Chapt001 What is Anthropology - Copy

8/11/2019 Chapt001 What is Anthropology - Copy

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2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill

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This chapter introduces students to the

textbook by discussing how Anthropology is

defined and how it relates to other academic

fields. It also discusses the differentsubfields and dimensions that exist within

Anthropology.

What is Anthropology?


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What is Anthropology?

Anthropology is the study of the human species and its immediateancestors.

Anthropology is holistic in that the discipline is concerned with studying the

whole of the human condition: past, present and future. Anthropology

studies biology, society, language, and culture.

Anthropology offers a unique cross-cultural perspective by constantlycomparing the customs of one society with those of others.

People share both society and culture.

Society is organized life in groups, a feature that humans share with other

animals.

Cultures are traditions and customs, transmitted through learning, that

govern the beliefs and behaviors of the people exposed to them.

While culture is not biological, the ability to use it rests in hominid biology.


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Adaptation, Variation, and Change

Adaptation is the process by which organisms cope withenvironmental stresses.

Human adaptation involves interaction between culture and

biology to satisfy individual goals.

Four types of human adaptation:

cultural (technological) adaptation

genetic adaptation

long-term physiological or developmental adaptation

immediate physiological adaptation


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Humans are the most adaptable animals in the world, havingthe ability to inhabit widely variant ecological niches.

Humans, like all other animals use biological means to adapt

to a given environment.

Humans are unique in having cultural means of adaptation.


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Through time, social and cultural means of adaptation havebecome increasingly important for human groups.

Human groups have devised diverse ways of coping with a wide

range of environments.

The rate of this cultural adaptation has been rapidly acceleratingduring the last 10,000 years.

Food production developed between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago

after millions of years during which hunting and gathering was the

sole basis for human subsistence. The first civilizations developed between 6,000 and 5,000 years ago.

More recently, the spread of industrial production has profoundly

affected human life.



Four Subdisciplines of Anthropology

The academic discipline of American anthropology isunique in that it includes four subdisciplines: culturalanthropology, archaeological anthropology, biological or

physical anthropology, and linguistic anthropology.

This four field approach developed in the US as earlyAmerican anthropologists studying native peoples of NorthAmerica became interested in exploring the origins anddiversity of the groups that they were studying.

This broad approach to studying human societies did notdevelop in Europe (e.g. Archaeology, in most Europeanuniversities, is not a subdiscipline of anthropology; it is itsown department).



Origins of American Anthropology

American anthropology arose out

of concern for the history and

cultures of Native North

Americans. Ely S. Parker was a

Seneca Indian who made

important contributions to early

anthropology.

Photo Credit: Smithsonian Institution



Four Subdisciplines of Anthropology

Variation in Time (diachronic research): using informationfrom contemporary groups to model changes that took place in

the past, and using knowledge gained from past groups to

understand what is likely to happen in the future (e.g.

reconstructing past languages using principles based on modern

ones).

Variation in Space (synchronic research): comparing

information collected from human societies existing at the same

or roughly the same time, but from different geographic locations

(e.g. the race concept in the US, Brazil, and Japan).

Any conclusions about human nature must be pursued with a

comparative, cross-cultural approach.



Cultural Forces and Human Biology

Cultural traditions promote certain activities and abilities,discourage others, and set standards of physical well-beingand attractiveness.

Participation and achievement in sports is determined bycultural factors, not racial ones.

In Brazilian culture, women should be soft, with big hips andbuttocks, not big shoulders; since competitive swimmers tendto have big, strong, shoulders and firm bodies, competitiveswimming is not very popular among Brazilian females.

In the US, there arent many African-American swimmers orhockey players, not because of some biological reason, butbecause those sports arent as culturally significant as football,basketball, baseball, and track.



Intelligence Tests

There is no conclusive evidence for biologically basedcontrasts in intelligence between rich and poor, black and

white, or men and women.

The best indicators of how any individual will perform on an

intelligence test are environmental, such as educational,economic, and social background.

All standard tests are culture-bound and biased because they

reflect the training and life experiences of those who develop

and administer them.



Culture and Sports

Years of swimming sculpt

a distinctive physique.

The countries that tend to

produce successful

female swimmers are theUnited States, Canada,

Australia, Germany,

Scandinavia, and the

former Soviet Union,

where this body type isnt

as stigmatized for women

as it is in Latin countries.

