Symbolic anthropology

Since the emergence of Anthropology as a discipline, there have been many concerns about the ethics and morality of multiple anthropological studies. Are they necessary to uncover new information? Is the interest of the participant being considered? Are the procedures even safe? The most important answer to these questions is to ensure that each anthropologist engaging in experiments and fieldwork considers the safety and well-being of every individual involved through Review Ethics Boards.…

Author Susan Gale makes a good point when she says, “if your world revolves around money, you might be living on the wrong planet.” However, it is a fact that much of our world directly corresponds with exchanges and the meanings of it in different contexts. Economics, ecology, and globalization have both similar and different cultural practices, worldviews, and discourses surrounding them that can be seen when looking at disparities in resources and opportunities. Through several course…

Culture is based on the knowledge as well as the behavior of a particular group of people, defined through many different aspects such as: religion, cuisine, socials habits, music and last but not least through dance. Most of the countries nowadays had a large variety of nationalities within their population, the culture inside the country is influences by all the nationalities that form that country, therefore as the number of nationalities grows, so does the culture. The culture we are raised…

Cultures all around the word use different animals or figures to symbolize other things. When someone says the word “snake,” things such as a gardner snake or a rattle snake might come to mind. Now when a person hears the word “serpent”, depending on the cultural location, many different images can come to mind. The serpent is used in a latin term meaning, “A word used in mythological or religious contexts to denote a being that looks like a snake but has a heightened sense of intelligence”…

It is a scientific study of how people’s feelings, behavior and thoughts are affected by actual, conceit or implied presence of others. It refers to existential method of investigation. Socio-Psychology is a branch of Sociology and Sociology is a sub-field of both its parent disciplines (Psychology and Sociology). “Socio Psychologist on the other hand, are usually interested in how groups behave and how the individual members are influenced by the group in which they belong how a person thinks…

In adopting a different approach to the analysis of invisible pedagogies, Bernstein distinguished between economic and symbolic assumptions. Bernstein highlights the relatively high material economic costs of the space of an invisible pedagogy, compared to those of a visible pedagogy. This is because an invisible pedagogy presupposes considerable freedom of movement on the…

Culture and Communication Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory is a framework for cross-cultural communication. It explains the effects of a society's culture on the values of its members, and how these values relate to behavior. According to the theory, it is challenging when having effective communication with people of different culture. The way of thinking, seeing, hearing, and interpreting the world is provided by people in various…

In “The Trobriander’s of Papua New Guinea” by Annette B. Weinter was about the historically against the framework of the seminal anthropological studies of Malinowski who study the Trobriander’s sixty years before Annette B. Weiner. The author realized that Malinowski annoyed or never considered significance in the matrilineal society of women own wealth since he didn’t investigate women productive by only focus on the male wealth. Therefore, the author study both Trobriand women and men from…

a similar role of salvage anthropology. Saving the final glimpses of vanishing cultures in order to preserve and study these snapshots as a time capsule of humanity that once was. Observations are made, theories formulated, structures determined, but ultimately the result is merely academic enhancement. The express goal of anthropology is to study, not to serve humanity. While not necessarily where anthropology will go, but where it ought to go is to make anthropology more accessible…

For four years during my undergrad I had the privilege of studying Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities. When I started college, I believed that I would be pursuing a career in the museum world as a curator or in museum administration. However, my interests in the justice system along with my background in Anthropology conflicted with that goal of working in a museum setting until I found that I could have a career involving both of my areas of study. My…