Cultural anthropology

Anthropologist’s ongoing determination towards fieldwork enhances their way of learning another culture while obtaining the native’s point of view. This term coined by Malinowski mirrors an emic perspective like the article. The context of going native for users and designers shown in the article eliminates boundaries progressively. To situate oneself in the ways of ethnographic research, one must carefully observe those you are studying. As stated in the article ethnography is conceived as, “a…

How does culture become reconfigured for different audiences and how does that reproduce inequality? Who ascribes value to “high” and “low” culture? In order to answer these questions, we must look further into the rise and fall of American culture. Culture is not something tangible that anyone can put under a telescope to examine, it changes all the time. When the problem of culture comes into play in any point of American history it begins with the separation of class. This separation is…

What is the extent to which anthropologists should become involved in, and possibly alter, the experiences of the people they conduct participant observation among (Burr, 2004)? In her article we find that burr was tasked with observing children who were categorized in living with difficult circumstances, such as those living on the streets, orphanages, or reform schools. Burr during her fieldwork encountered situations where she knew that the boys were partaking in illicit drugs such as heroin…

gives many examples of a process called transculturation. This is a process where members of marginal groups select and invent based off materials transmitted by a dominant discourse.Dominant discourse is defined as the way a society privileges one cultural imperative over others. Another word to keep in mind is marginalization. This is a social standing regulated…

My interest in anthropology was spurred during my undergraduate education. Prior to my college education, I had no idea what anthropology was. Growing up as a Mexican-American in a large border city, there is an innate awareness of a subtle separation between one’s self and family and friends who live across the border. While high school courses, media and general discourse may create a narrative that explain away inequalities, it was my sociology courses throughout my undergraduate and graduate…

anthropologist. This approach does not allow for a full understanding of a culture because mores, rituals, and beliefs, can be cast aside as insignificant. The adaption of cultural relativism has allowed anthropologists to gain a better understanding of other cultural by casting aside and judgments. The practice of cultural relativism coincided with the progression away from a linear approach, and away from words such as “primitive” and…

Since the late 19th century and 20th century, Anthropology has become a growing human science. It is the understanding of human experiences and social evolution that captivate the students of this science. As the field of Anthropology becomes increasingly studied, the tactics and methods of studying groups of people have changed to truly captivate their cultures. During the early 20th century, anthropologist Franz Boas created the term cultural relativity which was defined as, every culture and…

the history of mankind. The field of anthropology is broken up into four main fields. First, there is biological anthropology, examines the evolution of humans, health and diseases, and what makes us distinctly humans (such as our DNA). Next, there is archaeology, which seeks to understand how early humans, such as hunter-gatherers, lived before us. Archaeology studies trade routes, war zones, and ancient remains of city states. Then we have linguistic anthropology, which is the study of how…

or not—that build their cultural mark. This mark is learned and passed through generation. However, the diffusion yield a vast increment of cultural groups that influenced each other, so some exhibit mixed cultures. In fact, people nowadays engage in popular culture which is a result of this series of influence. Popular culture offers people the liberty to adopt a cultural mark, setting aside the formality of the culture. This diffusion and influence is the root of cultural appropriation and is…

practices peace. Since people are not knowledgeable about different cultures it creates a world of hatred. Before all of the hatred started happening, you were supposed to express your culture and share the differences, now people get judged for having cultural differences making it hard to stick to your…