Anthropology in general means the study of a human and its ancestors. As learned in class, culture is something that one follows; for example: traditions and customs. So, Cultural Anthropology is the study of ones’ society and their culture, it also interprets and explains the social and cultural aspect of that particular society. In short, Cultural Anthropology overall studies the beliefs, practices, values, ideas, etc. of a human and its society. The reason to study Cultural Anthropology is to open ourselves up to endless possibilities of learning cultures that we have no idea about and to see how that plays a role in our lives not just today but also in the future. It is useful because there are ethnographers out there doing fieldwork and analyzing a particular society to help us better understand why we act the way we do, why we eat what we eat, how it’s affecting our physical and social environment. Most importantly, it is useful because it explains why we are all different. This social science of learning about other societies tells us the similarities and differences that we have with each other which can also help us understand them better instead of deviating them. For example, I attended a resume workshop yesterday and the speaker shared a story with us about her going to a meeting at Panasonic which is Japan based company. When she entered the room, people were exchanging cards and she just took the card and placed it in her bag because she didn’t want to lose it. It wasn’t till later that she found out that in Japan after taking a sit, business cards are placed on the table in order of most important people to least. Not being aware of this, she unintentionally insulted the company. So, to summarize it is important to learn Cultural Anthropology to not make these mistakes in life and to open ourselves to other cultures to not only help ourselves but others because you cannot help others without understanding them.
2.) Name and describe in detail the four disciplines of Anthropology. How do they interrelate and intertwine to possibly give us the most complete story of any given human being, his society and its culture? What is Applied Anthropology and how does it play a vital role in general Anthropology?
The four disciplines of Anthropology are Biological Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Linguistic Anthropology, and Archaeology. First, Biological Anthropology studies human biological variation in time and space by interpreting human evolution, human genetics, human’s ability to natural resources overtime, and studying animals such as monkeys and apes. Second, Cultural Anthropology examines the social, traditional, and behavioral aspect of a society by the use of ethnography and other type of fieldworks. Here is my favorite type of Anthropology, third, Linguistic Anthropology studies how languages are formed and evolved. It also studies how a culture and language interact with each other. As stated in the book, “we don’t know (and probably never will know) when our ancestors started speaking” (pg.10). Although we never might find out what was he first language spoken, we have Linguistic Anthropology to help us guide the differences in languages spoken in the past to the ones that we speak today. Best for the last, Archaeology describes the cultural patterns by the use of material remains. For example; using the material remains from the volcano eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in Italy to study what the people were doing at the time of eruption and how they lived their lives. In my opinion, all of these four disciplines of Anthropology are useless without each other as they all combine together to give us one simple explanation of everything that we question about a culture native to us. If you think about it, all of the four disciplines cannot be supported without each other, like we cannot explain Cultural Anthropology without introducing Biological Anthropology because we have to know the background for where we came from to know more about us, another thing is that Linguistic Anthropology and Archaeology are both created by humans which help us understand Cultural Anthropology better. So, all four disciplines of Anthropology have to be in codominance to give us a complete story.
Applied anthropology is using anthropology to solve, identify, and assess social problems such as programs that aim at influencing human social conditions or public educational programs. Applied Anthropology plays an important role in general Anthropology because it assesses human problems and determines the ways those problems can be reduced.
3.) Define what culture is. Be as expansive as you can be, using examples of societies in your answer that illustrate that you not only know what culture is, but you also know what it isn’t. Take your time with this; this is your moment to be creative and imaginative
In my opinion, there is no real definition of culture. Culture is something that describes you, something that makes you stand out in the crowd, the music, the art, the language, your morals, your beliefs, and many more. As I said, you can go on and on about what culture is but do we really know what it is? Well, to better understand a culture, we need to follow a culture and we don’t just follow a random culture, we are born into a family that follows a particular culture that we learn as we grow up also known as Enculturation. I think rituals such as wedding play a huge role in a culture. For example, wearing white at a wedding in the U.S. compare to wearing red in India. Culture is also based on your beliefs, attitude, and values. For example, when you work, your employer expects you to know what they stand for, what they believe in, and what they are representing as part of the organization. Culture is passed down one generation to next and it is evolving. For example, I am a Hindu. Although I live in the U.S., my family and I still follow our own culture. This is another beauty of culture, no matter where we are, our culture is what makes us unique and we can never forget it because culture is who we are. To pass down your culture is a great deal as it also passes down what you stand for and what you believe in and your morals. As I mentioned earlier that culture is evolving, I actually have a great example; in Hinduism, there is a festival called Rakshabandhan where a sister ties a Rakhi (bracelet) on the brother’s right hand. It signifies the love between a brother and a sister. When I was little, my mom would help me make the Rakhi at home as it was said that when a sister makes it herself, it shows more love. But as I grew up, I saw that trend decrease and now sisters just buy the Rakhis from outside instead of making them. This doesn’t mean we don’t love our brothers anymore but the tradition has just evolved slightly where it became more modernize. So, some traditions in a culture do evolve. Most importantly, culture is shared, it is not assigned to an individual but a group or a society.
