ANTHROP 1AA3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Participant Observation, Applied Anthropology, Sam Dunn

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Anthropology
• Course: ANTHROP 1AA3
• Professor: Karen Mc Garry

Document Summary

The systematic study of humankind, both in the past and in the present. Human culture: learned behaviors and beliefs that shape our human experiences. Examples: religion, spirituality, identities (gender, race, ethnicity, nationalism), food preferences, etc. Tend to think about elements of our identity eg. gender, spirituality, food preferences as being somehow natural. For example: natural not to eat worms, i was born being of this parti(cid:272)ular religious ide(cid:374)tit(cid:455). We te(cid:374)d to use (cid:862)(cid:374)aturalizi(cid:374)g dis(cid:272)ourses(cid:863), thi(cid:374)ki(cid:374)g a(cid:271)out a(cid:374)d talki(cid:374)g a(cid:271)out identities as if they are a by-product of our biology. We tend tothink about many our behaviours and identities as natural/biological but many are not. It is dangerous to think that way that gives us pause to justify acts of violence against other groups of people. Anthropologists fight against: eth(cid:374)o(cid:272)e(cid:374)tris(cid:373): the erro(cid:374)eous (cid:894)i(cid:374)(cid:272)orre(cid:272)t(cid:895) idea that o(cid:374)e"s (cid:272)ulture a(cid:374)d its (cid:448)alues are so(cid:373)eho(cid:449) right or superior to another culture.