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McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
12
Applying Anthropology
Anthropology:The Exploration of Human Diversity
11th Edition
Conrad Phillip Kottak
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
2 Applying AnthropologyApplying Anthropology
• Overview• What Is Applied Anthropology?• The Role of the Applied Anthropologist• Academic and Applied Anthropology• Anthropology and Education• Urban Anthropology• Medical Anthropology• Anthropology and Business• Careers and Anthropology
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
3 OverviewOverview
– Educational– Urban– Rural– Medical– Business settings
• Applied anthropology used to identify and solve problems involving human behavior, social conditions, and public health
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
4 What Is Applied Anthropology?What Is Applied Anthropology?
• Applied Anthropology—application of anthropological perspectives, theory, methods, and data—in this case from all four subfields—to identify, assess, and solve contemporary social problems
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
5 What Is Applied Anthropology?What Is Applied Anthropology?
– Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) founded in 1941
– National Association for the Practice of Anthropology (NAPA) founded in 1983
• Practicing anthropologists (applied anthropologists) practice their profession outside of academia
Applied anthropologists work for groups that promote, manage, and assess programs aimed at influencing human behavior and social conditions
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
6 What Is Applied Anthropology?What Is Applied Anthropology?
• Biological anthropologists work in public health, nutrition, genetic counseling, substance abuse, epidemiology, aging, mental illness, and forensics.
• Applied archaeologists locate, study, and preserve prehistoric and historic sites threatened by development (a.k.a. cultural resource management).
– Applied anthropologists come from all four subfields
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
7 What Is Applied Anthropology?What Is Applied Anthropology?
• Linguistic anthropologists frequently work with schools in districts with a wide range of languages.
– Applied anthropologists (continued)• Cultural anthropologists work with social
workers, businesspeople, advertising professionals, factory workers, medical professionals, school personnel, and economic development experts
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
8 What Is Applied Anthropology?What Is Applied Anthropology?
• Applied archaeology, usually called public archaeology, includes such activities as cultural resource management, contract archaeology, public educational programs, and historic preservation.
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
9 What Is Applied Anthropology?What Is Applied Anthropology?
– Cultural Resource Management (CRM)—branch of applied archaeology aimed at preserving sites threatened by dams, highways, and other projects
• Involves not only preserving sites but allowing their destruction if they are not significant
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
10The Role of the Applied The Role of the Applied AnthropologistAnthropologist• Combats ethnocentrism—tendency to
view one’s own culture as superior and to apply one’s own cultural values in judging the behavior and beliefs of people raised in other cultures
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
11The Role of the Applied The Role of the Applied AnthropologistAnthropologist
– Identifying needs for change that local people perceive
– Working with those people to design culturally appropriate and socially sensitive change
– Protecting local people from harmful policies and projects that threaten them
• Proper roles of applied anthropologists:
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
12The Role of the Applied The Role of the Applied AnthropologistAnthropologist• In the 1940s, most anthropologists
focus on the application of their knowledge
In context of British empire, specifically its African colonies, Malinowski proposed that “practical anthropology” (his term for colonial applied anthropology) should focus on westernization, the diffusion of European culture into tribal societies
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
13Academic and Applied Academic and Applied AnthropologyAnthropology• Academic anthropology grew most after
World War II
During 1970’s, and increasingly thereafter, although most anthropologists still worked in academia, others found jobs with international organizations, government, business, hospitals, and schools
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
14Academic and Applied Academic and Applied AnthropologyAnthropology
– Ethnographers study societies firsthand, living with and learning from ordinary people
– Applied anthropologist’s likely early request is some variant of “take me to the local people”
• Theory and Practice
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
15Academic and Applied Academic and Applied AnthropologyAnthropology
– Anthropology’s systemic perspective recognizes that changes don’t occur in a vacuum
• Theory and Practice
– Theory aids practice, and application fuels theory
