1 The controversy surrounding Chagnon involves his actions while studying the Yanomami. He was accused of provoking the conflicts documented in the book by pitting different groups of the Yanomamo against each other to create genealogies. Not only that, but Chagnon allegedly gives the Yanomamo Machetes to encourage them to act violently. Not only that, but he also spread measles amongst the Yanomamo, resulting in large scale death. He also rewarded informants by giving them Western tools thus provoking the violence he documented in his book. This brings up a question about ethics in Anthropology and raises the question of what is ethical and what is not ethical when conducting fieldwork.
2: This controversy connects to ethics in anthropology
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Sociobiology vs Culture is the idea that you can explain human behavior based off biology and not based off of culture. Knowing if something is sociobiological or cultural can help anthropologists understand human behavior. I would say that this is an unethical approach because adopting a specific mindset while viewing a culture can make someone view a culture differently and thus get different data. Cultural Materialism is the idea that people have material needs and cultures are organized around meeting people’s needs. Not only that but as a population grows resources also need to change and technology must also change to meet the basic needs of the civilization. This school of thought is rooted by objectivity, which makes it ethical seeing that there the data is less bias since there is no bias associated with this school of thought. Viewing a culture objectively ,which means without bias is important. This kind of research is the most ethical because this approach gives us raw data without any bias or personal believes added to the data. Subjectivity, which allows the ethnographer to use personal feelings in his or her data, is very unethical. Having a subjective approach can change the data significantly. Also, we can assume that the more subjective a person is, the more …show more content…
Since we now know how different approaches effect the data anthropologists collect, we can start to filter out the approaches that are deemed unethical and or have a strong bias associated with it. For example, a subjective approach is biased because it allows personal feelings to influence the data the anthropologists collect. Since we know this now, we can stop the use of that approach so we can avoid unethical behaviors in the field. On the contrary, an objective approach is fine since there is no bias and no chance of the data being manipulated. Since we know this, we can now conclude that this approach is ethical and encourages anthropologists to further use this approach in their studies. Reflexivity, which is self-reflection, can be biased depending on whether the person keeps an open mind and judges himself in a fair way. Also, Sociobiology is a school of thought that can be considered bias because the fact that you believe in a school of thought before you study a culture can cause you to see things differently and thus get different results. So this can be considered unethical. An example of this is shown in the article “ the most controversial anthropologist” Eakin states “ At the same time, Chagnon’s portrayal of Yanomami aggression was meeting with increasing
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
Roy A. Rappaport and Ruth Benedict both held very strong opinions regarding the subject of culture and ritual. They lived in slightly different overlapping historical time periods, Benedict being influenced by WWII in the 18th century and Rappaport growing up during the Great Depression in the early 19th century. Influences of Franz Boas carried through the theories of both of these anthropologists. Although Benedict never succeeded in conducting her own fieldwork, she wrote ethnographies based on fieldwork done by Boas, this particular case focusing on the Kwakiutl of the Northwestern Coast of America. The focus of Rappaport’s fieldwork in this context is the Tsembaga of New Guinea. Benedict displays a more idealistic view of culture and ritual as opposed to Rappaport’s exceedingly materialistic perspective.
When comparing the societies it is essential to be familiar with the key sociological definitions. Culture is the way of life, all things that are learned and shared by society or group of people and transmitted from generation to generation. It consists of different elements that a society regards as important, such as language, beliefs, norms, values and behaviours. Values are widely accepted beliefs that something is worthwhile and desirable. Norms are specific rules that govern behaviour in particular situations. They
Anthropological researchers have considerable moral and ethical standards by which their work must be conducted in order to preserve the accuracy and the posterity of the information gathered during the study and also to the persons or cultures of which they study. These two important parts of anthropology – the research and those being researched – can be conflicting. The Code of Ethics of the American Anthropological Association presents itself as a body of guidelines for discussing these ethical and moral conflicts. This allows for researchers in the field of anthropology to have a foundation for understanding what decisions must be made regarding these ethical and moral conflicts and to whom the disclosures of those decisions should be made.
