Download Anthropology

Chapter 1
 Understanding Anthropology
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© David Eller 2009
Humanity is a remarkably and inherently diverse species.
Everywhere that humans live, they live in groups with unique ways of
life.
There is no single or correct way for humans to live.
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© David Eller 2009
Humans groups also no longer live in isolation.
Trade, travel, and technology circulate cultural items nationally,
regionally, continentally, and even globally. Even the smallest and
most remote societies are affected.
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© David Eller 2009
Glocalization = the unique ways that global forces are absorbed,
transformed, and practiced in local contexts.
Humans are part of a global and unifying system and yet still live
local and diverse lives.
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© David Eller 2009
Anthropology is the study of human diversity, of the diverse
local ways of humans despite, or sometimes because of, broader
and even global relations, processes, and forces.
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© David Eller 2009
Anthropology is a social science, studying human behavior.
Unlike other social sciences, anthropology investigates the full
variation of behavior—all of the kinds of human groups and all of
the things that human groups do.
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© David Eller 2009
Anthropology is unique among social sciences in terms of
 The questions that it asks
 The perspective that it adopts
 The methods that it uses
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© David Eller 2009
Anthropology’s questions include:
 How many different ways are there to be human? That is, what is
the “range” of human diversity?
 What are the commonalities across all of these different kinds of
humans and human lifeways?
 Why are humans so diverse? What is the source or explanation
of human diversity?
 How do the elements of a particular human lifeway fit together
and influence each other?
 How does one way of being human develop into another way
over time?
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© David Eller 2009
Human diversity falls along two axes:
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1.
Body versus behavior
2.
Past versus present
© David Eller 2009
The Four Fields of Anthropology
Past
Archaeology
Behavior
Body
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Present
Cultural
Anthropology
Linguistic Anthropology
Physical/Biological
Anthropology
© David Eller 2009
Physical or biological anthropology is the area that
specializes in the diversity of human bodies in the past and
present.
Questions:
 Change in body over time (evolution)
 Adaptation to environment
 Migrations and intermarriages of groups
 Relations to other species (especially primates)
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© David Eller 2009
Archaeology is the study of the diversity of human behavior in
the past.
Questions:
 Lifeways of past societies
 Technical knowledge and skills
 Changes in society over time
 Natural and social processes that cause change, including collapse
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© David Eller 2009
Linguistic anthropology focuses on the diversity of human
language in the past and present.
Questions:
 Similarities and differences between languages
 Origin of and change in language
 Migration and mixing of languages, and emergence of new
languages
 Social uses and effects of language
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© David Eller 2009
Cultural anthropology, also sometimes called social
anthropology, is the study of the diversity of human behavior in
the present.
Questions:
 The range of contemporary diversity
 Causes of local cultural behavior
 Processes within culture
 Relations between cultures
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© David Eller 2009
Specialties in twenty-first century anthropology include:
 Urban anthropology
 Medical anthropology
 Forensic anthropology
 Visual anthropology
 Ethnomusicology
 Ethnobotany
 Development anthropology
 Feminist anthropology
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© David Eller 2009
Applied Anthropology
Anthropology is not and never has been a purely “academic” pursuit,
disconnected from the real world.
 Anthropologists can study modern industrial societies and the
groups within them.
 Anthropologists can help solve contemporary social problems.
 Many anthropologists work outside of academics.
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© David Eller 2009
The National Association for the Practice of Anthropology
(www.practicinganthropology.org) promotes the use of
anthropology “to address social issues related to public health,
organizational and community development, information
technology systems, housing, social justice, law, the media,
marketing, environmental management, and the arts.”
The Society for Applied Anthropology (www.sfaa.net) urges that the
“occupation of ‘Anthropologist’ should be promoted as a satisfying
and important professional role whether as an independent
consultant, an employee of public agencies, corporations, or
private organizations, or as a university faculty member or
administrator.”
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© David Eller 2009
Applications of anthropology include:
 Policy-making in government
 Advocacy for underprivileged groups, especially indigenous societies
 Writing and publishing, for example magazines like “Cultural
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Survival” or organizations like Survival International
Corporate work
Legal work
Film-making
Helping local societies market products
© David Eller 2009
While anthropologists have conventionally focused on small, remote,
and traditional societies, anthropological thinking can be applied to
any society or social question:
Nationalism, ethnic conflict, religious fundamentalism, corporate
capitalism, as well as war and peace, migration and refugees, the
homeless, shopping and consumption, casino gambling, natural
disasters, environmental issues, the media, online communities,
even the meat-packing industry
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© David Eller 2009
The Anthropological Perspective
All social sciences share the same data: humans in action.
