What is

Anthropology?
CH. 1
What do we study?
 People! Both living and in the past
Why should we study
 As a term, it quite literally translates anthropology?
to the study of humanity
 It is often described as the study of
people in all times and places – what
we are primarily concerned by is
change over time
 Anthro is too large of a subject to take on
though, as it appears in its description,
so we break it down into subfields
 Socio-cultural
 Biological
 Archaeology
 Linguistic
 A Holistic Perspective
 What separates anthropology from
similar disciplines is the holistic
perspective
 This can mean a few things:
 First, that we include other
disciplines and anth fields within our
research
 Second, is that we understand that
we cannot study just one part of a
culture – we have to understand that
 We must always remember though that our
all parts of a culture will affect other
aspects – and vice versaculture does not entirely dictate our lives
 We will always make decisions that make
the most sense to us culturally
 But, people do have agency – the ability
to make a decision outside of cultural
norms or expectations
The Comparative Perspective
 Anthropology has historically been a
comparative discipline – we compare
and contrast what makes cultures both
the same and different
 We must be very careful with this as
comparison was also what made
anthropology so useful for
colonisation
Garifuna
 In the early days of anthropology it was
considered to be a hard science –
searching for large international truths
(objective knowledge) that could
apply to all cultures
 Anthropology today is considered to
be post-modern in that the idea of
‘objective truth’ is largely no longer
believed Ainu
Biological Anthropology
 Under the umbrella of biological
anthropology there are a few different
specialties
 Mainly, what this studies is human
evolution (paleoanthropology) and
bio-diversity
 There are also researchers like Jane
Goodall who are called primatologists
– she studies chimpanzee behaviour
which is also used in correlation
studies to humans

