What Is Anthropology?

1. 1 What Is Anthropology? Anthropology:The Exploration of Human Diversity 11th Edition Conrad Phillip Kottak

2. What Is Anthropology? • Overview • Human Adaptability • General Anthropology • The Subdisciplines of Anthropology • Applied Anthropology • Anthropology and Other Academic Fields • Science, Explanation, and Hypothesis Testing

3. Overview • Anthropology confronts basic questions of human existence and survival • How we originated • How we have changed • How we are changing still

4. Overview • Anthropology is holistic • Interested in the whole of the human conditions • Past, present, and future • Biology • Society • Language • Culture

5. Overview • Four subfields • Cultural anthropology—study of human society and culture; describes, analyzes, interprets, and explains social and cultural similarities and differences Archaeology—reconstructs behavior by studying material remains

6. Overview • Linguistic anthropology—descriptive, comparative, and historical study of language and of linguistic similarities and differences in time, space, and society; considers how speech varies with social factors and over time • Biological anthropology—study human fossils, genetics, and bodily growth and nonhuman primates

7. Human Adaptability • Anthropology—study of human species and its immediate ancestors • Constantly compares customs of one society with others Humans among the world’s most adaptable animals

8. Human Adaptability • Society—organized life in groups • Culture—traditions and customs that govern behavior and beliefs • Distinctly human feature • Transmitted through learning • Not biological, but ability to use culture rests in hominid biology • Anthropology

9. Human Adaptability • Adaptation, Variation, and Change • Adaptation—process by which organisms cope with environmental forces and stresses Humans adapt using biological means and cultural means

10. Human Adaptability • Adaptation, Variation, and Change • Rate of change accelerated during the past 10,000 years • Foraging sole basis of human subsistence for millions of years • Only took few thousand years for food production—cultivation of plants and domestication (stockbreeding) of animals Developed 10,000 to 12,000 years ago

11. Human Adaptability • First civilizations arose between 6000 and 5000 B.P. (Before the Present) • More recently, spread of industrial production profoundly affected human life • Adaptation, Variation, and Change Today’s global economy and communications link all contemporary people, directly or indirectly, in modern world system

12. Human Adaptability • Forms of Cultural and Biological Adaptation (to High Attitude) • Insert Table 1.1

13. General Anthropology • Academic discipline of anthropology includes: • Cultural anthropology • Archaeological anthropology • Biological or physical anthropology • Linguistic anthropology

14. General Anthropology • Four-field approach: • Developed in U.S. Early American anthropologists studying native peoples of North America became interested in exploring origins and diversity of the groups • Subdisciplines share similar goal of exploring variation in time and space to improve understanding of basics of human biology, society, and culture Subdisciplines influence each other

15. General Anthropology • Sound conclusions about “human nature” cannot be derived from studying a single nation, society, or cultural tradition

16. General Anthropology • Culture key environmental force in determining how human bodies grow and develop • Biocultural—inclusion and combination (to solve a common problem) of biological and cultural perspectives and approaches • Cultural Forces Shape Human Biology This is one of anthropology’s hallmarks

17. General Anthropology • Brazilian women avoid competitive swimming because of that sport’s effects on the body • Cultural standards of attractiveness and propriety influence participation and achievement in sports

18. The Subdisciplines of Anthropology • Cultural Anthropology—describes, analyzes, interprets, and explains social and cultural similarities and differences • Ethnography—Fieldwork in a particular culture; provides account of that community, society, or culture Cultures not isolated from local, regional, national, and global systems of politics, economics, and information that expose villagers to external influences

19. The Subdisciplines of Anthropology • Ethnology—cross cultural comparison; the comparative study of ethnographic data, of society and of culture

20. The Subdisciplines of Anthropology • Ethnography and Ethnology—Two Dimensions of Cultural Anthropology • Insert Table 1.2

21. The Subdisciplines of Anthropology • Archaeological Anthropology—study of human behavior and cultural patterns and process through the culture’s material remains • Artifacts (e.g., potsherds, jewelry, and tools) • Garbage • Burials • Remains of structures

