APL110 Anthropology - Essay Sample

Introduction

Anthropology is the study of characteristics of past and present human communities through variable techniques. It will investigate and description of how different people of the world are living throughout history. It is taking the three subfields sociocultural, biological and archaeological (Fox & King, 2020). The essay will discuss the concept of culture from the perspectives of anthropologists. It focuses on ways that are focused on the culture that is allowing the understanding of behaviour to social function and perpetuate itself.

Cultural Anthropology

It is the branch of anthropology that is concerned with the study of human societies and culture and their development. The definition of culture is different for anthropologists based on the domain they belong to. As a medical anthropologist, my interest is in culture and health quality of care while the organisational culture is focusing on people and culture. Anthropology takes a quite different approach toward culture. As it takes the definition of culture as the standard set of implicit and explicit values, ideas and rules of behaviour that allows social groups to function. Anthropologists define culture as a complex and multifaceted concept that will be requiring a conceptual model and research methods (Bowie, 2021). It is offering the interesting aspect of culture and its quality that is motivating the researcher to apply approaches. On the other hand, it is seen that the role of experience, religion and notion. Religion is a personal encounter where the psychic unity of human beings is getting understood. To better comprehend the culture, the biological and neurological system is taken into a role that gives glimpses of what is a reality beyond the normative framework (Caputo, 2022). In addition, a displacement is an approach in anthropology as an exceptional experience that is associated with refugee and forced migration. Recognizing the shared temporal rhythms, displacement and effects of global capitalism and neoliberalism structuring. The understanding of culture is found to be a potential one as marginalisation and separation of a section of society. There is a difference in social spaces as seen in All these aspects of understanding leading to a way where the culture and its influence can be understood. Getting the idea of culture is allowing insight into the spaces where rethinking the scope of culture will originate (Davis, 2020). It will increase issues, ideas and social sciences come together. Through these, the activity of people and their voices can be raised for the understanding of a particular culture.

Ways That Are Utilised by Anthropologists to Define Culture

From anthropological perspectives, three perspectives are holism, relativism, comparison and fieldwork. Holism is defined as a view of the human condition that assumes that mind, body, individuals, society and environment are interlinking that define each other. It will take the integration of all the factor that is known for human beings and their activities (Sokolskaya & Valentonis, 2020). The emphasis is on the state of s system where the entire element is taken and cannot be assessed independently. Second is cultural relativism that is referring to the process of not judging the culture based on the standard of what is right and wrong. Instead, it is trying to understand the cultural practices of other groups. For example: why do certain cultures eat different foods at different meals? The main goal is to promote the cultural practices that are part of self and others' culture. Third is a comparison that is used to describe and explain challenges in generalisation. It will be taking the challenges, new facts and new concepts to reflect on key areas (Atalay et al., 2019). The different understanding will result in figuring out two or more aspects of culture that establish the synchrony in culture. Lastly, the process of fieldwork is joining the pieces together about the idea, kinship, language, religion and economic system that allows building a picture of society. The idea of culture will be providing insights into the nature of society and the existence of humans. The offering of the culture will be seen in a context that stimulates the intellectual and moral imagination. It gives the platform for gaining the idea about cultural and ethnic differences and learning about the opinion of people (Jones 2021). Mending the gaps gives a better idea of the impact of social, political and economic factors that are shaping the world of humans.

Conclusion

Gaining the point of view from anthropology is allowing people to share a common culture, make the organisation of systems and shape the physical and social world that is present around them. It gives the knowledge and facts that how ideas, behaviour and physical environment is shaping society. Holism, cultural relativism, comparison and fieldwork will be related to the ways that are allowing the anthropologist to understand the culture. It is presenting the hallmark of the concept of culture itself that is turning society and interaction of society.

References

Atalay, S., Bonanno, L., Galman, S. C., Jacqz, S., Rybka, R., Shannon, J., ... & Wolencheck, E. (2019). Ethno/Graphic storytelling: Communicating research and exploring pedagogical approaches through graphic narratives, drawings, and zines. American Anthropologist, 121(3), 769-772.https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/64263129

Bowie, F. (2021). Anthropology of religion. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion, 1-24.https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781119092797.ch1

Caputo, V. (2022). Anthropology's silent ‘others’: A consideration of some conceptual and methodological issues for the study of youth and children's cultures. In Youth cultures (pp. 19-42). Routledge.https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003333487-2/anthropology-silent-others-virginia-caputo

Davis, M. (2020). The “Culture” in cultural competence. Cultural competence and the higher education sector: Australian perspectives, policies and practice, 15-29.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5362-2_2

Fox, R. G., & King, B. J. (2020). Introduction: Beyond culture worry. In Anthropology beyond culture (pp. 1-19). Routledge.https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003084631-1/introduction-beyond-culture-worry-richard-fox-barbara-king

Jones, N. L. (2021). Making culture a verb: implications for health equity. The American Journal of Bioethics, 21(9), 11-13.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15265161.2021.1952351

Sokolskaya, L., & Valentonis, A. (2020). Тhe History of the Acculturation Concept. Journal of Intercultural Communication, 20(3), 31-43.https://immi.se/oldwebsite/20-3-54/PDFs/JICC-20-3.pdf#page=33

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