PERSPECTIVES: AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?
Derived from Greek, anthropos = “human” and logy = “the study of.” Literally, anthropology is the study of humanity: the study of everything that makes us human, including cultures, languages, material remains, and human evolution.
Key questions anthropologists ask: ext{How did we come to be human? Who are our ancestors?} ; how do people look and act differently around the world? what do we have in common? how have we changed culturally and biologically over time? what factors influence diverse beliefs and behaviors globally?
Anthropology is expansive and organized into 4 subfields in the United States: cultural anthropology, archaeology, biological (or physical) anthropology, and linguistic anthropology. These subfields together provide a multi-faceted picture of the human condition.
Applied anthropology is a specialization within or between the subfields, aimed at solving practical problems in collaboration with governmental, non-profit, community organizations, businesses, and corporations.
Global variations in structure:
In the United Kingdom and many European countries, the cultural subfield is often called social (or socio-cultural) anthropology.
Archaeology, biological anthropology, and linguistic anthropology are sometimes treated as separate disciplines.
In some countries (e.g., Mexico), anthropology focuses more on cultural and indigenous heritage within the country rather than on comparative cross-cultural research.
In Canada and the United States, anthropology is commonly organized as a 4-field discipline; other places may mirror different models.
This book emphasizes cultural anthropology (the largest US subfield by PhD production) and notes the development of the four-field approach (to be read about in Doing Fieldwork, chapter three).
WHAT IS CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY?
Cultural anthropology is the largest subfield in the US by PhD production and focuses on living societies and cultural groups.
Methods include immersive fieldwork: living with and working with the people studied, suspending one’s own sense of what is “normal” to understand other perspectives.
Central questions include whether human emotions are universal or culturally specific, and whether globalization makes us all the same or helps maintain cultural differences.
No aspect of human life is outside the cultural anthropologist’s purview: art, religion, healing, natural disasters, pet cemeteries, etc.
Outsider perspective: cultural anthropologists often study groups different from their own to generate fresh insights.
Example: Jean Briggs (1929–2016) studied Inuit in Nunavut, arguing that anger and strong negative emotions are not expressed in small, closely living families due to child-rearing practices; emotions are culturally learned rather than innate.
While fieldwork traditionally occurred in distant places, anthropologists increasingly study their own societies or subgroups within them (e.g., Philippe Bourgois’s 1980s work in East Harlem with Puerto Rican crack dealers; analysis of how individual choices and social structures interact to trap people in poverty and drug use).
For Bourgois, both personal choices and social structures must be understood together, not blamed on individuals alone.
See the interview/learning resources, Anthropology in Our Moment in History, for more on Bourgois.
WHAT IS CULTURE?
Culture is learned and shared, a set of beliefs, practices, and symbols that forms an all-encompassing, integrated whole that binds people and shapes worldview and lifeways.
Observable culture (food, clothing, language, traditions, art, music) is only part of culture; culture also includes intangible aspects that shape perception and behavior.
Culture is dynamic and changes in response to internal and external factors; however, parts may change at different rates (e.g., technology vs. deeply held values like individualism or autonomy).
Culture is symbolic: symbols stand for something else, often with no natural connection; meanings are created, interpreted, and shared within a group (e.g., the red octagonal stop sign in the US; the Confederate flag can symbolize different things to different groups).
Definition of culture used here: a set of beliefs, practices, and symbols that are learned and shared, forming an integrated whole that binds people and shapes worldview and lifeways.
Although culture is central to being human, humans are also biological beings with universal needs (hunger, thirst, sex, elimination). Culture channels these urges in particular ways and influences biology, growth, and development.
Humans are a dynamic species capable of changing both culturally and biologically, helping us persist for millions of years and thrive in diverse environments.
Key characteristics of culture:
1) Humans are born with the capacity to learn any culture; learning occurs directly (instruction) and indirectly (observation).
2) Culture changes in response to internal and external factors.
3) Humans are not bound by culture; they can conform to it, resist it, or transform it.
4) Culture is symbolic; people create and share meanings of symbols within their group or society.
5) The degree to which humans rely on culture distinguishes us and has shaped our evolution.
6) Culture and biology are interrelated: culture influences biology, growth, and development.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL THINKING
Zhang Qian (164 ext{ BC} ext{–} 113 ext{ BC}) was a Chinese military officer who traveled Central Asia and helped establish cultural connections; contributed to Silk Road knowledge and exposure to Buddhism.
Ibn Battuta (1304 ext{–}1369), a Amazigh (Berber) Moroccan Muslim scholar, traveled for nearly 30 years across the Islamic world and documented customs in Al Rihla (A Gift to those who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Traveling); considered among the early pre-anthropological descriptions of other cultures.
