Gender Of The Gift By The Marilyn Strathern

In order to understand any culture, it is essential to acknowledge the importance of taking a holistic view. This approach, which gained recognition and validation in the twentieth century, stresses the importance of accounting for all of the components of a culture. The concept requires an understanding of each subsystem, which dictates certain aspects of the culture being studied. With this theory as basis for her approach, Myerhoff is faced with the difficult task of piecing together the many parts contributing to the formation of the culture at the Center, while simultaneously recognizing the distinctions between the acting subsystems. Sometimes it seems that realizing what leads to specific cultural constructs would be extremely difficult; this is especially the case with traits that have become so naturalized that only an outsider would recognize them as distinct and significant. That said, it is obvious that there are advantages to studying a completely exotic culture, as the majority of anthropologists do; however, Myerhoff chose to do her fieldwork in a culture that is centered

Calcagno (2003) emphasizes the importance of encouraging biocultural approaches to research. In order to be holistic it is necessary that the research used is widespread across the anthropological sub disciplines (Riley. E, 2006). Calcagno identifies how this approach is easily discussed in practice, but this can be significantly harder to produce successfully in practical settings. The tension surrounding this is due to preceding conflicts in procedures and philosophies disrupting their ability to coexist in the research subfields. Calcagno uses the data collected by Borofsky that indicated the holistic

James P. Spradley (1979) described the insider approach to understanding culture as "a quiet revolution" among the social sciences (p. iii). Cultural anthropologists, however, have long emphasized the importance of the ethnographic method, an approach to understanding a different culture through participation, observation, the use of key informants, and interviews. Cultural anthropologists have employed the ethnographic method in an attempt to surmount several formidable cultural questions: How can one understand another's culture? How can culture be qualitatively and quantitatively assessed? What aspects of a culture make it unique and which connect it to other cultures? If

This study examines Horace Miner’s essay “Body Rituals Among the Nacirema. While using the participant observation approach, he gives us a new perspective on the daily behaviors within this group of people. Exploring ethnocentrism and how we view cultures outside of our own.

An anthropologist usually, at the beginning of their career, conduct ethnographic research in a foreign country or remote location to validate themselves as a “bonafide anthropologist” (Brondo 43). Eventually however, the anthropologist will return home often to conduct research around their own familiar ethnic group. Tsuda refers to the anthropologists return to familiar territory as an “Ethnographic homecoming” (Brondo 44). The use of ethnographic methods in the anthropologist’s home or familiar environment is what Tsuda means by “native anthropology”.

Today we live in a globalized world, the world is interlinked on so many social, political, and economic levels that everyone’s culture has somewhat bled into each other’s. So it is extremely rare for anthropologist to find tribes like the Yanomami. “The Yanomami are a tribe of roughly twenty thousand Amazonian Indians living in 200 to 250 villages along the border between Venezuela and Brazil.” (Borofsky, R., & Albert, B. 2005). The Yanomami have been studied by anthropologist since the 1950’s and are said to be important to anthropologist because of the unique lifestyle they live mostly unpolluted by the western world (Tiffany,S., Adams, K., 2002). When people are as isolated as the Yanomami, it gives anthropologist an amazing opportunity to study the unique development of a society. A product of society is social construction, a social construct is basically a set of rules that a society establishes for themselves over time, the members of that society may follow those rules but the rules aren’t inherent. The world that we know and the most rules that we follow are socially constructed. One of the biggest social constructions is gender, gender is a social construct that can seep into every area of life, this paper will explore the Yanomamis childrearing, politics and religion through the lens of gender. While the Yanomami live very unique lives that we can and should learn so much from, today the Yanomamis way of life is under threat.

During this cultural observation, the anthropological concepts that will be examined will be: culture, society, language and communication and finally kinship. For the purpose of the observation, the concepts are defined as: culture is ideas and behaviors that are learned and transmitted and are not a genetic means of adaptation. Along with the understanding that society is the learned behavior patterns and thought that help a group adapt to its surroundings (Park 2015, p.G2). Language and communication being defined as the human communication by means of shared symbols in the form of sounds or representations of sounds (Park 2015, p.271). Last of the

After studying sixty-eight Samoan adolescent girls for nine months, during the year 1925, Margret Mead countered the previous assertion made by Stanley Hall, which claimed that behavior is biologically determined. Stanley Hall informed parents that “the physical changes which are going on in the bodies of your boys and girls have their definite psychological accompaniments,” and that, “as your daughter’s body changes from the body of a child to the body of a woman, so inevitably will her spirit change, and that stormily” (Mead 3). On the other hand, after completing her field work, Margret Mead argued that the behavior of youth “depends on cultural context” (Mead Lecture).

Anthropology, as a discipline in the field of human sciences, is based on certain ethical principles to guide its practitioners through their research. This creates a stable framework on which to start any research project. Avoiding deviation, however, can be complicated. Anthropologists have a responsibility to their field,

It’s the year of 2419 where they limit your emotions and they decide everything for you. In the novel The Giver they are in a future world where they preach sameness. I believe that our society in 2017 is better because we are allowed to make our own decisions , we can feel emotions and celebrate holidays.

Both applied and academic anthropology are similar because they are fields that analyze, interpret and connect with their collected information. Their research is based on answering questions such as: “Why is this culture this way?” and “How does this issue affect others?” In fact, these questions allow for both dimensions of anthropology to work together. For instance, applied anthropology can be practiced academically by teaching others and sharing knowledge about some field work experienced first-hand in another country. In addition, academic anthropology can be applied by addressing a studied issue in the community and interviewing people affected by it to find solutions.

Socio-cultural anthropologists have a bad reputation for not being able to fully back up a point and communicate well with other fields. Due to their use of epistemological logic to come to their conclusions, they are unable to give large in composing answers and just reference things in a case by case basis. This has led to some giving them the term of “Amongitis” (Gingrich, 178, 2009) because of their tendency to answer questions by saying “among…”. With the credibility of the field in mind, in this article Gingrich tries to identify the problems that socio-cultural anthropologists currently face, as well as offer solutions on how to solve these problems.

Gender affects every aspect of human life. It is the very thing that can separate a person from another or a society. It affects the way in which a person live their lives. It affects how they feel about themselves and others. Gender, for the most part, usually referred to as sex but, in culture gender is how a person should portray themselves and how a person should act.

This essay discusses how dialogues with interlocutors during fieldwork can be formative to anthropological theory-making and debates on ‘truth’. Lassiter in Schwartz, Saul, and Rena Lederman (2011: 70) urges anthropologists to view themselves and their informants in ‘an I-you relationship, a dialogue, two people next to each other reading the same text and discussing it face-to-face.

Throughout this Introduction to Anthropology course, we covered many important topics and their relevance to anthropology. Almost every week, we focused on one specific topic and completed a field exercise relating to that topic. Through these fieldwork exercises, I learned that thinking on the spot, being constantly aware of your own bias, and writing efficiently are all important skills that are essential for anthropologists. Although each skill presents its own challenges, such as speaking without preparation, recognizing your own bias, and turning in flawed field exercises, it is important to work through those challenges to improve these crucial skills.