ANTHROP 1AA3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 99: Biological Anthropology, Cultural Relativism, Ethnocentrism
19 Oct 2017
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Lecture 1 - introduction to anthropology: sex, food, and death. What is anthropology: (greek) anthropos = human kind", (greek) logia = study of", the systematic study of humankind, both in the past and in the present. Human culture: learned behaviours and beliefs that shape our human experiences. (gender, race, ethnicity, nationalism), food preferences, etc. We tend to think about many of our behaviours and identities as natural and. I. e. nationalism - use terms like it"s in my blood to be an american, but americans are taught what it means to be american. Ethnocentrism: the erroneous idea that one"s culture and its values are somehow right or superior to another culture"s. Many people therefore judge another culture according to the standards of their own. An approach adopted and promoted by anthropologists. Understanding another society in its own terms. : witchcraft, slang: used in some languages can mean different things. The four sub elds of anthropology: physical/biological anthropology, archaeology, cultural anthropology, linguistics.
