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Anthropology
Appreciating Human Diversity
Fifteenth Edition
Conrad Phillip Kottak
University of Michigan
McGraw-Hill
© 2013 McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights Reserved.
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Applying Anthropology
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APPLYING ANTHROPOLOGY
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The Role of the Applied Anthropologist
Development Anthropology
Strategies for Innovation
Anthropology and Education
Urban Anthropology
Medical Anthropology
Anthropology and Business
Careers and Anthropology
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APPLYING ANTHROPOLOGY
• How can change be bad?
• How can anthropology be applied to
medicine, education, and business?
• How can the study of anthropology fit into a
career path?
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Understanding Ourselves
Applied Anthropology
• Coca-Cola Company and “New Coke”
• Market research
• What customers do, think, and want
• Determine locally based demand
• What is working well should be maintained, encouraged,
tweaked, and strengthened
• What changes do people – and which people – want?
• Innovation succeeds best when it is culturally appropriate!!
• Each time an organization expands to a new nation, it must
devise a culturally appropriate strategy for fitting into the new
setting
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RECAP 3.1: The Four Subfields and Two Dimensions
of Anthropology
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Understanding Ourselves
Applied Anthropology versus Academic Anthropology
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Use of anthropological data, perspectives, theory, and methods to identify, assess, and solve
contemporary problems
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Help make anthropology relevant and useful to the world beyond anthropology
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Most seek humane and effective ways of helping local people
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Many work for groups that promote, manage, and assess programs aimed at influencing human
behavior and social conditions, including change and development abroad and social problems
and policies in U.S.
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Various subfields of applied anthropology:
• Medical anthropology
• Developmental anth.
• Archaeology
• Biological anth.
• Forensic anth.
• Linguistic anth.
• Urban anth.
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Understanding Ourselves
• Ethnographic method – valuable tool for applied anthropology
• Study societies firsthand: living with, observing, and learning
from ordinary people
• Participant observation
• “Take me to the local peoples”
• The people must play and active role in changes that affect
them; they have information the “experts” lack
• Anthropological theory (body of findings and generalizations of the
four subfields) guides applied anthropology
• As we compare social change programs, our understanding of
cause and effect increases
• We then add new generalizations about culture change.
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THE ROLE OF THE APPLIED
ANTHROPOLOGIST
• Early application:
• Application was central concern of early anthropology in Great
Britain (studied colonialism) and U.S. (studied Native Americans)
• Connection between early anthropology and colonialism
• Malinowski – practical anthropology
• Focused on Westernization - diffusion of European culture
into tribal societies
• Never questioned the legitimacy of colonialism nor the role in
making it work
• Aided colonial regimes by studying land tenure and land use
• Recommended to colonial regimes how much of the native
land to keep
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ACADEMIC AND APPLIED
ANTHROPOLOGY
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Use of anthropology during WWII
• Studied “culture at a distance” (Japanese and German) to predict behavior of enemies
• After war, worked in Pacific islands to promote local-level cooperation with American policies
• American Anthropological Association (AAA) raised ethical objections to applying anthropology in war
zones and for military intelligence
• Anthropological research should NOT be applied to the potential detriment of the people they
study
Academic anthropology grew most after World War II
• New junior, community, and four-year colleges opened
• Anthropology became a standard part of the college curriculum
During 50s and 60s most American anthropologists were college professors (some worked in agencies and
museums)
During the 70s and 80s, in addition to colleges and museums, anthropologists found jobs with international
organizations, government, business, hospitals, and schools
Today, they work in many different contexts, including large development organizations, communities and
cultural groups, public institutions, government agencies, NGOs and non-profit organizations…
The shift toward application has forced anthropologists to consider the wider social value and implications of
their research
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APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY
TODAY
• Modern anthropology usually seen as helping
profession
• Speak up for disenfranchised
• Highly qualified to suggest, plan, and implement
policies affecting people
• Identifying needs for change that local people
perceive
• Working with those people to design culturally
appropriate and socially sensitive change
• Protecting local people from harmful policies
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DEVELOPMENT
ANTHROPOLOGY
• Branch of applied anthropology that focuses
on social issues in, and the cultural dimension of,
economic development
• Not only do they carry out developmental policies
planned by others, they also plan and guide policy
• Ethical dilemmas often confront development
anthropologists
• Funding doesn’t usually go where it is most
needed
• Planners interests don’t always coincide with the
best interests of the local people
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EQUITY
