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Native American culture
Example cultural relativism
Native americans indigenous religions around the world
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When an anthropologist is studying another culture they take notes on the different way of life of that culture and even try to participate in some of that cultures rituals. In order for anthropologist to get the rawest data and truly be accepted by its people that they are studying they must be extremely accepting to the society and cultural they are studying. For example, in the movie Dances with Wolves Lieutenant Dunbar takes a big bite out of one of the boffolas organs after one of the natives offer it to him. This is something not typical in the American culture to eat a raw organ, but in the Indian culture it is customary for your first boffola kill. This was an example of Dunbar using cultural relativism. The anthropologist is accepting
and even participating in the culture in order to gain full trust and fully understand the ways of this culture.
Hollywood has helped create and perpetuate many different stereotypical images of the different races in the world. Those stereotypes still continue to affect the way we think about each other today and many of those stereotypes have been proven to be historically inaccurate. The movie Dances With Wolves, directed by actor Kevin Costner, does an excellent job in attempting to promote a greater acceptance, understanding, and sympathy towards Native American culture, instead of supporting the typical stereotype of Native Americans being nothing but brutal, blood thirsty savages.
Cultural relativism is powerful and unique, ascertaining and appreciating people cultural. Cultural relativism is unique but can be hard to understand, upsetting the views, morals, and outlines of culture from the standpoint of that civilization. When analyzing the hominid culture, it provides the luxury of understanding their philosophy from their viewpoint. Taking in another culture without being basis can be daunting. Anthropologist deliberated cultures by exploiting two methods, the emic perspective, and etic perspective. Crapo, R. H. 2013, Section 1.1 defines, the Etic perspective that is, an outsider's or observer's alleged "objective" account—creates a model of a culture by using cross-culturally valid categories, which anthropologists
In the movie Dances with Wolves Lieutenant John Dunbar is a dynamic character; changing throughout the film from a dignified United States Army soldier, to a passionate Lakota Sioux member. On his journey, Dances With Wolves takes in many experiences many have only dreamt about. When he rides Cisco out onto the battlefield in a suicide attempt, he has no idea that he indeed will live and will never lead the same life again. John Dunbar changed in many ways reflected upon in the film, including: mindset, clothing, and his sense of identity; it is though these character traits that Dances With Wolves discovers that inside everyone is a frontier just waiting to be explored.
Ethnocentrism is the belief of one’s culture as superior opposed to other cultures. Ethnocentrism is a single minded. Cultural relativism in contrast to ethnocentrism, is the ability to view certain practices of a culture in the mentality of the the culture itself. Cultural relativism is more understanding with an absence of judgement. The TED talk from Chimamanda Adichi regarding, “The Danger of a Single Story” illustrates how we all can allow a one-sided story can isolate our thinking. She talks about how throughout her life she experienced many single sided stories that could have influenced her life; however, she learned from them. Adichi uses the analogy of a single story to equate to ethnocentrism. An example she used was when she was
“Film is more than the instrument of a representation; it is also the object of representation. It is not a reflection or a refraction of the ‘real’; instead, it is like a photograph of the mirrored reflection of a painted image.” (Kilpatrick) Although films have found a place in society for about a century, the labels they possess, such as stereotypes which Natives American are recognized for, have their roots from many centuries ago (Kilpatrick). The Searchers, a movie directed by John Ford and starred by John Wayne, tells the story of a veteran of the American Civil War and how after his return home he would go after the maligned Indians who killed his family and kidnapped his younger niece. After struggling for five years to recover his niece back, who is now a young woman, she is rescued by his own hands. Likewise, Dances with Wolves is a Western film directed and starred by Kevin Costner. It is also situated during the American Civil War and tells the story of a soldier named John Dunbar that after a suicide attempt; he involuntarily leads Union troops to a triumph. Then, by his request he is sent to a remote outpost in the Indian frontier “before it’s gone”. There, the contact with the natives is eminent and thus it shows how through those contacts this soldier is transformed into another Indian that belongs with the Sioux to tribe and who is now called Dances With Wolves. While both John Ford and Kevin Costner emphasize a desire to apologize to the indigenous people, they use similar themes such as stereotypes, miscegenation, and the way characters are depicted; conversely, these two movies are different by the way the themes are developed within each film.
This is a wonderful movie that is set in 1863 during the civil war. The main character is John Dunbar, a Lieutenant in the United States Army, who is played by Kevin Costner. The movie begins with Dunbar in the field hospital with a severely wounded leg that the Dr.’s are planning to amputate. Dunbar decides that he does not want to live minus a leg and leaves the field hospital, takes a horse and rides across the length of the enemy lines where he expects that he will meet his death. Instead of meeting his death he somehow is missed by the folly of bullets aimed at him, and his actions inspire his troops to break the stalemate and overcome the enemy confederate troops. As a result, the commanding officer rewards Dunbar by having his personal surgeon save Dunbar’s leg, as well as grant him to be stationed at any post he desires. Dunbar wishes to see the western frontier and requests to be stationed at Fort Sedgwick.
