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What Is Anthropology
What Is Anthropology
To understand the full sweep and complexity of cultures across all of human history,
anthropology draws and builds upon knowledge from the social and biological sciences as
well as the humanities and physical sciences. A central concern of anthropologists is the
application of knowledge to the solution of human problems.
a. Sociocultural-Anthropology
Sociocultural anthropologists examine social patterns and practices across
cultures, with a special interest in how people live in particular places and how
they organize, govern, and create meaning. A hallmark of sociocultural
anthropology is its concern with similarities and differences, both within and
among societies, and its attention to race, sexuality, class, gender, and
nationality. Research in sociocultural anthropology is distinguished by its
emphasis on participant observation, which involves placing oneself in the
research context for extended periods of time to gain a first-hand sense of how
local knowledge is put to work in grappling with practical problems of everyday
life and with basic philosophical problems of knowledge, truth, power, and
justice. Topics of concern to sociocultural anthropologists include such areas as
health, work, ecology and environment, education, agriculture and development,
and social change.
c. Archaeology
Archaeologists study past peoples and cultures, from the deepest prehistory to
the recent past, through the analysis of material remains, ranging from artifacts
and evidence of past environments to architecture and landscapes. Material
evidence, such as pottery, stone tools, animal bone, and remains of structures, is
examined within the context of theoretical paradigms, to address such topics as
the formation of social groupings, ideologies, subsistence patterns, and
interaction with the environment. Like other areas of anthropology, archaeology
is a comparative discipline; it assumes basic human continuities over time and
place, but also recognizes that every society is the product of its own particular
history and that within every society there are commonalities as well as variation
d. Linguistic Anthropology
Linguistic anthropology is the comparative study of ways in which language
reflects and influences social life. It explores the many ways in which language
practices define patterns of communication, formulate categories of social
identity and group membership, organize large-scale cultural beliefs and
ideologies, and, in conjunction with other forms of meaning-making, equip people
with common cultural representations of their natural and social worlds. Linguistic
anthropology shares with anthropology in general a concern to understand
power, inequality, and social change, particularly as these are constructed and
represented through language and discourse.