Introduction to Anthropology PDF

University of the Philippines Baguio \| Baguio City **UNDER SUBTOPICS** **Why is Gender Fair Language Important?** - *Language is a powerful tool* - - - *Not just about being "politically correct"* - - **Fosters:** - - - *(American psychological association)* -...

University of the Philippines Baguio \| Baguio City **UNDER SUBTOPICS** **Why is Gender Fair Language Important?** - *Language is a powerful tool* - - - *Not just about being "politically correct"* - - **Fosters:** - - - *(American psychological association)* - **Gender-exclusive language** - terms that lump all people under masculine language or within the gender binary (man or woman). - **Gender-inclusive language** - terms used to be more gender equitable. *(Supreme court guidelines)* **Be inclusive; make people of other genders visible** - Gender-neutral "mass nouns" rather than the generic masculine - Stop unwarranted use of masculine pronouns - Use gender-neutral terms for professions, occupations or roles - Avoid using sex-appropriated terms **Be respectful; do not trivialize or diminish the stature of people of other genders** - Use gender-neutral terms rather than diminutive feminine suffixes - Use gender-neutral terms for professions, occupations or roles; avoid gratuitous and patronizing sex-linked modifiers - Stop gender-linked adjectives or modifiers that have pejorative connotations - Stop using outdated forms of address and honorifics **Do not disparage and marginalize people of other genders** - Stop using language that perpetuates generalizations - Use non-oppressive terms *Refers to people whose:* - gender identity does not match their sex assigned at birth (e.g., men who were assigned female at birth) - gender expression does not match their gender identity (e.g., masculine women) *No to:* - **[DEADNAMING]**: Being called by one's legal name instead of lived name - **[MISGENDERING]**: Being called by pronouns or titles that do not affirm their gender - Ask for name, pronouns, and titles, regardless of their transgender status. - Use lived name, pronouns, and titles. **What is Anthropology?** *DEFINITION* - Etymology - *Greek*: - - - Study of a variety of questions about human beings - - - - - **Worldwide** - concerned with all varieties of people throughout the world - **Historical** - people in all periods - **Holistic** --the many aspects of human experience as an integrated whole; specific aspects of human physical and social life and connections among them Taking something accepted as typical and asking: "***why***", and how and why they vary across societies "***How do you know it's true***? How do you know it's generally true which you can't know without comparison" *(Terence Hays)* - A young discipline (**1800s**) - Enriches our understanding of human beings everywhere - Increases understanding of differences across cultures, thus also enhances acceptance of and respect for such differences - Shows accomplishments of various cultures over time - Builds humility - No one culture is superior over another - Nothing is permanent - Cultures generally evolve uniformly: societies pass through the same series of stages (from savagery, through barbarism, to civilization) to arrive at a common end - This view is largely rejected today. - Human cultures differed in their behaviors because they represented separate subspecies of humans ("*races*") - Members of "uncivilized races" were, by their very nature, incapable of being "*civilized*" - This theory is shown to be unsupported in a variety of contexts - **[FRANZ BOAS]** (1858-1942) stressed the idea that single cultural traits had to be studied in the context of the society in which they appeared - Cultural relativism vs Ethnocentrism (the attitude/ practice of judging a culture based on one's own culture) - Two major approaches emerged from Boas' descriptive approach: *ecological and interpretive approaches* **Cultural Ecology** - The analysis of the relationship between a culture and its environment (Julian Steward, 1902-1972) - The goal of anthropology is to understand what it means to be a person living in a particular culture - **[CLIFFORD GEERTZ]** (1926-2006): culture is like a literary text that can be analyzed for meaning Debate between interpretive and scientific anthropologists: *is it possible to describe or measure cultural phenomena in an objective and unbiased way?* - **Human paleontology** (*paleoanthropology*) -- about the emergence of humans and their later evolution, reconstructing: - - - **Human variation** -- about how and why contemporary human populations vary biologically or physically, drawing on: - - - - Study of how and why cultures ("*the customary ways that a particular population or society thinks and behaves*") in the past and present vary or are similar - **Archaeology** -- the study of past cultures, using material remains reconstructing history, including everyday life and culture - **Linguistics** -- anthropological study of languages: - - - - **Ethnology/Cultural Anthropology** -- study how people today and in the recent past differ or are similar in their customary patterns of thought and behavior, and why - - - *Ethnologists*: - **Ethnographer**: Fieldwork and detailed