Analysis Of Rendez-Vous En Terre Inconnue

The television show ‘Rendez-vous en Terre Inconnue’ presents the lives of four different ethnic groups around the world, the Lolos Noirs in Vietnam, the Amharas in northern Ethiopia, the Nyangatom in southern Ethiopia, and the Tsaatans in Mongolia. Anthropologist Frédéric Michalak, along with a french celebrity guest, spend two weeks living these groups, immersing themselves in the lives of the ‘others’ through participant observation, eating the local’s foods and partaking in the local’s work, then compiling these observations into an ethnography in the form of the television episode, containing visual observations, interviews and film evidence of participation. It is worth noting, however, that the participant observation practiced by …show more content…
Michalak and his guest only spend two weeks with the groups being researched, do not learn the local’s language, relying instead on interpreters and are constantly followed by what is likely a crew of camera people, making it difficult to achieve full cultural immersion or form veritable connections with the local people being observed. Nevertheless, the show ‘Rendez-vous en Terre Inconnue’ is a fascinating glimpse at the culture of groups that are generally shrouded in mystery, demystifying them and the social, political and economic dynamics that shape their …show more content…
The most basic level of social anthropological analysis is an analysis of the family structures a group ascribes to. In the Amhara group, the primary social group is made up of one’s immediate family, the nuclear family structure of a married man and woman and their children. While the Amhara people are close to their larger community the main unit is small and external relations mainly comes from interactions through the church. The Tsaatans are similar in this regard, their primary social structure is made up of the nuclear family and because of their nomadic lifestyle, traveling with their reindeer across the isolated taiga, they are unlikely to receive much external social contact other than from their shaman who helps connect them to the spirits that they worship. The Lolos Noirs are more social, living in village communities and having social connections with those around them, worshipping with their larger community and helping others with their work. In their case, the primary family unit is the extended family as following marriage, brides live with their husband 's parents, expanding their primary family structure to include up to three generations. The Nyangatoms’ social