• Commonly stated goal of
recent development policy
is to promote equity
• Increased equity: means
reduced poverty and more
even distribution of wealth
• Stated aim of most projects is to enhance quality of life, however,
usually living standards decline in the affected area
• Some development projects actual widen wealth disparities; they
have a negative equity impact
• Brazil – loans to sailboat owners but not for non-owners
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STRATEGIES FOR INNOVATION
• Development anthropology can help sort
needs of people and fit projects accordingly
• Should work collaboratively with local people to
assess, and help them realize, their own wishes
and need for change
• Projects that put people first
• consulting with them and responding to their
expressed needs
• Ensure socially compatible ways to implement
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Strategies for Innovation
• To maximize social and economic benefits,
projects must:
• Be culturally compatible
• Respond to locally perceived needs
• Involve men and women in planning and
carrying out the changes that affect them
• Harness traditional organizations
• Be flexible
• Example – potters in Afghanistan receiving kiln
to increase productivity
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OVERINNOVATION
• Avoid overinnovation: trying to achieve too much change
• Projects that fail are usually ones that are
economically and culturally incompatible
• People are usually willing to change just enough to maintain, or
slightly improve on, what they already have
• Motives for modifying behavior come from the traditional culture,
and the small concerns of ordinary life (i.e. productive crops, get
a child through school, get resources for ceremony, pay bills)
• Example – South Asian project promoting cultivation of onions
and peppers
• To avoid overinnovation, projects need to be sensitive to the
culture and concerns of daily life in the community
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UNDERDIFFERENTIATION
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Avoid underdifferentiation: tendency to view so-called less-developed countries
as being more alike than they are
Ignoring cultural diversity, contrasts
• Adoption of uniform approach to deal with different sets of people
Imposes incompatible property concepts and social units
• Presumes units of production are privately owned and worked by nuclear family
(leaving out extended families and social groups)
• Tends to emphasize benefits that will accrue to individuals, rather than social
groups and communities
• Imposes cooperatives that are at least partially based on models from the former
Eastern bloc and Socialist countries
Cooperatives tended to succeed only when they harnessed preexisting local-level
communal institutions
Participants’ groups are most effective when they are based on traditional social
organization or on a socioeconomic similarity among members
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INDIGENOUS MODELS
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Most governments are not really committed to improving the lives of its citizens
• Interference by major powers has also kept governments from enacting needed
reform
Occasionally, governments act as an agent of people
• Madagascar and Malagasy
• “Descent groups” organization before the origin of the state
• Creators of state wove descent groups (ordinary peasant people) into its
structure, making members of important groups advisors to the king
• Gives common people authority in the government
• State collected taxes and organized labor; in return, it redistributed
resources to peasants in need, protected against war and slave raids.
Maintained water works for rice cultivation
• Gave peasant boys chance to work hard and study
• Maintained relationship between the individual, descent group, and state
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Indigenous Models
Madagascar (continued)
• Madagascar gains political independence in 1960 from France
• Government promoted economic development policy aimed at
increasing ability of people to feed themselves (subsistence crop
rather than cash crop)
• Local communities based on kinship and descent, were treated as
partners in, not obstacles to development process
• Descent groups pooled their resources to educate ambitious
members so they can secure positions within the nation/government
• Shows that when government officials are “of the people” (rather than
elites), they are more likely to promote democratic economic
development
• Realistic development promotes change but not overinnovation
• Preserves local systems and relations
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ANTHROPOLOGY AND
EDUCATION
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Research extends from classrooms into homes and neighborhoods
• View children as cultural creatures whose enculturation and attitudes
toward education belong to a context that includes family and peers
• Observe interaction among teachers, students, parents, and visitors
• Students learn to conform to and compete with their peers
• Sociolinguists and cultural anthropologists work side by side
• Example – ESL classes but no bilingual teachers
• Assigned many non-Hispanic students to ESL classes due to
low reading scors and behavior problems
• Classroom with non-English speaking children, non-Spanish
speaking teacher, and students with low scores and behavior
problems
• Spanish students falling behind in all subjects
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URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY
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Cross-cultural and ethnographic study of
urbanization and life in cities
• People migrate for many reasons
(i.e.
economic reasons, to be where
the action is…)
• Proportion of world’s population living in
cities has increased since the Industrial
Revolution
• 50+% lived in cities in 2008
• LDCs have highest urbanization growth
rate
• Over one billion people live in urban slums, mostly without reliable
water, sanitation, public services, and legal security
• What happens if trends continue? Where will trends be most
severe?
