SOCIAL AND CULTUREAL ANTHROLOGY: A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION Anthropology grew out of the intersection of European discovery, colonialism, and natural science Interested in reconstructing stages of social and cultural evolution Early part of the 20 century anthro was typically concerned with small scale, technologically simple societies Desire to get at the essential or elementary forms of human institutions Adopted a m ore interpretive, humanistic approach Shifted its focus from an exclusive concern with non-western, small-scale rural societies to group that would have been the purview of sociology, such as labour unions, social clubs, and migrant communities found in urban and industrialized setting Broadly comparative What role does the refusal to accept another religion play in establishing an ethnic boundary between 2 groups (like the Dou Donggo and Bimanese) Ethnography is to the cultural or social anthropologist what lab research is to the biologist, what archival research is to the historian, or what survey research is to the sociologist Based on the apparently simple idea that in order to understand what people are up to, it is best to observe them by interacting with them intimately and over and extended period It is this openness to the serendipitous discover that gives the ethnographic method strength and flexibility not generally available to highly deductive social science methods such as survey or statistical research The randomness of ethnographic serendipity is compensated for by the length of time a good ethnographer spends in the field; eventually, one hopes, one will accidentally encounter most social phenomena of significance [peter] due to his long residence in the village had allowed him to build up relations of trust with people who were willing to confide in him and to explain events and motivations beyond superficial appearances It is this interplay between the specific and the general, between the specific and the general, between the local and the universal that gives anthro much of its value as a social science Fieldwork: Strategies and Practices The ethnographer doesnt enter into the enterprise unprepared. What ethnographers need to know is as diverse and varied as the studies they undertake www.notesolution.com
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