Differences In Interpreting Cultures

This week we discussed ethnology and historical contexts. we looked at emic versus etic approaches to studying cultures. Emic the inside perspective as opposed to etic the outside perspective. We learned about participant observation data collection. We also learned about real versus ideal behavior when interpreting culture. Real vs ideal behavior is used In Living cultures. when anthropologists go and live with subjects they get a better idea of how cultures really operate. When just asking questions people may answer in a way that makes them appear more normal however this behavior is usually dropped once an anthropologist goals and lives with a group for an extended period of time. We discussed how the use of written law, if applicable …show more content…
The first Anthropology course I took at Southern with Dr. Daniel Bass dealt with living cultures. The work we got to learn about with the tribes of Papua, New Guinea was so interesting. One of the things that I remember was how men had sex with younger males and how it was perceived as completely normal by these people. There was no taboo like in Western Culture. In fact they saw this as positive aspect of their culture. However if these isolated people knew how others perceived this behavior they may have not been as forthcoming with sharing this part of their culture. That helped me realize the difference between real versus ideal behavior. Some of these tribes also practiced cannibalism and the same thing applied. The observation and recording of data was extensive and the anthropologist who lived with these tribes even learned the language.The wonderful thing about living cultures is that you are exposed to all aspects of the culture unfolding before your eyes. Interpreting extinct culture is so much more difficult because there are no actors to question and no action to actually observe. You have to recreate everything many times with incomplete data. there is quite a bit less room for error when interpreting living cultures as opposed to extinct ones. In my prior anthropology class we also learned about the street children of Brazil. I noticed further differences between living and extinct culture when looking back on this topic. The text we read was a second hand account. We got to see the social atrocities these children dealt with on a daily basis. When interpreting extinct culture with no written language, you just don’t get that. You Have to use other means to attempt to understand the social structure and constraints about extinct