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URBAN VERSUS RURAL
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Applied anthropology approach to urban planning:
• starts by identifying key social groups in specific urban contexts
• elicit their wishes for change
• convey those needs to funding agencies
• work with agencies and local people to realize these goals
One role of applied urban anthropologist - to help people deal with urban institutions, such as legal
and social services, with which recent migrants might be unfamiliar
Example – Samoan community in Los Angeles
• Traditional system of matai (“chief” – respect for elders) used to deal with modern urban
problems
• Police shot and killed tow unarmed Samoan brothers; judge dismissed charges against
officer
• Local leaders used matai system to calm angry youth; clan leaders and elders organized
community meeting
• Agreed to use American judicial system
Example – Vigil’s examination of gang violence in the context of large scale immigrant adaptation
to American cities; evolution of gangs from 1970 - present
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MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
• Comparative, biocultural study of disease,
health problems, and health care systems
• Examines which diseases and health conditions
affect a particular population, and why
• Determines how illness is socially constructed,
diagnosed, managed, and treated in various
societies
• Examines which diseases and health conditions
affect particular populations
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MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
• Disease: scientifically identified health threat
caused by a bacterium, virus, fungus,
parasite, or other pathogen
• Illness: condition of poor health perceived
or felt by an individual
• Ethnic groups and cultures may recognize
different illnesses, symptoms, and causes and
have developed different health care systems
and treatment strategies
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Medical Anthropology
• 3 Steps in Anthropology – to improve the
health of indigenous people
• Identify their most pressing health problems
• Gather information on possible solutions
• Implement solutions in partnership with the
agencies in charge of public health programs
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MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
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Health standards are cultural constructions that vary in time and space
3 Theories about the cause of illness:
• Personalistic disease theories: illness blamed on such agents as
sorcerers, witches, ghosts, or ancestral spirits (i.e. curse)
• Naturalistic disease theories: illness explained in impersonal terms
• Western medicine links illness to scientifically demonstrated agents
that have no malice toward their victims
• Latin cultures that classify food, drink, and environmental conditions
as “hot” or “cold”; cannot combine these factors
• Emotionalistic disease theories: illness blamed on emotional
experiences
• Latin Americans may develop “susto”
• Susto – illness brought on by anxiety, fright, or tragic news
• Madagascar – “soul loss”, similar to susto
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MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
• Health care systems: beliefs, customs, specialists, and
techniques aimed at ensuring health and diagnosing and
curing illness; differs in various societies
• Illness causation is important for treatment!!
• All cultures have health care specialists:
• Curer: one who diagnoses and treats illness; often a
shaman/holy man
• Doctors/Scientific medicine: based on scientific
knowledge and procedures
• Health care specialists/curers emerge through a
culturally defined process of selection and training
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MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Western medicine
• Advances in technology, genomics, molecular biology, pathology, surgery,
diagnostics, and applications
• Industrialization and globalization spawned own health problems
• Stressors (i.e. noise), air and water pollution, poor nutrition, dangerous
machinery, impersonal work, isolation, poverty, homelessness, and
substance abuse
• Overuse of drugs and tranquilizers
• Unnecessary surgery
• Impersonality and inequality of the patient-physician relationship
• Overuse of antibiotics – triggered the explosion of resistant microorganisms
• Better than tribal treatments in many ways:
• Thousands of effective drugs
• Preventative health care
• Safer surgical procedures
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Medical Anthropology
• In U.S., good health an ethical imperative
• Emphasis on patient compliance
• Stigmatizes those who act differently
• More personal treatment of illness might benefit Western systems
• De-emphasizing relation between biomedical and psychological
causation and seeing connection between physical, emotional,
and social causes
• Medical anthropology considers impact on ideas about life, death,
and personhood
• Personhood, when life begins, contraception, abortion, and
assisted suicide
• Stem cells, harvested embryos, assisted reproduction,
genetic screening, cloning…
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ANTHROPOLOGY AND
BUSINESS
• Anthropologists may acquire unique
perspective on organizational conditions
and problems
• Work as cultural brokers, translating managers’
goals or workers’ concerns for the other group
• For business, key features of anthropology
include:
• Ethnography and observation
• Tremendous insight gained if the anthropologist can observe
and talk freely with all levels of personnel
• Focus on cultural diversity
• Cross-cultural expertise
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Public and Applied Anthropology
• Public anthropology (public interest anthropology)
• efforts to extend anthropology beyond academia and
to demonstrate its public policy relevance
• Non-academic publishing, testifying at government
hearings, consulting, expert witness, citizen activism,
electoral campaigns, political administrations…
• Goals are to engage with public issues by opposing
policies that promote injustice and by working to
reframe discussions of key social issues in the media
and by public officials
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CAREERS AND
ANTHROPOLOGY
• Anthropology’s breadth provides knowledge
and an outlook that are useful in many kinds
of work
• Breadth is anthropology’s hallmark
• Flexible basis for many careers
• Knowledge about traditions and beliefs of social
groups within a modern nation is important in
planning and carrying out programs that affect
those groups
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