description - **Ethnohistorian**: Documents - **Cross-cultural researcher**: Samples of cultures - Practicing anthropology - - - - Anthropology considers both culture and biology of humans in all times and places. - Anthropology contributes to our understanding of human beings everywhere. - Anthropology helps to avoid misunderstandings between peoples: *If those in one culture can understand why other groups are different from them, they might have less reason to condemn others for behavior that appears strange*. - In an increasingly globalized world, understanding and trying to respect cultural and physical differences becomes more important. **Testing Theories/ Explanations** - Important to test a theory or hypothesis - Mechanism to test: - Predict likely outcome if a theory is correct - Test if the data supports the outcome - Theory must relate to observable events - Steps: - *Operational definition*: description of the procedure that will be used to measure - *Measurement*: including comparing, classifying - Deciding which cases to study to see if the predicted outcome/relationship holds - **Sampling universe** -- the list of cases to be sampled from - **Random sample** -- all cases selected have an equal chance of being included in the sample, has a better chance of being a representative sample - Should be fair and unbiased representation of the sampling universe **Two Criteria** - The types of research in anthropology can be classified according to two criteria: - -  - A description and analysis of a single society - Valuable source of information for anthropologists in all subfields of the discipline - Useful for generating explanations - But does not generally provide sufficient data to test a hypothesis (not enough comparison) - *Methods*: - - **Ethnography as Source Material** - *Within-Culture Comparisons* - - - *Regional Controlled Comparisons* - Comparison of ethnographic information across societies in a particular region (similar histories and environments) - *Cross-Cultural Research* - Interpretations based on worldwide comparisons - **Ethnohistory**: studies of a single society at more than one point in time - **Advantage**: studying the consequences of history can determine what led to it (rather than the other way around) - **Limitation**: time-consuming ** Artifacts:** - - - - -  **What Artifacts can Teach Us** - Use - Technology: how something was made, what abilities and tools were required - Economy and exchange systems: whether something was traded, and how and with whom -- thus teaches us which populations related with whom - **Ecofacts:** - Natural objects used or affected by humans, or whose presence is caused by the presence of humans - *Examples:* - - - - **Fossils:** - - - - Conditions should be favorable for preservation: presence of minerals that will harden and preserve the surface - **Features:** - - - **Angono Petroglyphs**, a National Cultural Treasure - A collection of 127 figural carvings engraved on the wall of a shallow cave in Binangonan, Rizal - Discovered in 1965 - Oldest known artworks in the Philippines dating to the third millennium B.C. World Monuments Fund - Anthropological study of the relationship between humans and digital technology - Also called: *digital ethnography, social media ethnography, cyber anthropology, virtual anthropology* - Fieldwork takes the form of participating in online communities, plus interviews, and use of quantitative data **[What]** - Multi-sited study, including globally - Studying institutions - Framing the micro in the macro; how the micro is embedded in larger structures - Studying discourse symbols and language - Inform the people they are studying (or the descendants of those people) about their work and its purpose. - Ensure that their work does no harm. - Protect the confidentiality of people they study is protected. - Be careful to identify appropriate and nondisruptive ways to compensate groups who participate in studies. - Archaeologists must present the results of their work to the general public. Publishing archaeological results increases public awareness about the past and the importance of historic preservation. **Principles from anthropologists' associations** (UK and US) - Informed consent: Offer the right to refuse - Confidentiality and privacy - Awareness of possible negative effects **Ethical guidelines:** - Do no harm - Be open and honest regarding your work - Obtain informed consent and necessary permissions - Make your results accessible - Maintain respectful and ethical professional relationships *An anthropologist must be:* - Truthful - Relevant to national and community goals - Sincere to the host community; obliged to explain objectives and implications of research - Provide a copy of research, preferably in local language -- to the local and larger community - Has the right to criticize unethical practice of anthropologists and of practices that have an implication on the larger community - **Ethnography** - - - **Common Features** - First-hand experience and exploration of a particular social or cultural setting - Based on participant-observation (but not exclusively) - **Ethnographer** - A type of ethnologist who spends some time living with, interviewing, and observing a group of people to describe their customs **What is Ethnography?