The flag of the United States of America is the most recognizable cultural artifact in the world. The flag represents the United States of America values and ideals; the flag is a symbol of democracy around the world. This is the reason why protesters in foreign countries burn the American flag in objection to America action in their respective countries. Cultural Artifacts are powerful items that can represent a society and everything they hold their. Cultural artifacts are a symbol of solidarity of a culture or a symbol vitriol that represent that culture in the eyes of others. The Engineering Science Success Academy (ESSA) shirt is a cultural artifact that represents the ESSA subculture. Everyone who put on the shirt has earned the right to wear it, and the shirt differentiates ESSA members from the greater Michigan State University students.
Michigan State University has a student population of 50,543 pupils. It is very easy to feel like a number in the university because the campus is huge and impersonal.
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The university feels isolating. Especially, if you are not part of any student organization. The bureaucracy of Michigan State University tends to treat the student as mere numbers who primary purpose is to pay their tuition. Because of this isolating experience, students tend to seek off organization with cultural ideals that may or may not match their own ideals to seek a community. Within, these organizations students create sub-cultures that have their own ideals and artifacts that are different from the university culture with its own value and artifact. The university ideal is to create a safe and diverse learning environment for individual from all walks of life. The artifact of the university is the Spartan statue and the colors green and white. The organizations that created a safe space for many first generation college students at Michigan State University is ESSA. The Engineering Science Success Academy (ESSA) is a seven-week summer bridge program hosted by the Diversity Program Office in the college of engineering in conjunction with the College of Natural Science and Lyman Briggs. The primary objective of ESSA is to prepare students for careers in engineering and the Natural Sciences. While the secondary objective of the program is to help accumulate students to the demands of college life. ESSA was founded by Theo Caldwell, the director of the Diversity Program Office at the college of engineering. Mr. Caldwell founded ESSA in 2006 as a way to promote diversity in the college of engineering and natural sciences. He wanted the program to inspire students to major in STEM fields. I asked him if he expected the ESSA program to have its own culture and artifact, he replied: “No, I didn’t think ESSA would be this big and affect the lives of so many students and I didn’t know that the ESSA shirt would come to represent their struggle and hard work.” He said, “I founded ESSA---, the students create ESSA culture.” I asked Mr. Caldwell what the ESSA shirts means to him he simply replied: “It means everything”. The most recognizable ESSA artifact is the lime-green ESSA t-shirt.
The shirt is perfectly designed in every conceivable way. Every symbol on the shirt is perfectly placed and has a meaning. On the front of the shirts reads ESSA in seaweed green ---font, while the back of the t-shirt is embedded with the Spartan logo in sea green. This creates a contrast between lime green and sea green. The shirt tells an observant individual that the person wearing the shirt is an ESSA member first and a MSU student second because the ESSA logo come first and the Spartan logo comes second. The ESSA shirt is made of 50% cotton and 50% polyester. This dichotomy in the shirt represents the polarity ESSA student feel being a member of a family orientated group like ESSA and being a member of the isolating MSU community. I walked down to Wells Hall, this is where ESSA student congregated Monday's to Thursday's studying, to ask ESSA members what the shirt represented to
them. The first ESSA student I encountered was Terlumun. He major in electrical engineering and he is a third-year student. When Terlumun first took the math placement test, he tested into math 103 but after the seven-week at ESSA. He retook the test and got in calculus 1. He told me because of ESSA he saved thousands of dollars. I asked Terlumun how the ESSA shirt makes him feel, he paused for a minute and said “It a symbol that represent my experience in ESSA, the happy and sad experiences, it represents how I bonded with the ESSA community. The ESSA shirt represents a symbol of friendship and brotherhood. Every time, I see the ESSA shirt on anyone I know for certain that individual has been through the ESSA experience.” Terlumun comments about the ESSA shirt shows how deeply symbolic the ESSA shirt has become to the ESSA community. I asked Latayah, a freshman in Lyman Briggs, what the ESSA means to her she said “It means how work and dedication. The ESSA shirt is not given to you it is earn by completing the seven weeks of the ESSA program. The shirt connects you to the greater ESSA community on campus. When the community is having a picnic, the shirt is a symbol of our perilous dedication to getting our education.” She told me the ESSA is more than family, she said “ESSA is a lifestyle that teaches you lifelong learning. I am glad I spent my summer at ESSA because I needed this community.” Lastly, I asked Ben, a sophomore in the college of engineering, if he finds any symbolism in the ESSA shirt he replied “The ESSA on the front of the shirt have a different meaning to me. It means Engage Successful Science Academic. ESSA gave me the tools to be an engage successful science academic.” The members of ESSA seem to see the importance of the program. While I was about to leave Terlumun stopped me to tell me that he had more to add to his answer. He then went on to said “ESSA builds connections between first-generation college students, and our shirt represents our membership to ESSA. The shirt acknowledges our membership to the world.” From what I gather by talking to ESSA members the shirt seems to represent a connection among members, that once you are an ESSA member you are always an ESSA member. ESSA members join ESSA because they wanted to be ahead academically and socially. They wanted a family on MSU campus. They did not want to feel like mere numbers that can be erased by pressing backspace. They wanted connection, ESSA gave them that connection and the ESSA shirt connected them to the ESSA community.