Anthropology is distinctive in its perspective, its “angle,” its “point of
view,” its “focus,” its approach and emphasis
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© David Eller 2009
Anthropology emphasizes
 The group over the individual—individuals are members of
groups and largely constructed in and by groups
 The “external” or “public” over the “internal,” “mental,” or
“subjective”
No anthropologist denies the individual or mental, but we stress
other things
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© David Eller 2009
Key Components of the Anthropological Perspective
#1: Cross-cultural/Comparative Study
A cross-cultural perspective or emphasis means that anthropologists
are curious about human behavior in a wide and inclusive sense,
embracing many or potentially all human ways of being, not just
cultures similar to their own.
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© David Eller 2009
#2: Holism
A culture can be conceived as consisting of various parts, in complex
interconnection.
To understand any one part, we must see it in the context of other
parts and the whole culture.
To change or add or remove any one part is to affect other parts and
the whole.
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© David Eller 2009
#3: Cultural Relativism
Different cultures can and often do have different notions of what is
good, normal, moral, valuable, legal, etc.
We cannot use our own cultural norms or values to understand and
judge another culture.
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© David Eller 2009
Using your own culture to understand and judge another culture is
called ethnocentrism.
Ethnocentrism is not so much wrong—and it is certainly not
impossible—as it is unhelpful.
You can judge another culture by your own standards, but you will
make irrelevant and often false judgments.
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© David Eller 2009
Cultural relativism is commonly misunderstood and reviled. But most
condemnations of cultural relativism are easily addressed:
1.
Cultural relativism does not mean that “anything goes” or judgment
is impossible.
2.
Cultural relativism does not mean that anything a culture does is
good/moral/valuable/normal, etc.
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© David Eller 2009
3.
Cultural relativism does not mean that anything a culture believes is
true.
4.
Cultural relativism does not mean that cultures are different in
every conceivable way; that there are no cultural universals.
5.
Cultural relativism does not mean that “everything is relative,”
including cultural relativism itself (cultural relativism is not selfcontradictory).
6.
Cultural relativism does not mean that cultures cannot be
compared.
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© David Eller 2009
From an anthropological perspective, cultural relativism is
 A fact: there are many cultures in the world, and each has its own
notions of good/normal/moral, etc.
 A method: to achieve understanding of another culture, we must
apply its standards of good/normal/moral, not our own
 A theory: humans make judgments of good/normal/moral by
reference to—relative to—some standard of judgment
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© David Eller 2009
The only real question is, how many such standards of judgment are
there in the human world?
 Not just one, shared by all societies
 Not none: humans cannot live without a set of standards
 There are many: each culture has one (and sometimes more than
one). As anthropologists, we must learn and apply the standards of
the culture we are studying.
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© David Eller 2009
Most people, including most students, are not and will not become
professional anthropologists. How is anthropology relevant to them?
Everyone living in the twenty-first-century, global, multicultural world
is and must be an amateur anthropologist all the time, confronting,
understanding, and co-existing with cultural difference.
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1.
2.
3.
4.
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Anthropology has immediate bearing on our decisions, actions,
and policies on the domestic and the international scene.
Anthropology shows us what human beings really are—including
ourselves.
We all live “anthropological” lives, whether we know it or want it
or not.
Anthropology allows us—and compels us—to think about
ourselves differently. Every one of us is “other” to everybody else.
© David Eller 2009
Supplementary Slides
Who are you in the world?
 World clock
What does the world look like?
 Maps of the world
With whom do you share the world?
 Indigenous Peoples
Why is it important to understand what
other people are like?
 The world is getting smaller/flatter
 Greater relocation of individuals
 More interaction even in North Dakota
 And mostly how we get to be who we are is the same as how
they got to be who they are
Anthropological Perspectives
In addition to the perspectives discussed in the text,
 Holistic Perspective
 Seeing the entire culture
 Comparative Perspective
 Seeing other cultures
 Relativistic Perspective
 Judging culture
 Ethnocentrism
there is one other perspective which is important to understand:
 Emic & Etic Perspectives