** - In-depth study of everyday practices and lives of a people - Producing a \"*thick description*\" that explains behaviors, cultural events, and their contexts - Pioneers: - - - **Contemporary Ethnography** - Beyond the small-scale, remote, non-Western "exotic" societies, now including western, urban, and complex societies - Multi-sited fieldwork: across locations - Increasingly problem-oriented rather than focusing on comprehensive cultural descriptions - Theory has regained importance relative to earlier emphases on descriptive ethnography alone - Greater appreciation of heterogeneity, variability, and emergent properties within cultures - Anthropologists' increased reflexiveness about their own positionality and authority claims - Polyvocality: inclusion of participants\' voices and co-authorship has become more common to accurately convey the diversity of perspectives - Increased use of technology - Provide essential data for all kinds of studies in cultural anthropology - Ethnography as source material - Within-culture comparisons - Regional controlled comparisons - Cross-cultural research - Single site does not necessarily provide sufficient data to test a hypothesis - **Emic perspective** - - - **Etic perspective** - - **Emic and Etic Perspectives** - **Emic:** - descriptions of behaviors and beliefs meaningful to people within a specific culture - obtained through talking to people, observing, and participating in their daily activities - help anthropologists understand a culture without interpreting it through their own cultural beliefs - **Etic:** - explanations for behavior by an outside observer - typically based on science and informed by various types of research Ethnographers often include both emic and etic perspectives in their research and writing, moving back and forth between the two. - The central activity of anthropology (Howell, 1990) - Fundamental "*paradigmatic*" elements of anthropology as an academic discipline - Source of anthropology's strength (understanding and skills) (Keesing and Strathern, 1998) - Study of people in their natural habitat: thus, anthropologist's prolonged residence, immersion - Intimate participation in a community and observation of modes of behavior and the organization of social life **What is Fieldwork?** *Immersing* in a particular culture or community to conduct research and gather data through participant observation, interviews, and other methods to gain a deep understanding of the culture from an insider\'s perspective. - Cornerstone and distinctive strategy of cultural anthropology, involving living with and participating in the daily lives of a community over an extended period. The goal is to gain an insider's perspective and understanding of a culture -- making the strange familiar and the familiar strange. - Both a scientific method for testing hypotheses about human diversity and an art requiring intuitive abilities to navigate complex cultural interactions, build rapport, and make sense of patterns. It can be transformative for the anthropologist. *\"Fieldwork is the most important method by which cultural anthropologists gather data to answer their research questions. Fieldwork involves living with a group of people for an extended period (usually a year or more), observing their behaviors, and asking questions about their lives and culture.\"* **Importance of Field Work in Cultural Anthropology** *"Field work is the hallmark of cultural anthropology. Whether in a New Guinea village or on the streets of* *New York, the anthropologist goes to where people live and \" does field work.\" This means asking questions, eating strange foods, learning a new language, watching ceremonies, taking field notes, washing clothes, writing letters home, tracing out genealogies, observing play, interviewing informants, and hundreds of other things."* **Goal of field work in cultural anthropology** - describe a group of people in a way that makes strange or unusual features of the culture seem familiar and familiar traits seem extraordinary - to help people think in new ways about aspects of their own culture by comparing them with other cultures. **Examples:** - Margaret Mead's study of 25 young women in Samoa: Samoan youth's transition to adulthood was relatively smooth, with little stress or turmoil; prompted Americans to question their cultural assumptions about adolescence, particularly regarding sexual repression and teenage angst in mid-20th century America. - Horace Miner\'s Body Ritual among the Nacirema (1956): classic example of anthropological writing that made the familiar strange; described the Nacirema\'s oral hygiene practices in an exaggerated, out-of-context manner, presenting them as a little-known group with exotic customs. - Participant-observation: attention to how ethnographer relationships can complicate, but also deepen, research - Ethnographic interviewing: attention to political and cultural contexts of interlocutors and ethnographers - Oral history/life history: documentation of key moments or particular aspect of interviewee's life that has developed over their life course - Conversations with varying degrees of formality - Genealogy (kinship) - Survey: to provide a broader picture of communities; can be used with strategic political intent - Analysis of cultural materials, including social media research - Ethnohistory *"The way to do fieldwork is never to come up for air until it is all over."