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
16 Anthropology and EducationAnthropology and Education
– Viewing students as total cultural creatures whose enculturation and attitudes toward education belong to a larger context that includes family, peers, and society
• Anthropological research in classrooms, homes, and neighborhoods
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
17 Anthropology and EducationAnthropology and Education
• Sociolinguists and cultural anthropologists work side by side in education research
In a diverse, multicultural populace, teachers should be sensitive to and knowledgeable about linguistic and cultural differences
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
18 Urban AnthropologyUrban Anthropology
• Urban anthropology is the cross-cultural and ethnographic and biocultural study of global urbanization and life in cities
• Human populations becoming increasingly urban
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19 Urban AnthropologyUrban Anthropology
– Robert Redfield focused on contrasts between the rural and urban contexts in the 1940s
– In any nation, urban and rural represent different social systems
• Urban versus Rural
Applying anthropology to urban planning starts by identifying the key social groups in the urban context
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
20 Medical AnthropologyMedical Anthropology
• Unites biological and cultural anthropologists in the study of disease, health problems, health-care systems, and theories about illness in different cultures and ethnic groups
Disease—scientifically identified health threat caused by a bacterium, virus, fungus, parasite or other pathogen
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21 Medical AnthropologyMedical Anthropology
– Scientific medicine—distinguished from Western medicine, a health-care system based on scientific knowledge and procedures, encompassing such fields as pathology, microbiology, biochemistry, surgery, diagnostic technology, and applications
– Illness—condition of poor health perceived or felt by an individual
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22 Medical AnthropologyMedical Anthropology
– Different ethnic groups and cultures recognize different illnesses, symptoms, and causes
Disease varies among cultures
Spread of certain diseases, like malaria and schistosomiasis, associated with population growth and economic development
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
23 Medical AnthropologyMedical Anthropology
– Naturalistic disease theories—explain illness in impersonal terms (e.g., Western biomedicine)
– Emotionalistic disease theories—assume emotional experiences cause illness (e.g., “susto” among Latino populations)
– Personalistic disease theories—blame illness on agents such as sorcerers, witches, ghosts, or ancestral spirits
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24 Medical AnthropologyMedical Anthropology
• Health-care systems—beliefs, customs, specialists, and techniques aimed at ensuring health and preventing, diagnosing, and treating illness
– All societies have health-care systems
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25 Medical AnthropologyMedical Anthropology
• Emerge through a culturally defined process of selection and training
Curer—specialized role acquired through a culturally appropriate process of selection, training, certification, and acquisition of a professional image; the curer is consulted but patients, who believe in his or her special powers, and receives some form of special consideration; a cultural universal
– All cultures have health-care specialists (e.g., curers, shaman, doctors)
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
26 Medical AnthropologyMedical Anthropology
– Despite its advances, Western medicine is not without its problems
– Overprescription of drugs and tranquilizers– Unnecessary surgery– Impersonality and inequality of the patient-
physician relationship– Overuse of antibiotics
• Western Medicine
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27 Medical AnthropologyMedical Anthropology
– Thousands of effective drugs– Preventive health care– Surgery
• Biomedicine surpasses non-Western medicine in many ways
Medical anthropologists serve as cultural interpreters between local systems and Western medicine
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
28 Anthropology and BusinessAnthropology and Business
• Anthropologists may acquire unique perspective on organizational conditions and problems
Applied anthropologists can act as “cultural brokers” to translate managers’ goals or workers’ concerns to the other group
McGraw-Hill © 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
29 Anthropology and BusinessAnthropology and Business
– Ethnography– Cross-cultural expertise– Focus on cultural diversity
• Key features of anthropology for business include
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30 Careers in AnthropologyCareers in Anthropology
• Knowledge about the traditions and beliefs of the many social groups within a modern nation is important in planning and carrying our programs that affect those groups
• Anthropology’s breadth provides knowledge and an outlook on world that are useful in many kinds of work