In the Hawaiian culture, “Ohana” is a significant phrase referring to the bondage of family. There are many heritages across the world that have their own way of communicating that affection and showing their love to their own heritage. Hispanic heritage, for example, have the delicious food while other cultures have different focuses. Through heritage, communities find their niches in society to form an American Heritage. Though heritage exists through communities sharing a common culture, heritage definitely coincides with family and reigning stability within their niche. In the poem “Heritage” by Linda Hogan and the image “Mother Daughter Posing as Ourselves” by Elaine O’Neil, showing affection is one of the most prominent ways to communicate
Education is why people attend college, hundreds of thousands of students are thrown onto campuses across the world and get involved in various campus clubs; however, despite their vast amount of differences, these kids share one similarity, they all brought their video game console. On move-in day almost every dormitory has some kind of gaming console. It is a common denominator that students share, that they can bond over. The PlayStation 4 is of the latest generation of consoles and by some considered the premiere gaming console. The Sony PlayStation plays all the latest games in stunning quality, run apps seamlessly, and can play almost any media, it is the perfect media device for college.
...ed to the Red Cross, the stars of film, theater and music who are using their influences to raise money for recovery, and the small hands of schoolchildren collecting anything they think might help the kids who’ve lost their moms or dads (Pg. 2). Although some of these suggestions are not tangible items, they definitely give me a sense of patriotism, and make me feel good about what is going on in our country today. These people and objects truly, in my opinion, represent patriotism. If we were somehow able to take these objects and ideas and put them into an icon of patriotism I know I would solute it, but until then, I will keep these peoples actions in my mind as what I believe to be true patriotism.
Ethnography is a research method used to explore different cultures from a personal view. Many anthropologists have sought to use ethnography as their main study method because of its specificity and opportunity to get hands on. Those that participate in ethnographies are expected to accurately record detailed accounts of the society in which they are staying, but at the same time maintain a critical distance.
“The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts” is about "integrated social constructivist approach towards the study of science and technology"(pg 399). The author's Pinch and Bijker discuss that even though it has been a practice to separate science and technology, but they are hugely connected because of this they might benefit from each other. The authors discuss about the three main parts of science and technology termed as "Sociology of science", "the science technology relationship" and the "technology studies".
A cultural artifact is something that does not come from nature, it is something that is invented or made and helps tell us about the way the world is. Cultural artifacts can be seen as a good and bad thing; depending on your generation or how you look at how the artifact being used. Cultural artifacts have changed the way the world is and the way the world works. For this paper, the cultural artifact the cell phone has changed the way we communicate and do business. Everything we need is just a few clicks away.
Bertolt Brecht asserted, “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.” Art, encompassing all popular culture artifacts, both reflects the society that creates it and is itself an agent capable of changing social reality. Popular culture artifacts, like the Harry Potter series discussed in Nexon and Neumann’s work, Harry Potter and International Relations, exert agency, or causal power over the meaning and interpretation of cultural elements, by influencing the way ideas and values are constructed in everyday life. This paper will demonstrate that popular culture artifacts construct meanings and influence interpretations of reality.