 Biological anthropologists can also study the

relationship between biology, culture & environment
 This may focus on the diversity of people, but also
how we have evolved to suit the landscapes that
we live in
The Body Multiple: Ontology in
Medical Practice
 Annemarie Mol conducted fieldwork in  In her study of one very specific disease,
a Dutch hospital looking to understand she is arguing that objects, bodies, and
how Western medicine dealt with the diseases are not singular – that reality is
body and its diseases multiple
  There are multiple ways to diagnose,
Mol looked specifically at doctors
and their patients who were dealing multiple ways to become better or
with plaque buildups in their lower worse, multiple avenues in how to
legs – how doctor and patient heal
perceived the disease and  The idea that there are no ‘facts’ is hard
differences in how doctors also to digest, particularly when many people
wanted to deal with it (whether that understand disciplines such as science to
be exercise up to amputation) be placed in fact
 Her book could be considered to be  This is of course, a controversial take
‘post-modern’ – the idea that facts are on medicine particularly, but
contextual medicine is also cultural and
culturally understood
Towards a Great Ape Dictionary
 Earlier this year, Kirsty Graham and
primatologist Catherine Hobaiter argued
that the “ancestral system of gesture”
has been kept in humans throughout the
evolutionary changes
 It has been argued that gestures used
by apes is one of the key starting
places for the evolution of human
language
 Through a game-based study, human
participants would watch a very short
clip of apes making a gesture, either
with or without context, and then
have to guess what they thought it
meant
Archaeology
 Archaeology is the study of our material
culture – anything that is left behind and
then preserved
 Archaeologists ask the same questions
as cultural anthropologists, but rather
than having the ability to speak to
people (generally), they are answering
these questions through historical
materials – this can be food waste,
middens (garbage), tools and weaponry,
and home/community layouts
 Through human remains, we can see
a person’s diet, possible social status,
and the effects of disease
Unsettling the Archaeology Field
School
 Dr. Farid Rahemtulla works at UNBC and  The outcome is that more community
has been conducting archaeology field members are learning archaeological
schools since 2007 knowledge (which is necessary for any
 infrastructure projects in B.C.) which can
In his paper, what he discusses is the
give more power to the community,
value of community-based archaeology
while also giving the value of a
 The approach that UNBC first university education
implemented in 2000 was to create  In their goals, also included is that
community-based field schools for
archaeological and traditional
the students
knowledge are given equal
 In this, UNBC had approached Elders importance; research questions and
who would then help academics fieldwork locations are chosen
teach the field school while also together; the cost is shared and
teaching and allowing local UNBC provides the tools; and the
community members to participate students live in the community to
and gain university credits also be immersed in the culture
Socio-Cultural Anthropology
 This is the study of cultural behaviour,
attitudes, values, and conceptions of the
world
 This work centers around ethnology –
the development of theories to explain
cultural processes based on the
comparative study of cultures
 We do ethnographies to gather this
information – this is the holistic study
of groups through participation,
observation, interviews, and analysis
 Historically, due to anthropologists being
employed by governments and research
institutes, they studied other cultures
from around the world
 Times have changed and many people
now study their own cultures
(reflexive)
Migrants & City-Making:
Dispossession, Displacement, &
Urban
This book byRegeneration
Ayşe Çağlar and Nina Glick 
This research is classically socio-cultural
Schiller is a comparison between Mardin, anthropology through its theoretical
Turkey, Manchester, U.S., and framing and ethnographic fieldwork
Halle/Salle, Germany component
 What the authors are aiming to  In their study on migrants and how
understand is how these three cities, they shape the cities they live in,
which are not globally powerful, what they looked at was change over
implemented municipal agendas time as well as a comparative look
aimed at bringing in immigrants between the differing circumstances
 and results of municipal efforts on
Their focus is on the relationship
bringing in immigrants to their cities
between the cities and the migrants
and how that created urban  The fieldwork was conducted over
transformation multiple years in these areas that
each researcher was most
comfortable with and could speak
the language of
Engaged Anthropology
 One of the newer beliefs in the field is  Some anthropologists, under the idea of
engaged (or activist) anthropology cultural relativism and objectivity, do not
 support outside pressures to abolish this
This was created in opposition to
practice, but rather hope to incite change
ethical relativism, and to some
from within the culture
extent, cultural relativism as well
 They argue that cultural relativism is
 In this, the belief is that we as
helpful for understanding this practice
researchers should not just be going
from the point of view of the culture,
places and noting down what we see,
but that it can also help researchers
but rather our work should have
understand the inequalities present
political, economic, or social benefits
within the society and hopefully
to it
convince people that there is no need
 We should only be working with for the practice and why
people, in places, or on topics where  This has worked to some extent and is
we can be helpful
now outlawed in many countries,
though still practiced
Parts Unknown: Undercover
ethnography of the organs-trafficking
world
 While Nancy Scheper-Hughes has been a
controversial anthropologist – her paper
on “Parts Unknown” is an extreme
example of activist anthropology – or
what she has called – militant
anthropology
 In this paper, Scheper-Hughes does
participate in ethnographic fieldwork,
but in the most ethically precarious
way
 In her description of the work, it
involved being in hospitals, meeting
up to trade for organs, and to
morgues
Linguistic Anthropology
 The science of linguistics studies the  The study of languages can also be
sounds, meanings, and symbols of helpful when considering the spread of
language (both verbal and non-verbal) English around the world – which can be
 detrimental to Indigenous languages
Linguistic anthropology takes the
basis of linguistics and then applies it  Colonisation in the Americas has
to the connections of culture, meant that many Indigenous
language, and society languages are quickly disappearing
 There are many different aspects of  There are many language programs
culture that linguistic anthropology though that have been instituted
can study, and it is argued, that the around the country – as an example,
study of culture cannot happen in Nunavut, it can be common to
without the study of language as well have the local language be neither
English nor French, with some locals
not speaking those languages at all
 Studying the history of a language is
also helpful in determining influences
and movements of people over time
The Preservation of Language
 Digital technologies and the internet
have also proven to be helpful in the
spread of Indigenous knowledges,
including language
 Some TikTok accounts, such as
Shinanova, showcase Indigenous
language – explaining different
terminologies or words, as well as
stories – there is also a sharing of
knowledge of food, song, dance, and
dancing
 In other areas, if you are to go to schools
in the PG district, Dakelh is now being
taught in schools, with some even doing
the morning announcements in the
language
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwED
Applied Anthropology
 Any of the four subfields can also be applied
anthropology – that is anthropology that is
conducted outside of the usual academic
setting
 Biological anthropologists can also be
forensic anthropologists and work for
police on cases
 Cultural resource management (CRM) is a
common type of work for archaeologists in
North America as archaeological surveys
are required in many areas before building
infrastructure
 One of the biggest employers of cultural
anthropologists is the army – or military
related government agencies (although
this one is highly debated in anthropology
due to the ethical implications –
sometimes is referred to as dark
anthropology)
 Medical Anthropology
 Medical anth can be an example of applied
anthropology – it is related to both
biological and cultural anthropology
 These specialists examine the
intersection of health and disease in
human populations
 They can study susceptibilities or
resistances to certain diseases
 They can also trace the spread of
disease (before Covid-19 there have
been many anthropologists working on
Ebola)
 Medical anthropologists turn to cultural
theories to understand these biological
nuances
 This can include cultural concepts of
health and illness, what people think
causes a disease and how to remedy it,
etc.