Age of Discovery (1400s–1700s): European exploration and colonization; exploitation of resources and labor; new trade routes and the slave trade; cultures were often subjugated; ethnocentrism framed as justification for superiority.
Enlightenment (eighteenth century): emphasis on science, rationality, and experience; critique of religious authority; laid groundwork for modern social sciences.
Notable figures associated with emerging ideas:
Sir Charles Lyell (1797 ext{–}1875): advocated gradual earth change, challenging Young Earth notions dating the earth to a few thousand years.
Charles Darwin (1809 ext{–}1882): emphasized common descent of life through fossils and living species.
John Locke (1632 ext{–}1704): social contract, origins of society and government.
19th century social evolutionism:
Herbert Spencer (1820 ext{–}1903): argued societies evolve from simple to complex, similar to biological evolution.
Lewis Henry Morgan (1818 ext{–}1881): proposed stages of social development—savagery → barbarism → civilization—based on family structure, technology, and food acquisition; ethnocentric and later challenged.
Early 20th century challenges to ethnocentrism:
Bronisław Malinowski (1884 ext{–}1942): stranded on the Trobriand Islands; developed participant-observation fieldwork; argued that other cultures are functional and fit their needs; emphasized cultural relativism and early holistic approaches, though some critique as reductionist.
Franz Boas (1858 ext{–}1942): often regarded as the founder of American anthropology; developed cultural relativism; argued that physical and behavioral differences arise from environmental and social conditions, not biology; promoted four-field integration and professionalization of anthropology.
The (four) subfields of anthropology: cultural, linguistic, archaeology, and biological anthropology, as the integrated core of the discipline in the United States.
THE (OTHER) SUBFIELDS OF ANTHROPOLOGY
Biological Anthropology (physical anthropology):
Study of human origins, evolution, and variation; includes close relatives (nonhuman primates) to understand human traits.
Jane Goodall’s work with wild chimpanzees (in Tanzania, starting in the 1960s) challenged assumptions about human-ape differences by showing tool use, social life, maternal bonds, and emotions in chimpanzees; highlighted value of fieldwork in natural settings.
Other focus areas include examining extinct human species, asking what our ancestors looked like, what they ate, when they started to speak, and how they adapted to environments.
Paleoanthropology is the study of human evolution through fossils and dating techniques; rapidly evolving with new discoveries and methods (e.g., Rising Star Cave discoveries).
Notable example: Homo naledi (Rising Star Cave, South Africa) with over 1{,}550 specimens from at least 15 individuals; scientists seek to understand diet, tool use, and relationships to other Homo species.
Nina Jablonski’s skin color research explains variation in pigmentation as an adaptive balance to UV exposure, folic acid preservation, and vitamin D synthesis; darker skin protects folic acid in high-UV settings; lighter skin facilitates vitamin D production in low-UV settings; illustrates interplay between biology, environment, and culture (e.g., migration patterns) (cite Jablonski, 2012).
Archaeology:
Focus on material past: tools, food remains, pottery, art, shelters, seeds; reconstruct lifeways of past societies, including those without writing.
Key questions: How did people live in a particular area? What did they eat? Why did their societies change over time? When and why did agriculture begin? How did cities develop? How did prehistoric peoples interact with neighbors?
Method: excavation — careful digging and recording of context to recover material remains.
Time span: from early human origins to the present; notable historical archaeologists and projects include:
Kathleen Kenyon (1906 ext{–}1978): studied Jericho; argued Jericho is one of the oldest continuously occupied cities (~10,000 years of occupation).
The Garbage Project (began in the 1970s): excavating a modern landfill to compare claimed versus actual waste; implications for sustainable waste disposal.
African Burial Ground (discovered in 1991 in NYC): excavated 30 feet below the city streets; yielded about 15{,}000 skeletons of free and enslaved Africans; now a national monument highlighting the history of slavery in the United States.
Linguistic Anthropology:
Language is a defining human trait; over 6{,}000 languages exist worldwide; language enables teaching/learning, planning, abstract thinking, coordination, and reflection on mortality.
Core questions: How did language first emerge? How has it evolved and diversified? How does language convey social identity? How does language shape worldviews?
Example of language and social identity: different terms for love in Spanish (e.g., te amo, te adoro, te quiero) convey nuanced relationships beyond the single English word “love.”
Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis (linguistic relativity): proposed by Benjamin Whorf; the language you speak shapes thought and perception; e.g., Hopi has no grammatical tenses to mark time in the same way as English; argues Hopi’s linguistic structure promotes a cyclical sense of time; criticisms by Ekkehart Malotki argue that Hopi does have time-related terms and that English–HopI tense differences are not as dramatic as Whorf suggested; evidence remains debated.
Other lines of inquiry include how language emerges and diversifies, how language is used in socialization (children learn culture and social identity through language and nonverbal communication; see Ochs & Schieffelin, 2012).
Applied Anthropology:
Often considered a fifth subdiscipline; applies anthropological theories, methods, and findings to real problems outside academia.
Employment spans public and private sectors: business/consulting, advertising, local government, law enforcement, healthcare, NGOs, military, etc.; practitioners work across subfields.
Examples:
Applied archaeologists in cultural resource management to assess sites uncovered during construction.
Applied cultural anthropologists in tech companies to understand human–technology interfaces and design better tools.
Medical anthropology integrates all four subfields to examine health, illness, and culture; highlights how environment, social context, and cultural beliefs shape experiences of illness.
Paul Farmer as an exemplar: physician and medical anthropologist who founded Partners in Health; worked in Haiti to treat TB and cholera, contextualizing patients’ experiences within historical, social, and political forces; clinics and local staff training to deliver care; demonstrates applied potential of anthropology to improve lives.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES
Anthropologists across subfields rely on core perspectives that distinguish anthropology from related disciplines (history, sociology, psychology): holism, relativism, comparison, and fieldwork; also a tension exists between scientific and humanistic tendencies within the discipline.
Holism:
Anthropology aims to understand the whole of humanity and how different aspects interact; you cannot fully understand marriage in one village without considering gender norms, family networks, laws, religion, and economics; similarly, studying nonhuman primates requires linking biology, ecology, and human interaction.
Anthropologists study culture, language, biology, and archaeology to understand the human condition; the four major subfields contribute to a holistic view of humanity.
Cultural Relativism (versus Ethnocentrism):
Guiding philosophy: understand beliefs and behaviors from the perspective of the culture studied, not by one’s own cultural standards.
Ethnocentrism is the tendency to view one’s own culture as superior and to evaluate others by that standard; this is a common human tendency but not useful in diverse or contact-rich contexts.
Cultural relativism is essential for anthropologists to guide inquiry and interactions and to learn from others, setting aside innate ethnocentric views.
Comparison:
Anthropologists use comparison to learn what humans have in common, how we differ, and how we change.
In cultural anthropology, comparisons occur within or between cultures (e.g., gender roles across societies, conflicts among religious groups within a society).
Comparisons span cultures, time, place, and even species (humans vs. other primates).
Fieldwork:
Fieldwork (ethnography) is the process and product of cultural anthropological research.
Method: participant-observation — participate in people’s lives, observe, and take field notes; combine with interviews and surveys; data are inductive and shape increasingly specific questions about the group or human condition.
Ethnography is both the process and the written descriptive account that weaves observations with theory; informants may participate and help shape questions.
Ethical considerations arise in fieldwork: who might be harmed; costs/benefits of identifying individuals; resolving competing interests of funders and communities.
Anthropologists follow professional codes of ethics to navigate these dilemmas.
Scientific vs Humanistic Approaches:
Some subfields (biological anthropology, archaeology) emphasize deductive, scientific methods with hypothesis testing and material data.
Other subfields (cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology) rely on humanistic/inductive approaches, focusing on everyday life and language in use.
Debates exist about the role of science versus public understanding; e.g., a 2010 debate over the American Anthropological Association’s mission statement; the word science remains in many contexts, though there is ongoing discussion about interpretive versus scientific emphasis.
WHY IS ANTHROPOLOGY IMPORTANT?
Breadth and career versatility: anthropology opens doors to medicine, museums, field archaeology, historical preservation, education, international business, documentary filmmaking, management, foreign service, law, and more.
Transferable skills: broad knowledge of cultures, keen observation and analytical abilities, critical thinking, clear communication, and applied problem-solving.
Anthropological perspective fosters global and inclusive thinking: helps reduce ethnocentrism and racism, promotes understanding of diverse worldviews, and supports collaboration in a globalized world.
Real-world impact: examples include the insights of practitioners such as the three cultural anthropologists interviewed (Anthony Kwame Harrison, Bob Myers, Lynn Kwiatkowski) illustrating work on race, health experiences in Dominica, and hunger/gender violence in the Philippines, respectively; these illustrate the discipline’s potential to address urgent social issues.
The chapter emphasizes that anthropology blends scientific inquiry with humanistic understanding to illuminate the human condition and to guide practical actions in diverse contexts.