Despite the rapid advances of modern medicine, a large portion of developing countries points to herbal remedies as to curing ailments and other sicknesses needing medical attention. People around the world have been using herbal remedies since humans have existed on earth. They have used herbs, plant, and roots during their healing rituals in curing both physical and spiritual illnesses. Countries such as Africa, Asia, and the Mariana Islands still use traditional treatment as their primary healthcare. Guam, one of the most developed islands in the Mariana Islands, has been using traditional remedies since the Spaniards conquered the ancient Chamorros. Ancient Chamorros used plants found around the island to cure the sick and identified the people who used traditional remedies as suruhanus for men and suruhanas for women. They have come to believed that suruhanus or suruhanas as the doctors we have today. Other than the suruhanus and suruhanas, ancient Chamorros also had another type of healers: the makahna and kakahnas. Makahnas and kakahnas, believed by the Chamorros, are shamans who had the connection between in both physical and spiritual worlds, and had magical powers. Reading about these healers had caught my interest in doing an in dept research about the suruhanus of Guam, especially after stumbling upon Ann M. Pobutsky’s “Suruhanas: A Profile of Traditional Women Healers in the Village of Umatac, Guam.” Although stumbling to a chapter based on traditional healers was just pure coincidence, I have come to a decision of researching about these people. Doing this research had helped me identify the major factors leading to a sense of spiritual and ritual identity of Guam. It had aided me to recognize the cultural uniqueness...
Clifford Geertz once said: “Cultural analysis is intrinsically incomplete. And, worse than that, the more deeply it goes the less complete it is.” I recently spent a short amount of time at a busy 5-way traffic circle near my residence. While sitting in one spot for about 25 minutes, I observed many people doing many different things (mainly driving). Observing the various people made me think of what their particular cultures may have been, and from there, I began thinking of culture in and of itself. What is culture? Culture is defined as: Ideas and behaviors that are learned and transmitted. Nongenetic means of adaptation (Park, 2008). Culture plays a vital role in anthropology. After all, anthropology is the holistic, scientific study of humankind (Park, 2008). One cannot study humans as a whole without studying and understanding their cultures as well.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines cultural appropriation as “the act of taking or using things from a culture that is not your own, especially without showing that you understand or respect this culture. This is evident through the taking of objects such as Native headdresses, dreamcatchers, costumes, etc. Often times when people take from cultures, they give the object its own meaning or disregard the true significance which is considered appropriation. This essay discusses two articles from authors, Donaldson and Nabhan-Warren that tackle the subject of cultural symbols and proper cultural interpretation versus cultural appropriation.
Cultural anthropology examines different cultures and studies them in their native environments by observing or becoming part of each group to understand each culture from within. According to Crapo (2013), “Cultural Anthropology is the study of the similarity and diversity of human ways of life (cultures) and of the regularities in how culture functions” (sec. 1.1). When observing each culture neutrally from the outside in, is called an etic point of view and when experiencing the culture from within is referred to as an emic perspective. Emic narratives can be subjective and are explained by the culture experiencing it. In this paper, I will examine gender and the discrimination of women in my own culture from an outside or etic perspective,
Anthropology is known as the study of human beings, over time and space. We often look at anthropology as just the evolution of mankind and their basic development. After taking a class in Cultural Anthropology, I’ve come to realize how much more in depth it is. There are many different aspects that we do not look at. We do not need to be anthropologists to see how these concepts can apply to our daily lives. Anthropology makes you to look at the world differently than you were taught too. Cultural anthropology, has a holistic approach that helps us to see how one society relates to itself and how that society can be taken on its own terms without bias. It helps to identify our own way of viewing various different cultures around the world and realize that the way we do things and see things may not be the only right way there is. There are other people around the world that are different from us and do things differently that we are used to or that we find to be “the right way”.
One cannot generalize or predict all human behaviors, thought processes, morals, and customs. Because human nature is dominated by different types of cultures and societies in various parts of the world, this can often lead to misunderstanding which ultimately leads to the illusion of cultural superiority, and in most cases this can lead to genocide - the systematic murder or annihilation of a group of people or culture. Anthropology is the study of humans, our immediate ancestors and their cultural environments this study stems from the science of holism - the study of the human condition. Culture is crucial in determining the state of the human condition, as the cultures are traditions and customs that are learned throughout an individual
Cultural anthropology known as the comparative study of human societies and cultures and their development. Cultural anthropology is also known as the study of human cultures, their beliefs, practices, values, ideas, technologies, economies and other domains of social and cognitive organization. Cultural anthropology studies how human cultures are shaped or shape the world around them and it focus a lot on the differences between every person. Human societies has been culturally involved throughout generations because of human development and advanced. The goal of a cultural anthropology is to teach us about another culture by collecting data about how the world economy and political practices effect the new culture that is being studied. However, cultural anthropology has gave us a understanding of world affairs and world problems, the way to interpret the meaning of social actions by putting them in as much context as possible, and a deeper insight of humankind-at all times, in all places and of yourself as part of a culture.
“Each piece of the past tells something of what we were or what we are. By enlarging our ties with past generations, we commit ourselves to future generations and we dignify the present.”