Now that we know that culture is what defines us, what is not culture? In my perspective, culture is not you going to the movies every Friday night or you are having a family party every weekend or going to a yearly pie eating contest with your family. Those are things that bring a family together but culture is what unites a whole group that share the same beliefs and work toward the same goal.
4.) What are the four (4) traditional subsistence activities and what type of social arrangement would we likely find in each? Make sure you define each of these as either food obtaining or food producing strategies and how human lifestyle and settlement patterns evolved because of changes in subsistence strategies.
The four traditional subsistence activities are Foraging, Horticulture, Agriculture, and Pastoralism. Foraging is hunting and gathering which is form of food obtaining. Horticulture is non-intensive shifting cultivation which is food producing. Agriculture is intensive continuous cultivation which is also food producing. Last, Pastoralism are herders of domesticated animals. Both Foraging and Pastoralism are food obtaining strategies where Foraging is just hunting and gathering while Pastoralism is where people focus on domesticated animals like sheep, cattle, camel, yak, etc. and protect them to obtain food, dairy, fur, and leather. Both Agriculture and Horticulture are food producing strategies where Agriculture is more intensive farming, more labor needed, irrigation is supplied unlike in Horticulture where it is non-intensive farming, farmers have to wait for rain because there is no irrigation system since the plot is abandon every few years. In the past, Foraging mostly famous in area like Africa, California, Great Plains, etc. Pastoralism mostly in South Asia, Mongolia, etc. Agriculture mostly in India, Pakistan, Egypt, etc. Horticulture mostly in Amazon and Congo. Now the subsistence activities have changed a little since Foragers have started to implement new techniques by using rifles and snowmobiles. Agriculture has moved to all developed nations expect the areas that are very dry or cold. Machines like a tractor have made Agriculture easier by not using animals as a source to pave the farm. Foraging strategies survived into modern day due to the labor work that cultivation requires. More flexible and mobile than Agriculture, Horticulture, and Pastoralism. Almost everyone was a Forager back 12,000 years ago as described in the textbook (pg.131). So, people have adapted to different types of subsistence depending on where they live in order to survive. Now many subsistence is influenced by national and international policies and the subsistence techniques have changed to where we try to be more stable and instead of foragers hunting one animal all the time, to hunt different types of animals and take advantage of the diversity and farmers to invest in long term cultivation. So basically, human lifestyle evolved tremendously with the change in these techniques as we started to become stable and concerned about the environment and with the help of national and international policies, it made it easier to transport food from one part of the world to the other.
5.) We know that there is much diversity and variation in human beings all over the planet, but name and describe some things that ALL peoples have in common. Are these things cultural or biological? And if they are cultural, what accounts for this seeming universality across the many human societies and their cultures?
Diversity and variation both mean range of different things from different color to different look to different eating habits to different day to day chores. What makes us different are our genes, the order of them and it is evolution that is the source of all genetic variation. But there must be somethings that make us all similar in one way or another. There are many biological things that make us all similar yet different such as our body components: stomach, eyes, liver, kidney, etc. why? Because we all have similar genes that were passed from an ancestor. But what makes us different is that one variation in a gene called mutation. Everyone works to make a living as well as pass on their genetic information to the future generation through reproduction. These are all biological but what about cultural; cultural similarities are difficult to find because every culture has one thing that makes it unique. But there are few similarities that I found particularly that might not make sense but I highly suggest considering. For example, Day of the Dead celebrated in Mexico on May 5 in honor of deceased family members similarly to a month in Hinduism called Shravan celebrated in honor of deceased family member as well. And to keep in mind Halloween is celebrated for all evil spirits who have died. So, there is a cultural similarity in this, just different names given. We all celebrate Independence Day but it’s for our own country. That right there are some cultural things that I saw were similar. Although, there are different names given to a holiday in different cultures, there are a few that follow the same criteria yet have different names to it that pertain to that culture. We all share stories about our ancestors who fought for us and gave the freedom we have today and that is something we all have in common. This universality among many human society and their cultures is due to migration. How did I come to America, how did you come to America, how did others come to America, we all had a common ancestor who migrated earlier; so, we are spreading our culture across the world by the means of migration and evolving it for the better.