* (Attributed to Margaret Mead) - Culture shock - "Going native" **Challenges** - Outsider/Insider engagement/Participant vs observer and recorder - *"Extent to which the researcher should act as a participant, including becoming engaged in activism that seeks to reform features of social life to enhance social justice rather than being a disengaged outsider observing and recording social life"* (Low and Merry) Should anthropologists be interventionist (Speed) *"These are productive tensions that we might strive to benefit from analytically, rather than seeking to avoid"* - Reflexivity - Accountability - Awareness of positionality (Trotter) - First ethics "incident": Franz Boas objected to anthropologists combining intelligence gathering with research - 1949: first formal statement on ethics from the Society for Applied Anthropology Committee chaired by Margaret Mead; included fundamental issues of research such as: relationship between the anthropologist and research collaborators, employers, protection of confidentiality - 1967: first statement on ethics from the AAA in the context of the Vietnam War, reference to avoiding the use of the name of anthropology or the title of anthropologist as a cover for intelligence activities - 1971: Committee on Ethics was formed by the AAA and first code of ethics was drafted and promulgated: Principles of Professional Responsibility - Core: do no harm to the people or communities being studied - preserving participants\' rights, maintaining their privacy and anonymity when appropriate - respectful engagement - Informed consent: cornerstone of ethical practice - form varies by context: from formal written agreements to informal verbal permissions - honesty about the research purpose and process - Inform the people they are studying (or the descendants of those people) about their work and its purpose. - Ensure that their work does no harm - Protect the confidentiality of people they study. - Be careful to identify appropriate and nondisruptive ways to compensate groups who participate in studies. A. **Responsibility to people and animals with whom anthropological researchers work and whose lives and cultures they study**. - Primary ethical obligations to the people, species, and materials they study and to the people with whom they work - Can supersede the goal of seeking new knowledge, and can lead to decisions not to undertake or to discontinue a research project when the primary obligation conflicts with other responsibilities, These ethical obligations include: - To avoid harm or wrong, - To respect the well-being of humans and nonhuman primates - To work for the long-term conservation of the archaeological, fossil, and historical records - To consult actively with the affected individuals or group(s), with the goal of establishing a working relationship that can be beneficial to all parties involved B. **Responsibility to scholarship and science** - Expect to encounter ethical dilemmas at every stage of their work, make good-faith efforts to identify potential ethical claims and conflicts in advance and as projects proceed. - Bear responsibility for the integrity and reputation of their discipline, of scholarship, and of science. General moral rules of scientific and scholarly conduct: should not deceive or knowingly misrepresent (i.e., fabricate evidence, falsify, and plagiarize), or attempt to prevent reporting of misconduct, or obstruct the scientific/scholarly research of others. - Should do all they can to preserve opportunities for future fieldworkers to follow them to the field. - Be both honest and transparent with all stakeholders about the nature and intent of their research. - Should utilize the results of their work in an appropriate fashion, and whenever possible disseminate their findings to the scientific and scholarly community. - Should seriously consider all reasonable requests for access to their data and other research materials for purposes of research. They should also make every effort to insure preservation of their fieldwork data for use by posterity C. **Responsibility to the public** - Should make the results of their research appropriately available to sponsors, students, decision makers, and other non-anthropologists. Must be truthful; they are not only responsible for the factual content of their statements but also must consider carefully the social and political implications of the information they disseminate. - In relation with his or her own government, host governments, or sponsors of research, an anthropologist should be honest and candid. Anthropologists must not compromise their professional responsibilities and ethics and should not agree to conditions which inappropriately change the purpose, focus or intended outcomes of their research. - May choose to move beyond disseminating research results to a position of advocacy. This is an individual decision, but not an ethical responsibility.