Introduction to Anthropology

Definition of Anthropology

• Originates from the Greek words 'anthropos' (humankind) and 'logos' (study).
• Focuses on the study of humankind, and is defined as the science of groups of people.
• Examines the biological and cultural characteristics of human beings.
• Stands out as the broadest academic discipline studying human beings in totality.
• Explores human beings across time and various locations including origins, evolution, and current variations.

Anthropological Study Focuses

• Investigating learned and shared livelihood strategies within social groups.
• Examining shared communal characteristics among all human beings.
• Understanding the diverse ways people live in different environments.
• Analyzing material cultures like pottery, and non-material cultures like religion as products of social groups.
• Provides knowledge about biological and cultural variations globally.
• Offers methods and perspectives to address societal problems.

Scope and Subject Matter of Anthropology

• Involves studying the temporal dimension, encompassing the past, present, and future.
• Covers spatial dimensions from Arctic to Desert, including Megapolis to hunting gathering areas.
• Includes all aspects of human life, such as social, religious, political, and economic experiences.
• Includes major subfields like biological, archaeological, linguistic, and socio-cultural anthropology.

Unique Features of Anthropology

• Has a broad scope in its study of humankind in all time spans and spaces.
• Takes a holistic and focused approach considering language, biology, culture, and history.
• Relativistic by promoting understanding social groups in their contexts without value judgments.
• Employs a comparative perspective to understand similarities and differences among human groups.
• Incorporates an emic perspective, focusing on 'insiders' views for anthropological inquiry.
• Focuses more on local elements to better understand big changes in society.
• Utilizes qualitative research to understand the meaning behind human activity.
• Uses ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and focus group discussions for collecting qualitative data.
• Ethnographic fieldwork requires long-term engagement, often a year or more, within a research society.

Historical Development of Anthropology

• Anthropology is relatively recent.
• Differing views exist regarding its origin as a discipline.
• Roots can be traced to Ancient Greek thinkers like Herodotus, who questioned what made people different.
• The European Enlightenment of the 18th century influenced its development.
• Evolutionary theory, significantly Darwin's "Origin of Species" (1859), shaped anthropology which emerged in 1870s.
• World War I in the early 20th century also had some influence.
• Originated in Western countries, notably France, Great Britain, the USA, and Germany.
• Four founding figures contributed, including Franz Boas (USA) through historical particularism and cultural relativism.
• Bronsilaw Malinowski (Britain) who developed participant observation and a holistic approach.
• Radcliffe Brown (Britain) advocated structural functionalism.
• Marcel Mauss (France) introduced exchange theory.
• Emerged from the intellectual environment of the Enlightenment and Darwinian Evolution in the 19th century.
• The Enlightenment in the 18th century spurred these developments.
• The expansion of Western colonial powers increased the desire to understand colonized peoples.
• Became a profession primarily within museums during its early years.
• Many museums in Europe, North America, and South America began studying humankind in the 1870s and 1880s.
• Early studies focused on small, technologically simple communities, also known as "traditional" societies.
• Anthropologists in the early 1900s focused on the social and cultural differences among human groups in a practice called ethnography.
• In the mid-1900s, the focus shifted to universal human patterns, called ethnology.
• Ethnology aims for comparison of different ethnic groups across time and space.
• It focuses on the relationship between human beings, humans, and the natural environment.
• Anthropology conceptualizes the similarities and differences among social systems worldwide.
• Anthropology studies humanity in all aspects of its existence.

Misconceptions about Anthropology

• It is not limited to studying "primitive" societies.
• Anthropologists now study advanced and complex societies.
• Anthropologists now study urban populations, as highlighted by the sub-discipline: Urban Anthropology.
• It is not solely the study of proto-humans and fossil analysis, like that of Lucy/Dinkinesh.
• Focuses on the study of human evolution, but also explores existing human variations and diversities.
• Aims to support community capacity for empowerment rather than preserving cultures in museums.

Relationship between Anthropology and Other Disciplines

• Similar to other social sciences and humanities by studying human society.
• Differs in its approach, perspective, scope, analysis, and unique methods.
• Studies humankind in its entirety, holistically, comparatively, and with a unique perspective.
• Dimensions of lived experiences are interconnected.
• Anthropology's perspective is empirical, naturalistic, and ideographic more than nomothetic.
• Employs long-term fieldwork and intimate knowledge of study groups via ethnographic techniques.

Contributions of Anthropology

• Offers insights into both biological and cultural variations and theoretical perspectives.
• Examines humanity across time and place.
• Draws from humanities, social, and physical sciences.
• It should show that cultures are ways to adapt to environmental conditions.
• Helps one better understand individual ways of life by looking at others.
• Offers insights regarding the logic behind group behavior, important because the world is interconnected.
• An understanding cultures influences individual decisions.
• Cultural anthropology offers unique perspectives on globalization.
• It is more accurate than perceptions based on government and business leaders.
• Helps to be sensitive to cultural diversity and avoid misunderstandings and fights prejudice.
• Combats ethnocentrism - superiority of one's cultures over others.
• It's applied perspective is used as a tool for development.
• The discipline is used to pay attention to local conditions, protect rights, and design appropriate policies.
• It is applied often in areas of Environmental Change, Health & Nutrition, Globalization, Social Justice, etc.