TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > Anthropology > Introduction to Anthropology
There are four fields of Anthropology
- Biological Anthropology- concentrates on the biology of humans, the evolution of the species, and the study of variation in the behaviour and physical make-up of humans. This is the only field which does not concern culture.
- Cultural Anthropology- concentrates on culture. It involves the comparison of different societies and their cultures and norms.
- Archaeology- concentrates on material things that remain from people who lived in the past, and therefore involves excavation of artefacts and ecofacts, many experiments to determine certain details about these remains and detailed study of people in history through these remains, so that anthropologists can have a clearer understanding of past societies.
- Anthropological linguistics- concentrates on various languages which have existed throughout history, and explores the world of communication and interaction. The link between culture and languages is also studied and considered very important, as is body language and communication through technological means.
Ethnographies concentrate on:
- Survival
- Habits
- Beliefs
- Drug habits
- Rituals
- Gender
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- Social Status
- Knowledge
- Skills
- Technology
- Obtaining food
- Education
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Taxonomic order
Language - the words we have fit into specific orders:
- General e.g. food, furniture
- More specific e.g. pancake, desk
Important Anthropologists and Theories
Anthropologists
- Cushing (1857 - 1900) American. First Participant Observer. Studied the Zuni (Peublo village in Mexico). Stayed 4 years . He suffered from ethnocentrism at one point when a man was to be hanged for killing someone by magic. He caved in and intervened, although to no avail. He did not publish his findings because he died young.
- Franz Boas (1858 - 1941) The "Father of American Anthropology". Studied the Kwakiutl in British Colombia (Canada). He disagreed with cultural evolutionism, and said that every culture is an individual product of unique historical circumstances (Historical Particularism). For the first time, he recruited an indigenous research assistant, and he argued against grand theorising and for collecting data on individual cultures.
- Malinowski (1884 - 1942) Moved to Britain from Poland. Between 1914-18 he lived amongst the served the biological, psychological and emotional needs of human beings (Malinowskian Functionalism).
- Evans-Pritchard (1950) Thought Anthropologists should explain rather than explain.
Types of Anthropology
- Symbolic - The study of symbols within a culture and cross-culturally. Analysing symbols helps uncover hidden patterns of meaning (e.g. language, art, games, rituals, colours, stories). Some are unique, others are universal or apply to several different countries (e.g. "the evil eye").
- Interpretative - The idea that an ethnographer's job is to describe and interpret what members of the culture being studied find meaningful. They try to find the ideal behaviour (etic) and what people actually do (emic), i.e. they try to find the meaning of behaviour.
- Culture and Personality school - How adults treat their children affects later personality. For example, Ruth Benedict characterised people as puritanical/non-violent.
- Cultural Evolutionism - (A diachronic approach). The theory that cultures progress through stages from savagery to civilisation. Tylor is an example, he analysed the development of magic into religion.
- Functionalism - Three main ideas:
- Culture viewed as a system which is made up of individual elements that work together. Change to one element will affect others.
- Aspects of culture to fulfil human needs (Malinowskian)
- Structural-Functionalism - Looks at the way in which elements of a culture play a part in social structure.
- Cultural Materialism - (Diachronic) theory which states that concrete, observable factors (e.g. the natural environment, types of technology, population size etc), are more responsible for specific aspects of culture than other factors.
E.g. Martin Harris thought the need for more protein was a factor in the war-like nature of the Yanomamo.
Also, Fortune's view of the Kula (1989) as having the economic purpose of allowing exchange of needed goods between friendly partners on different islands.
Structural anthropology - a speciality within cultural anthropology whose followers attempt to discover orderly patterns common to languages, myths, kinship systems, and other aspects of culture.
Structural-functionalism - an anthropological perspective in which aspects of culture are viewed in terms of the part they play in maintaining the social structure.
Subculture - a small group, within a larger one, whose members distinguish themselves (or who are distinguished by others) as different from others on any cultural basis.
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