Anthropology 2

“Introduction to Cultural Anthropology”

Spring 2008

Casey Walsh

Lecture 3/31/2008

Common Ideas about Anthropologists

• Digging for dinosaur bones
• Indiana Jones / Laura Croft Tomb Raider
• Far Side Cartoons

Where Anthropologists Work

• Development (NGOs, Banks)
• Governments

work on natural resources, agriculture, etc.

• Universities
• Business

What Defines Anthropology

• Unified vision of human life: Biology, Society, Culture
• Determinism vs. Determinations
• Question the suppositions (relativism, or “everything is at least a bit cultural”)

“Mirror for Humanity” (Kottak, p. v)

• Emic vs. Etic

Their categories vs. Our categories

• Fieldwork “elsewhere”

Methods

• Anthropologists are what anthropologists do
• Ethnography: participation in and study of the daily life of other people

To understand the “taken-for-granted”, the most quotidian

• Ethnographic techniques

Observation and participation

Conversation and interviews

Archives and documents

Field journal

Syllabus

• Look it over carefully!
• Sections are key!
• Films are central!
• Read the books!