Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge, 11e

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Cultural AnthropologyThe Human Challenge, 11/e

• William Haviland, University of Vermont

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Chapter 1

• The Essence of Anthropology

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Chapter Outline

• What is Anthropology?
• What do Anthropologists do?
• How do Anthropologists do what they do?

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What Is Anthropology?

• The study of humankind everywhere, throughout
  time.
• Seeks knowledge about what makes people different
  and about what they all have in common.

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What Do Anthropologists Do?

• Study humans as biological organisms.
• Trace the evolutionary developmentof humans.
• Investigate biological variation past and present.

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How Do Anthropologists Work?

• Formulate hypotheses to develop theories
  supported by data.
• Anthropologists do fieldwork to become familiar
  with situations and recognize patterns in the
  data.

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Fields of Anthropology

• Physical Anthropology
• Archaeology
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Cultural Anthropology

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Fields of Anthropology
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Physical Anthropology

• Also called biological anthropology.
• Focuses on humans as biological organisms,
  evolution, and human variation.
• Analyze fossils and observe living primates to
  reconstruct the ancestry of the human species.

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Cultural Anthropology

• The study of customary patterns in human
  behavior, thought, and feelings.
• Focuses on humans as culture-producing and
  culture-reproducing creatures.
• Two main components ethnography and ethnology.

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Archaeology

• Studies material remains in order to describe and
  explain human behavior.
• Study tools, pottery, and other features such as
  hearths and enclosures that remain as the
  testimony of earlier cultures.

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Linguistic Anthropology

• Studies human languages
• Description of a language - the way a sentence is
  formed or a verb conjugated.
• History of languages - the way languages change
  over time.
• The study of language in its social setting.

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Ethnology

• Also called sociocultural anthropology.
• Concentrates human ideas and practices as they
  can be seen and experienced.
• When possible, the ethnologist becomes
  ethnographer by living among the people under
  study.

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AnthropologysComparative Method

• Uses the methods of other scientists by
  developing hypotheses and arriving at theories.
• Anthropologists make comparisons between peoples
  and cultures past and present, related species,
  and fossil groups.

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The Scientific Approach and Anthropology

• Difficulties
• Objectivity It is difficult for someone who grew
  up in one culture to frame objective hypotheses
  about other cultures.
• ValidityThe reliability of the ethnographers
  account is not easily validated.

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Questions Of Ethics

• Anthropologists have obligations to
• Those whom they study.
• Those who fund the research.
• Those in the profession who expect a study to be
  published so they can further the research in the
  field.