ANTH 202 Chapter Notes -Margaret Mead, Franz Boas
8 Jul 2014
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What we think of as familiar might become strange. Exploration into how practice of anthro. makes familiar strange seeing strange people/things/doing weird things --> making sense of it --> utilizing this. Anthropological way of doing things involves paying attention to context. Context, background, kinship, all background is important for understanding. Otherwise things can be misinterpreted and concluded wrongly such as in the. Boas is saying you cannot just go into a society and pick out words but actually understand entire language and sounds. Deaf friend analogy: about how person going deaf often mishears/misinterprets what people may say but this gives insight into what they are thinking (thought process) rather than what people are actually saying. What we think of as natural is really a cultural it is the product of our social cultural context. As something cultural we can critique it and perhaps tweak it for the better.