Photo Credit: David Madison/ Duomo



Intelligence Tests

Jensenism asserts that African-Americans are hereditarilyincapable of doing as well as whites.

Named for Arthur Jensen, the educational psychologist who

observed that on average African-Americans perform less well

on intelligence tests that Euro-Americans and Asian-Americans.

This racist notion of the inborn inferiority of African-

Americans recently resurfaced in the 1994 book The Bell

Curveby Richard Hernnstein and Charles Murray.



The Bell Curve(1994)

Like Jensen, Hernnstein and Murray disregard moreconvincing environmental explanations in favor of a genetic

one to explain patterns observed in intelligence test scores.

An environmental explanation acknowledges that for many

reasons, both genetic and environmental, some people aresmarter than others, however these differences in

intelligence cannot be generalized to characterize whole

populations or social groups.

Psychologists have come up with many ways to measure

intelligence, but there are problems with all of them.



Intelligence Tests

Intelligence tests reflect the experiences of the people whowrite them.

Middle- and upper-class children do well because they share

the test makers educational expectations and standards.

The SATs claim to measure intellectual aptitude but they alsomeasure the type and quality of high school education,

linguistic and cultural background, and parental wealth.

Studies have shown that performance on the SATs can be

improved by coaching and preparation, placing those studentswho can pay for an SAT preparation course at an advantage.


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Intelligence Tests

Cultural biases in testing affect performance by people inother cultures as well as different groups in the same nation.

Native Americans scored the lowest of any group in the US,

but when the environment during growth and development for

Native Americans is similar to that of middle-class whites, thetest scores tend to equalize (e.g. the Osage Indians).

At the start of World War I, African-Americans living in the

north scored on average better than whites living in the south

due to the better public school systems in the north.


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Cultural Anthropology

Cultural Anthropology combines ethnography and ethnology to studyhuman societies and cultures for the purpose of explaining social andcultural similarities and differences.

Ethnography produces an account (a book, an article, or a film) of aparticular community, society, or culture based on information that iscollected during fieldwork.

Generally, ethnographic fieldwork involves living in the communitythat is being studied for an extended period of time (e.g. 6 months to2 years).

Ethnographic fieldwork tends to emphasize local behavior, beliefs,

customs, social life, economic activities, politics, and religion, ratherthen developments at the national level.

Since cultures are not isolated, ethnographers must investigate thelocal, regional, national, and global systems of politics, economics,and information that expose villagers to external influences.


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Ethnology examines, interprets, analyzes, and compares theethnographic data gathered in different societies to make

generalizations about society and culture.

Ethnology uses ethnographic data to build models, test

hypotheses, and create theories that enhance our understandingof how social and cultural systems work.

Ethnology works from the particular (ethnographic data) to the

general (theory).


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ETHNOGRAPHY ETHNOLOGY

requires fieldwork to collectdata draws upon data collectedby a series of researchers

descriptive synthetic

group/community specific comparative/cross-cultural

Comparison between Ethnography and Ethnology


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Archaeological Anthropology

Archaeological anthropology reconstructs, describes, andinterprets past human behavior and cultural patterns through

material remains.

The material remains of a culture include artifacts (e.g.

potsherds, jewelry, and tools), garbage, burials, and theremains of structures.

Archaeologists use paleoecological studies to establish the

ecological and subsistence parameters within which given

group lived.


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Archaeological Anthropology

The archaeological record provides archaeologists theunique opportunity to look at changes in social complexity

over thousands and tens of thousands of years (this kind of

time depth is not accessible to ethnographers).

Archaeology is not restricted to prehistoric societies. Historical archaeology combines archaeological data and

textual data to reconstruct historically known groups.]

William Rathjes garbology project in Tucson, Arizona.


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Biological Anthropology

Biological, or physical, anthropology investigates humanbiological diversity across time and space.

There are five special interests within biological anthropology: paleoanthropology: human evolution as revealed by the fossil record

human genetics

human growth and development human biological plasticity: the bodys ability to change as it copes with

stresses such as heat, cold, and altitude

primatology: the study of the biology, evolution, behavior, and social life ofprimates.

Biological anthropology is multidisciplinary as it draws onbiology, zoology, geology, anatomy, physiology, medicine,public health, osteology, and archaeology.


