WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?

From the Greek

`anthropo' human beings',`logos' originally meaning word, reason, speech or account and later doctrine, theory or science. Literally then, Anthropology is the science of the nature of Human beings.

Oxford English Dictionary

`The science of the nature of man embracing human physiology and psychology and their mutual bearing'.

Websters

`the study of Man, the study of body and mind in their interrelationships'

ANTHROPOLOGY

Physical Archaeology Anthropological Linguistics

Social/ Cultural

• Paleoanthropology

• Primatology

• Human Genetics

• Demography

• Growth & Development

•Adaptation (human variation)

• Osteology (Forensic)

• Prehistoric

• Historical

• Contract

• Historical

• Descriptive

• Sociolinguistics

• ethnolinguistics

• Economic

• Kinship

• Medical

• Psychological

• Urban

• Applied

• Gender

• Political

• Religion

Cultural

Look through the magazines and find a research project that would be of interest to an anthropologist?

What makes social/cultural anthropology different from sociology?

“A Science is a systematic or orderly way of thinking about a particular subject matter” R.G. Collingwood

Anthropology Departments around the world 2008

S. Africa 11 Chile 1 Germany 9 Egypt 3 Argentina 6 Greece 3 Kenya 1 Bolivia 2 Hungary 1Namibia 1 Brazil 2 . Ireland 1Nigeria 2 Columbia 1 Italy 2Zimbabwe 1 Mexico 2 Netherlands 3

Panama 1 Norway 2USA 323 Uruguay 1 Poland 3Canada 33 Russia 8

Austria 1 Spain 8Australia 11 Belgium 2 Sweden 4New Zealand 5 Bulgaria 1 Switzerland 6Hong Kong 1 Czech Rep 1 Ukrane 2Japan 1 Denmark 3 UK 26Pakistan 1 Finland 4Israel 1 France 11

N.Am 356 Oceania 16 Asia 4Europe 101 Africa 19 S. Am. 16

© Gary Larson

Enaotai Island, West PNG

What are the aims and purposes of anthropology?

What value does anthropology have?

What is this ad saying?

YES! YES! YES!

A TOTALLY ORGANIC EXPERIENCE

What is anthropology’s holistic approach?

What is the difference between emic and etic?

Core ConceptsWhat is the difference between ethnography and ethnology?

The practice of regarding one’s own cultural group as the centre of everything and scaling and relating all others with reference to it.

Ethnocentrism

http://www.flourish.org/upsidedownmap/

The perspective that beliefs and practices of any society can only be judged by the values and standards prevalent in that society.

Cultural Relativism

Tumbuka Eastern Zambia

•Abortion of Female Fetuses

• Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)• Gay Marriages

• Suicide Bombings

• Cannibalism

• Infanticide

What’s your opinion on each of the following?

India loses 10 million daughtersNational Post January 09, 2006

As many as 10 million female fetuses have been aborted in India after ultrasounds were used to reveal their sex in a country where daughters are a liability…. And the more education a woman has, the less likely she is to give birth to a girl.

… The Lancet …study is based on an analysis of actual and expected sex ratios. The researchers estimate 13.6 million to 13.8 million girls should've been born in India in 1997. But only 13.1 million were.

The biggest number of missing females was in couples having their first child. And the gap was twice as large among mothers who have a Grade 10 or higher education versus illiterate women

The number of girls per 1,000 boys aged zero to six was 962 in 1981, 945 in 1991 and 927 in 2001. The difference is even more pronounced in urban areas than rural ones.

If couples had a boy as their first child, the second baby stood about a 50-50 chance of being a girl. But in families that had a baby girl to begin with, there were 30% fewer girls than boys amongst their second babies. And after two girls were born in a family, any third baby was even more unlikely to be a girl.

• Holistically

• Objectively

• Relativistically

• Comparatively

• Interdisciplinary

• Focus on Ethnography

• Emically

• Methodologically and theoretically diverse

Anthropological Perspectives

Unification Church mass wedding ceremony, Madison Square Garden, NY 1998. Thousands of brides met their grooms for the first time at the ceremony.

– basic propositions about human nature and motivation, and about the nature of society and culture which guide the inquiry.

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

– the process of observing and producing published descriptions of societies, in whole or in part

ETHNOGRAPHY:

METHOD:

– how the ethnographer selects and treats the data of observation

THEORY:

Deduction

Induction

1. I know Joe is a terrible cook, because I've eaten at his house three times and each time the food has been awful.

2. Francois was French, so like all Frenchmen, we knew we would enjoy fine dining.

Induction or Deduction?

Induction or Deduction?

Deductive Methodology

Theories

Observations

Inductive Methodology

LogicalDeduction

Hypotheses

InterpretationsPatterns

Hypotheses

Generalizations

Meaning and Interpretation

Mandan Rain dance George Catlin

Manifest and latent Functions

Intended versus unintended consequences

Martin Luther (1483 – 1546)

Ego's cross cousins (in yellow) are distinguished from his parallel cousins (in green) as the children of opposite and same sexed parental siblings, respectively.

In many societies the ideal is to marry one’s cross cousin, as he/she will belong to a different lineage (for alliance purposes), or parallel cousin, as the cousin will be in the same lineage (for inheritance purposes). Although the ideal, in actuality only 10% of marriages will be of the ideal type.

The Ideal versus the Actual

1. Define anthropology

2. What is the four-field approach?

3. What is the difference between anthropology and sociology?

4. What is the difference between ethnology and ethnography?

5. What are five areas of specialization in cultural anthropology

6. What is anthropology’s holistic approach?

7. What is the difference between emic and etic?

8. What is the difference between ethnocentrism and cultural relativism?

9. What is the value of anthropology?

Summary