The study of history would be incomplete without the use of theoretical approaches, which historians use to analyze documents and present their evidence. How a historian analyzes a document can shift subtly or drastically depending on the theoretical lens. Social history and cultural history are two separate approaches that influenced a wide variety of other sub-theory categories and many historians today. Though the two may seem similar, cultural history was developed as a response to the limitations of social history, such as the strictness in categories and ignoring the state. In general, social history focuses on ordinary groups and how categories shaped the experience of individuals; cultural history emphasizes beliefs and assumptions,
Culture has a huge impact on our environment. Humans learn to be ethical through culture and family. For example, the racism culture has been brought up through many generations. If our parents or grandparents have a certain belief towards different kinds of people and you are accustomed to that
I emphasize here the collusion between all parties involved, for it is important to recognize the ways in which informmants are also actors and agents, and that the negotiation of reality that takes place in the doing of ethnography involves complex and shifting relations of power in which the ethnographrapher acts and is also acted upon. (Kondo 75)
Culture is defined in many ways, but it derives from the word culminate from the 1900’s. Cultures are the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group. Learned behavior and accumulated behavior are a few of the different characteristics of culture. Cultures also share similar race and ethnicity. Learned behavior includes social behaviors in a large or small group, work ethics, spousal interaction, and treatment of family and friends. Learned behavior determines actions and reactions to situations and people. Accumulated behavior is the time it takes for a behavior to be learned through social contact. Culture refers to the accumulated beliefs, attitudes, value system, religion, and work ethics that we accrue over time through social interaction. A good example would be our very own Army values that we have lived by for many years.
Psychology is the study of different behaviors and acts of each individual based on the way they are raised and brought up. Cultural psychology is specified as the study of behaviors and actions based on different cultures and traditions. The world is full of cultures. Each culture attempts to have its own psychological belief when it comes to different matters and events. Some cultures agree on some matters; while they disagree on others. Almost every culture view things differently. Yet sometimes they decide to accept these differences, and sometimes they do not. Also, some cultures view some psychological matters at the same level unexpectedly.
Fear is not real, the only way fear exists is when you let it exist. Fear is self-composed, and for this great philosopher he had to subtract that fear to become what we see him as today Aristotle. Aristotle was a great scientist, however for him to be able to become a great scientist he somehow had to start from somewhere. His journey began in the small Greek town of Stageria, Chalcide, and he was born in 384 B.C. His father was named Nicomachus, and he was a physician.
Moral practices are different in many cultures. There are cultural practices that you would expect to be immoral all over the world, but it is not. For example, I do not understand how anyone would feel it is normal to eat love ones who have died. In some cultures, this is normal behavior. It is normal for others to burn the dead. In my culture, we bury the dead. Because I feel it is inhuman for someone to eat their loves after they have died does not give me the right to tell them they are wrong and I am right. This is the means behind ethical relativism. T...
Culture plays a significant role in shaping people’s behaviors. Humans start to expose to culture the day they are born and they learn cultural values through their everyday life interacting with the people and environments around them. The cultural values often help us in guiding our behaviors and provide us a context in helping us identify the proper way of responding to various situations. Culture can help to determine human behaviors because culture can influence individuals’ psychological processes, development of self, and motivation. However, individual differences should also be examined in determining people’s behaviors.
Culture consists of the beliefs, behaviors, objects, and other characteristics common to the members of a particular group or society. Through culture, people and groups define themselves, conform to society's shared values, and contribute to society. Thus, culture includes many societal aspects: language, customs, values, norms, mores, rules, tools, technologies, products, organizations, and institutions. Sociologists define society as the people who interact in such a way as to share a common culture. The term society can also have a geographic meaning and refer to people who share a common culture in a particular location. For example, people living in arctic climates developed different cultures from those living in desert cultures.Culture and society are intricately related. A culture consists of the “objects” of a society, whereas a society consists of the people who share a common culture.
Many theories attempt to explain ethical standards and how certain cultures perceive these standards or practices. When explaining certain ethical standards Cultural Relativism is an failed illogical theory for many reasons. Cultural Relativism is a theory that attempts to explain an idea that no culture is superior to any other culture and that all people’s perspectives are biased by their own cultural background. Generally, it is the opinion that all cultures are of equal value and equality to each other, therefore, there is no one culture is inferior to any other.
Culture anthropologist have a very distinct way of viewing other cultures and societies which is called the anthropological perspective. The anthropological perspective is a way of look at the world without bias and judgment. Anthropologist must set aside their own cultural views to see the world in a different way. This way of thinking has four sub points that help cultural