AN101 Lecture Notes - Ethnography, Anthropology Today, Cultural Relativism
Document Summary
Ethnocentrism: believe your own culture is superior to others. Judge other cultures based on your own cultural norms/ standpoints everything else seems strange: opposite of cultural relativism. Fieldwork: go somewhere else and stay there for a period of time while observing the subjects. Participation observation: actively participate in the everyday life of the subjects they are studying, father - malinowski. Contextualize the ethnography: chronicle of the guayaki indians. Written in 1972 by a french anthropologist used many words that we would consider ethnocentric today. Ethnography: based on direct observation this book is not a novel. First chapter: birth process: the ethnography compares the birth process of the guayaki to the one of his own culture, holist approach: he links the birth process to economical, political and religious phenomenon. Columbus depictions of the indians correspond to his own perceptions and fantasies.
