ISS 210 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Relativism, Ethnocentrism, Ethnography
29 Mar 2017
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Culture: all humans experience specific life events and every society has appropriate rules about events. Ex: food what is edible and what is not: only humans dwell in worlds that they create by giving meanings to things, events, activities, and people. Ethnocentric fallacy the idea that our beliefs and behaviors are right and true, whereas others are wrong or misguided: intellectually intolerable. Relativism no behavior or belief can be judged to be odd or wrong simply because it is different from our own: moral predicament. Anthropologists may face the dilemma of either maintaining a moral distance from the objects of their studies and remaining objective or becoming involved in criticizing behavior and beliefs they encounter. Important to see and appreciate perspectives other than our own. Anthropological fieldwork meeting of at least two cultures: that of the researcher and that of the culture and people the researcher is trying to understand.