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Biological Anthropology

Paleoanthropologists study the fossilrecord of human evolution. This

photo shows Professor Teuku Jacob

with early fossil skulls from Java,

Indonesia.

Photo Credit: Kenneth Garrett / National Geographic


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Linguistic Anthropology

Linguistic anthropology is the study of language in its socialand cultural context across space and time.

Some linguistic anthropologists investigate universal

features of language that may be linked to uniformities in

the human brain. Historical linguists reconstruct ancient languages and study

linguistic variation through time.

Sociolinguistics investigates relationships between social

and linguistic variation to discover varied perceptions and

patterns of thought in different cultures.


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Theoretical/Academic Anthropology

Theoretical/academic anthropology includes the foursubfields discussed above (cultural, archaeological,

biological, and linguistic anthropology).

Directed at collecting data to test hypotheses and models that

were created to advance the field of anthropology. Generally, theoretical/academic anthropology is carried out in

academic institutions (e.g. universities and specialized

research facilities).


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Applied Anthropology

Applied anthropology is the application of any ofanthropological data, perspectives, theory, and techniques to

identify, assess, and solve contemporary social problems.

Some standard subdivisions have developed in applied

anthropology: medical anthropology, environmentalanthropology, forensic anthropology, and development

anthropology.

Applied anthropologists are generally employed by

international development agencies, like the World Bank,United States Agency for International Development

(USAID), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the

United Nations.


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Medical Anthropology

Medical anthropology

studies health

conditions from a

cross-culturalperspective. In

Uganda's Mwiri

primary school

children are taught

about HIV.

Photo Credit: Jorgen Schytte / Still Pictures / Peter Arnold Inc


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2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill

Applied Anthropology

Applied anthropologists assess the social and culturaldimensions of economic development.

Development projects often fail when planners ignore the

cultural dimensions of development.

Applied anthropologists work with local communities toidentify specific social conditions that will influence the

failure or success of a development project.


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2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc All rights reservedMcGraw-Hill

Two Dimensions of Anthropology

GENERAL

ANTHROPOLOGY

APPLIED

ANTHROPOLOGY

Cultural Anthropology Medical Anthropology

Archaeological

Anthropology

Cultural Resource

Management (CRM)

Biological or Physical

Anthropology

Forensic Anthropology

Linguistic Anthropology Non-government

Organizations (NGOs)

The Four Subfields and Two Dimensions of Anthropology


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Anthropology and Other Fields

Anthropologys own broad scope has always lent it tointerdisciplinary collaboration.

Anthropology is a science, in that it is a systematic field of

study that uses experiments, observations, and deduction to

produce reliable explanations of human cultural andbiological phenomena.

Anthropology is also one of the humanities, in that is

encompasses the study and cross-cultural comparison of

languages, texts, philosophies, arts, music, performancesand other forms of creative expression.


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Cultural Anthropology and Sociology

Formerly, sociology focused on western societies whileanthropology looked at exotic societies.

Cultural anthropological methodologies have primarily been

in-depth and qualitative (e.g. participant observation).

Sociological methodologies tended to be mainly quantitative(statistically based).

The trend toward increasing interdisciplinary cooperation

(deconstruction) is causing these differences to disappear.


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Political Science and Economics

While other disciplines have looked at such institutions aseconomics and politics as distinct and amenable to separate

analysis, anthropology has emphasized their relatedness to

other aspects of the general social order.

Anthropology has tended to emphasize cross-culturalvariation in such institutions, in contrast to the almost

exclusively Western orientation of the other disciplines.


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Anthropology and the Humanities

The anthropological concept of culture has gainedincreasing influence in the humanities treatment of human

artifacts.

In turn, cultural studies have brought a fuller recognition of

the influence such artifacts may exert on human behavior.


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Anthropology and Psychology

Anthropology has contributed a cross-cultural perspective toconcepts developed in psychology.

The school of cultural anthropology known as culture and

personality has emphasized child rearing practices as the

fundamental means for transmitting culture.

h l d i


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Anthropology and History

The convergence between the disciplines of anthropologyand history has been marked, particularly during the last

decade.

Recent treatments of colonial history have emphasized the

importance of understanding the cultural contexts ofhistorical records.

Kottak argues for some continued distinction between

history and anthropology, on the basis of historys focus on

the movement of individuals through roles, as opposed toanthropologys focus on change in structure or form.

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