities about marriage bonds.

Karen Ho, in “Biographies of Hegemony” explains how investment bankers, the high forces on Wall Street, influence undergraduates while negatively contributing to societal norms. In “The Mega-Marketing of Depression in Japan,” Ethan Watters illustrates and explains how the Western conception of an illness has been deliberately exported to Japan. In both of these texts, there is a clear overlap between the themes of cultural narratives and personal choices. Cultural narratives in a given society help shape the community and allow an individual to get a better understanding of the general principals and societal norms. For examples, narratives such as a culture of smartness in Ho’s essay and marking strategies in Watters’ essay, allow an

8. In what different ways did Japanese and Korean women experience the pressures of Confucian orthodoxy?

This study examines Horace Miner’s essay “Body Rituals Among the Nacirema. While using the participant observation approach, he gives us a new perspective on the daily behaviors within this group of people. Exploring ethnocentrism and how we view cultures outside of our own.

The Japanese picture brides’ American-born children who rejected their mothers’ culture and language remind me of myself and my own failed efforts to suppress my cultural identity at Marin Academy as a way to fit in with my peers, invoking a great feeling of empathy within me because I understand what it is like to want to feel included within a greater community. Julie Otsuka reveals the stark change that begins to occur in the mother’s children when she writes, “They preferred their own company to ours and pretended not to understand a word that we said… They insisted on eating bacon and eggs every morning for breakfast instead of bean-paste soup” (74-75). By “pretend[ing] not to understand” what their mothers are saying, the children are breaking the only form of communication

“…And we were Japanese with Japanese feelings and Japanese pride and Japanese thoughts because it was all right then to be Japanese and feel and think all things Japanese because one is not born in America and raised in America and taught in America and one does not speak and swear and drink and smoke and play and fight and see and hear in America among Americans in American streets and houses without becoming American and loving it” (16).

When an ethnographer examines a group of people, she is influenced by her position and understanding of her own culture. Before an ethnographer even begins her research, her opinion is effecting the process of selecting a topic. For instance, Anthropology’s most commonly known researcher Bronslow Malinowsky wrote the Argonauts of the Western Pacific. He did not choose to study a culture similar to his own because of the interest he had in the ‘exotic’. His preferences told him to pick a more remote group of people, the Trobriand Islanders. There has been a history of choosing the opposite of the Anthropologists own culture. Reflexivity is the use of one’s experiences to examine a culture. It is my argument that

These two examples emphasize how Jeanne’s Japanese identity conflict with her American identity. When

Exposure of unknown and unconventional perspectives may inherently arouse a contrasting reaction of each explorer. Literature could introduce a person 's mind with foreign lifestyles pertaining to certain eras otherwise alien to the reader. Such themes that possibly would never have cemented pass an ephemeral history have erected intimate accounts of Heian life by Murasaki Shikibu and the topically controversial penmanship of Tanizaki Jun’ichirō. Tale of Genji explores the evanescent nature of life stimulated by incestuous endeavors of the protagonist who sexually assaults some women without societal repercussions; Diary of a Mad Old Man transcends stereotypical youthful vigor instead with the sexual fantasies of a dying elder soul whose socially stigmatized behavior are lived via his diary entries and erode generational taboos.

In this essay, I will be creating a discourse on anthropological activism and how it relates to the basic principles of anthropology, whilst referring to the case study Activist Anthropologists by Victoria Sanford. I will provide my anthropological views on this subject based on my research.

I am sitting in humanities class, looking up at the drab posters telling me what similes and alliterations are for probably the thousandth time. I start to feel drowsy and put my head on my desk. I then feel a tiny smack on the side of my face. I look up groggily and see a tiny ball of white paper on my desk. I pick it up and look around the room for the person who threw the tiny projectile. I see my friend Daniel grinning maliciously. He writes something down on a pad of paper and shows it to me. I read Paper Wars.

Childan understands the American culture and history which he primarily uses his arts and crafts. Childan makes American antiques and sells them in the High Castle occupied by Japanese administrators. It is not ironic that the Japanese failed to understand the real America. The Japanese understood the American customs because they parasitized the American way of life. Childan prejudiced against America because of his “weak sense of history” (Dick, 338). Childan personally fails to understand about his country and the Japanese on the other hand ape the American customs and history. As stated by Dick, Childan himself doesn’t know about America but the Japanese do because of developing an interest in the country (338). The Japanese understands the version and uniqueness of America and not as how Childan perceives their understanding.

Starting the first day of school, we talked about the what Anthropology is and how it is distinctive from other groups. When Professor Fisk talked about how anthropology is not culture bound and by the end of the semester he would hopefully take off these "cultural blinders" that all people have. From that day I knew that Anthropology was going to be a class that I learned a lot of knowledge that I would take with me forever and apply it to my life.