ANTH 1220 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: James George Frazer, Tooth Enamel, Linguistic Anthropology
29 Sep 2018
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Chapter 1
What is Anthropology?
▪ The study of humanity, including our prehistoric origins and cotemporary human
diversity.
▪ Some anthropologist defined it science which a form of inquiry (an act of asking
question) that involves making hypothesis, observing, or testing whether the
hypothesis is correct.
▪ Some anthropologist considers as humanistic approach which it means
understanding humanity through study of people’s art, music, language, etc.
▪ Anthropologist covers time of the as or present based on the field or subfield.
▪ What anthropologist do?
o Searching for ancient fossils for our ancestor.
o They lived among the community to observe and conduct a research
about the lifestyle in a specific community.
o Conduct laboratory to analyses tooth enamel to reveal where individual
lived.
o Study design in prehistoric pottery to learn what is the meaning of the
design or symbol.
o Observe animal such as chimpanzees to know how they lived as an
animal.
Fields of general anthropology
A. Cultural Anthropology
B. Archaeology
C. Linguistic Anthropology
D. Physical or Biological Anthropology
E. Applied Anthropology
A. Cultural Anthropology
▪ Is the study of contemporary people and their cultures.
▪ Study of human culture.
▪ Adopts a perspective from “inside” living cultures.
▪ Involves all aspect of human behaviour and beliefs.
o Example: making a living, reproduction distributing goods, religion, form
of communication and culture such as art.
▪ Cultural anthropologist learns about cultures by living with them so that they
can experience how they live and it’s a way of understanding it.
Introducing Cultural Anthropology
▪ Armchair Approach
o Do not meet people who they are researching about.
o They look or realia on reports
o they just sit and read about other cultures
o no direct experience or cotact
o example armchair anthropologist: Sir James Frazer and Sir Edward
Taylor.
▪ Field Anthropology
o Involves site selection
o Will discuss in depth in chapter 2
Features of Cultural Anthropology
▪ use of Ethnography and Ethnology
▪ understanding an application of Cultural Relativism
▪ value and sustaining cultural diversity
Ethnography
▪ involves 1 community to study
▪ descriptive writing of the community
▪ refers to “culture writing”
▪ provides rich detailed description of living culture based on personal
observation.
▪ Also, it usually presented in the form of full length book.
▪ Example: 20th century ethnographers wrote about “exotic” cultures.
Ethnology
▪ Cross-cultural analysis
▪ Study of particular topic in more than one culture using ethnographic material
▪ Comparative approach
▪ Examine the pattern of similarities and the differences mean.
▪ Example of compared topics:
o Marriage forms
o Economic practices
o Religious belief
▪ Also, Ethnologist are looking beyond individual cases to wider patterns,
provides comparative view and raises new question.
Cultural Relativism
▪ Franz Boas is the one influenced this concept
▪ He defined
o the view that each culture must be understood in terms of the values
and ideas of that culture and not be judged by the standards of another
culture.
o Meaning no culture is more advance than another.
o Can be understood only based on the specific culture only.
▪ It should not be judge or criticize by others and should appreciate different
cultures.
▪ Opposite of cultural relativism is called Ethnocentrism
o Attitude that one culture of life and others are inferior
Document Summary
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