Dances With Wolf Anthropology Essay

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Recommended: Cultural anthropology chapter 11

Karson Bartley, R11420109
ANTH 2306-005
Final essay
#1
Anthropology is defined as the study of human kind. Since human kind is such a broad topic, anthropology has four subfields. These include physical anthropology (otherwise known as biological anthropology), linguistic anthropology, cultural anthropology, and archaeology. These subfields each have their own characteristics, but they all tie into the holistic view of anthropology.
Physical anthropology is the study of the physical characteristics of being human. It is broken into two categories, human evolution, and human variation. In human evolution, anthropologists study the origin of human kind as a species. They try to find the answers to questions involving the ancestry of human kind, …show more content…

Anthropologists can use cultural relativism by going and living within the culture they are studying. In District 9, the human regarded the prawns as a savage, inferior life form. In reality, their weapons and technology was far more advanced that human technology. Also, they weren’t the savages people believed them to be. They evolved into savages because that was the only way they were allowed to live. The film makers did a good job showing how some individuals who are in a group being discriminated can overcome it and not let it affect their morals. In Dances with Wolves, the American soldiers thought the Indians were beggars and thieves. All they really wanted was to protect the land and their lifestyle. Dunbar realized this long before he integrated into their tribe. The film makers may have romanticized the Indians slightly. A keen tribe of Indians who had not seen buffalo in months would not have needed Dunbar to come and tell them that there was a huge herd running nearby. In The Beast, there is a clear discrimination against Afghan culture by the Russians. Koverchenko is the only one who is willing to look at the Afghan culture through its own lens. The other tankers have no care in the world for anything pertaining to Afghans. The Afghan culture may have been romanticized in the fact that they seemed only to be humble people protecting themselves. Which they were in the case of the

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