Essay about What is the Anthropology of Europe

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

During the period of 1492 to 1750, Europe experienced drastic changes during their Age of Discovery. As a result of contact and colonization, Western Europe’s economy, political, social, and military systems changed, but also maintained certain aspects that enabled them to build strong civilizations. Such changes include increased (international) trade routes, more centralized governments such as monarchies, decreased unifying influence of the Catholic Church, and increased interest in military conquest and expansion.

1500 A.D. is known as the Rise of Europe. Europe took Chinese inventions and developed them to their full potential. They used the new ideas for overseas expansions, in return, this triggered more technological advances and changes. This caused a transition from medieval to modern civilization. The rise of the nation-state also was an important factor in the rise of Europe. European power rose to a new level of effectiveness and for the first time it gave Europeans a clear margin of superiority over the other great world cultures. European's domination was challenged and rejected. Others felt that Europe's domination left little to individual choice and destroys life's richness and diversity. The two historical fault lines that run in Europe are significant because they stand for the lines that show where war and conflict was located.

The earlier historical settings gave an opportunity to the Europeans to visit the primitive cultures of the world. As time progress the settling of the Europeans in different areas provided an accumulated firsthand knowledge which defined the means for existence for human beings. By looking around us we can observe the later stages on cultures that are as a result of the process that was initiated at the late age of colonization and exploration. The culture of the people has spontaneously been affected by this occurring changes thus causing cultural readjustment that has significantly contributed to transformation and new ways of social interaction. When cultures interact, then there has to be cultural exchanges that are experienced.

The American Anthropological Association decided in 2010 to remove the word science from the statement of the long range plan. This decision caused a long standing debate in the anthropological community to reawaken with a forceful start. Different anthropologists claim how removing science allowed more sub- divisions of anthropology to be included under the statement umbrella. Others claim how it diminished the name of what anthropology was as a science. This argument questions how anthropology will thrive or unravel if it moves away from the sciences and into other areas of interest.

Europe was a major power over the course of world history, before the rise of the United States, which was originally a British colony. As a result, many people wonder why that came to be. Why is it that Europeans became so dominant instead of the Native Americans or the Incas? Jared Diamond attempts to provide an answer to this question by writing the book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. In this volume, Diamond describes how geography is the major reason why history became history. Using Diamond’s explanation, we can see how geography determined Europe’s fate in the approaching future.

Explaining and identifying the differences and relationships between societies and cultures in Europe and Africa can be a very interesting and a controversial topic to talk about. The two continents are very large masses of land and have many populated areas throughout their regions. There are some very important facts to know if one wants to travel or move to these specific locations. Important facts to consider are the languages, food, and places there are throughout the regions, the visitors would like to consider to tour through. Knowing these considerations will also help tourists understand what the citizens of these countries do and what their lives revolve around on a day to day basis when visitors arrive there.

The fact that the European influence was largely reflected upon world’s culture and economy is indubitably true. Such an impact, that has been deeply rooted inside the world for past several decades, acknowledged part of its people to notice its clear interference that has been covertly embedded over time within world’s evolution. Blaut reveals the secret of the phenomenon also known as “Eurocentrism”¹ in his article. Blaut proposes that “Eurocentrism is quite simply the colonizer’s model of the world.”². This statement beholds the dominant evidences behind inequal history between Europeans and the non-Europeans that will correspond and clarify colonial events.

In today 's society, culture is impacting our everyday life, experience and social relations; we are all categorized by our cultural “groups”, but this has changed rapidly throughout the years from one generation to the next. Cultural studies were developed in the late 1950’s, through the 1970’s by the British academic scholars. The British scholars were able engaged cultural analysis and the developed then transformed of the different fields, for example, politically, theoretically and empirically that are now represented around the world.

Islam is the second most widely practiced religion in France, with the country being home to the largest Muslim population in Europe. Undoubtedly, France has faced various challenges in its attempt to achieve integration between its citizens and several issues have arisen during the last few decades. In order to comprehend the complexity of issues related to assimilation and integration, it is important to understand the different aspects of these issues and identify the reasons behind them to provide the fundamental basis needed to tackle them.

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.

Europe is given special consideration thus far in this class. What made Europe or European civilization unique in the perspective of some authors? It went from ‘marginal’ status to powerful region in a few hundred years. What did this process look like? Be sure to address this at the various levels (ideological, behavioral, institutional, material etc.). Are there reasons for this dominance that are more important than others?

Since the emergence of anthropology in the late 1800’s, the customs and methods of this academic discipline have been altered in many ways. It is assumed that in the early years of anthropology, theorists relied on travelers in order to articulate their theories (Dahl 2017). This practice is known as armchair anthropology and involves creating theories without any fieldwork. Some examples of famous armchair anthropologists include Edward Burnett Tylor and James Frazer. The work of both theorists involved no travelling or conducting of fieldwork. Early anthropology focused on primitive cultures and how societies transformed from being barbaric to civilized. In modern days, anthropology is discovering new topics to study every day and the information relies a great amount on fieldwork and lab work conducted by anthropologists to support their findings. As some of the early methods of anthropology continue to be used by anthropology, more are being developed in order to produce more efficient research and theories.

In his Introduction to Orientalism, Edward Said asserts that the “Orient has helped to define Europe as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience,” (71). Therefore, in Season of Migration to the

Geert Hofstede is an influential Dutch researcher in the fields of organizational studies and more concretely organizational culture, also cultural economics and management. He is a well-known pioneer in his research of cross-cultural groups and organizations and played a major role in developing a systematic framework for assessing and differentiating national cultures and organizational cultures. His studies demonstrated that there are national and regional cultural groups that influence behavior of societies and organizations.