22. The Subdisciplines of Anthropology • Archaeological Anthropology • Archaeologists use paleoecological studies to establish ecological and subsistence parameters within which given groups lived Archaeological record provides unique opportunity to look at changes in social complexity over thousands and tens of thousands of years

23. The Subdisciplines of Anthropology • Archaeologists also study the cultures of historical and living people • Historical archaeology combines archaeological data and textual data to reconstruct historically known groups • William Rathje’s “garbology” project in Tucson, Arizona

24. The Subdisciplines of Anthropology • Biological Anthropology—study of human biological variation in time and space Includes evolution, genetics, growth and development, and primatology

25. human evolution as revealed by the fossil record Body’s ability to change as it copes with stresses such as heat, cold, and altitude study of biology, evolution, behavior, and social life of primates The Subdisciplines of Anthropology • Special interests within biological anthropology: • Primatology • Paleoanthropology • Human genetics • Human growth and development • Human biological plasticity

26. The Subdisciplines of Anthropology • Biological anthropology draws on biology, zoology, geology, anatomy, physiology, medicine, public health, osteology, and archaeology

27. The Subdisciplines of Anthropology • Linguistic Anthropology—study of language in its social and cultural context across space and time Historical linguists—reconstruct ancient languages and study linguistic variation through time Sociolinguistics—investigates relationships between social and linguistic variation to discover varied perceptions and patterns of thought in different cultures

28. Applied Anthropology • Applied Anthropology—application of anthropological data, perspectives, theory, and methods to identify, assess, and solve contemporary social problems

29. Applied Anthropology • American Anthropological Association (AAA) recognizes two dimensions • Theoretical/academic anthropology— includes cultural, archaeological, biological, and linguistic anthropology Directed at collecting data to test hypotheses and models created to advance anthropology

30. Applied Anthropology • Practicing or applied anthropology— application of anthropological data, perspectives, theory, and techniques to identify, assess, and solve contemporary social problems • Standard subdivisions include: • Medical anthropology • Environmental anthropology • Forensic anthropology • Development

31. Applied Anthropology • Applied anthropologists generally employed by international development agencies • World Bank • United States Agency for International Development (USAID) • World Health Organization (WHO) • United Nations

32. Applied Anthropology • Applied Anthropologists: • Work with local communities to identify specific social conditions that influence the failure or success of a development project • Assess social and cultural dimensions of economic development Development projects often fail when planners ignore cultural dimensions of development

33. Anthropology and Other Academic Fields • Anthropology is a science • Systematic field of study or body of knowledge that aims, through experiment, observation, and deduction, to produce reliable explanations of phenomena, with reference to the material and physical world • Anthropology links to interdisciplinary collaboration

34. Anthropology and Other Academic Fields • Anthropology also a humanity • Encompasses study of and cross-cultural comparison of languages, texts, philosophies, arts, music, performances, and other forms of creative expression

35. Anthropology and Other Academic Fields • Cultural Anthropology and Sociology • Sociologist traditionally used quantitative research, while cultural anthropological used qualitative methodologies • Anthropology and sociology converging

36. Anthropology and Other Academic Fields • Anthropology and Psychology • Statements about “human” psychology cannot be based solely on observations made in one society or in a single type of society • Cultural anthropology (psychological anthropology) studies cross-cultural variation in psychological traits Anthropology helps us understand ourselves through its cross-cultural perspective

37. Science, Explanation, and Hypothesis Testing • Explains how and why the thing to be understood (the explicandum) related to other things in some know way • Scientists strive to improve understanding by testing hypotheses that suggest explanations of things and events Associations—observed relationships between two or more measured variables

38. Science, Explanation, and Hypothesis Testing • A theory is more general • Explanatory framework, containing a series of statements, that helps us understand why (something exists) Theories suggest patterns, connections, and relationships that may be confirmed by new research

39. Science, Explanation, and Hypothesis Testing • Theories cannot be proved; we evaluate them through the method of falsification • Associations usually state probabilistically with two or more variables that tend to be related in a predictable way, but there are exceptions Theories that are not disproved are accepted because the available evidence seems to support them