After analyzing cultural relativism over the semester, I have come to the conclusion that cultural relativism under anthropological analysis defines every single culture with some aspect of worth as viewed by an individual within that society. Franz Boas, termed the “Father of American Anthropology”, first introduced the concept of cultural relativism. He wanted people to understand the way certain cultures conditioned people to interact with the world around them, which created a necessity to understand the culture being studied. In my words, cultural relativism is the concept that cultures should be viewed from the people among that culture. When studied by anthropologists, cultural relativism is employed to give all cultures an equal
Ethnocentrism is when a person judges a group by the standard of their own culture. Ethnocentrism come in many shapes and forms and takes place in all cultures. The example I found to be the best representation and explanation of ethnocentrism, was the TedTalk: Chimamanda Adichie The Danger of a single story. In her talk she relays times in her life where she thought all books had to have white British characters in them because she only read books, which had those types of characters. She also relayed the story of here first time in college where she had an American room mate who assumed she would have no idea how to do simple tasks like use a stove (Adichie). Ethnocentrism is like having a single story we see other cultures only as our culture
The movie "Dances With Wolves" was produced in 1990 and directed by Kevin Costner who starred as the main character.
Another example of a sympathetic portrayal of the American Indian was the 1970 film Little Big Man, with the cast including Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, and Chief Dan George. It is considered a revisionist Western, sort of reversing the roles, with Native Americans being the “good guys” and the United States Cavalry depicted as the villains. The film tells of a white man, Jack Crabb, and his life being raised by Cheyenne Indians after his own family is killed and fighting with General Custer. It showed speaking roles for many native actors in a time when having white actors portray natives was still a common practice. By the 1990s, Native American people were starting to get more respect
Clifford Greetz has written “Believing with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun. I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning”. Greetz is trying to say that people make these webs themselves. Those webs are the culture and we all are born into it. Culture might not be a true base of science where we are trying to discover or enforce laws, but it is a science in which we can interpret human behavior. Anthropology is a science which is very flexible and may vary in different cultures. I agree with Greetz opinion when he cites Max Weber as his point of departure to develop
As an anthropologist, our job is to look at cultures as an insider of the culture rather than an outsider learning a culture. As Adichie said in her video that she didn’t knew that people like her were able to exist in a book, she also started writing books with main characters just like she read. Later when she wrote a book about an Africa, that is not stereotypical, her professor said it is wrong. That is because we see the world as we have been taught to see it. If we see an Asian automatically we will think that they are geniuses in mathematics and science,
Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism are two contrasting terms that are displayed by different people all over the world. Simply put, ethnocentrism is defined as “judging other groups from the perspective of one’s own cultural point of view.” Cultural relativism, on the other hand, is defined as “the view that all beliefs are equally valid and that truth itself is relative, depending on the situation, environment, and individual.” Each of these ideas has found its way into the minds of people worldwide. The difficult part is attempting to understand why an individual portrays one or the other. It is a question that anthropologists have been asking themselves for years.
Anthropologist do a number of different things depending on what they are focusing on. Whether it be biological, archeology, linguistic, cultural, etc., they are trying to understand that group of people by that specific subfield. For each different subfield of anthropology an anthropologist approach to better understanding that group of people would be to ask questions, observe them, do activities alongside them, etc. In order to do this an anthropologist has to go and do fieldwork, which is a vital role in obtaining their research and is different for each subfield. For an anthropologist who focuses on the biological side they study the genes of a group and if they are trying to look farther into the history of this group they will study
It analyzes similarities and differences in various cultures and societies. Culture is learned and affects our perception of the world throughout our life. Overtime, a sense of cultural superiority is formed amongst individuals who are constantly exposed to their own culture. Anthropology can help eliminate culturally based biases, also known as ethnocentrism. It is a common practice we all in engage in when evaluating other cultures, however, by practicing anthropology this allows us to learn about other cultures by placing themselves into the cultural environment allows us to learn the traditions and customs by experience. Marjorie Shostak`s study of the !Kung people revealed that they organized themselves differently than Western cultures, which included solving conflicts with discussion, communal behavior, and basic living traditions. Moreover, by interviewing and living in this cultural environment, Shostak was able to empathize with the !Kung people and she also considered that all humans share an emotional life, which is important when studying the history of our human