Anthropology can be broken down into two Greek words. The prefix “anthro” comes from the Greek word “anthros” which literally translates in to “man. The suffix “ology” comes from the Greek word that means “study”. Quite literally, “anthropology” means the study of man. However, in today’s politically correct society, we like to call it “the study of humans”. Since “the study of man” would more or less imply that we are examining only a little over half of the world’s population. Since “the study of humans” is such a broad area to cover, anthropology has been divided into subfields that break off bite sized chunks of humanity to be scrutinized. I won’t go into all of the subfields here. I specifically want to talk about a branch of the subject called cultural anthropology.
The job of the cultural anthropologist is to study how a specific group of people interact with each other, and their surroundings. This is a very broad over view of the field but in essence, there you have it. Initially, this seems like a relatively easy task. To simply watch and understand how a group of individuals, bound by common beliefs and values, interact with the world around them and simply write down your observations surely must be a job that even an undergraduate could do. Two things make this a little more difficult than initially perceived. The first, is the fact that the cultural anthropologist must essentially forget what he knows about the world he lives, in and delve into this new culture as ignorant as a new born as far as the language, customs, relationships and a myriad of other aspects fit together. This is challenging because it’s hard not to transpose your ideas on the workings of the world onto a group of people who think differently. Remaining objective isn’t an easy thing to do. The second challenge the cultural anthologist faces is something called “cultural relativity” This basically means that ideas about right and wrong, good and evil and what is acceptable vs. taboo is relative to the culture in which these rules are implemented. Cannibalism, for instance is considered to be disgusting, wrong and evil within Western culture. However, there are tribal groups who view it as necessary, spiritual or positive. One group of people will eat the flesh of formidable enemies that have been killed in order to gain their powers. This is a drastic (but true) example of a situation in which an anthropologist must understand cultural relativity and remain objective when observing and documenting ways of life.
Since this blog is reading so much like an article, I think I’m going to wrap it up here by admitting that while cultural anthropology is an absolutely fascinating field, it is very complex, emotional, and not for the faint of heart.
Courtesy of XViD