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Growing up in a multi-cultural family can broaden not only your life experiences, but also influence how you view the world. Culture is something that can either be accepted, or something to be apprehensive of. Ethnography helps society learn about culture by fully immersing yourself in the culture. By observing, learning and participating in various cultures it can eliminate a lot of apprehension as well as broaden your ability to accept others. Throughout this essay, I will answer a few questions associated with ethnography and how studying a culture can help our own society progress as well. It is important to know what ethnography is, as well as methods that can be useful (or even detrimental) to your experience. These are questions that
The simplest way to put it is the study of cultures. This differs from Anthropology because it is the process of first hand experiences that allow you to learn about the culture. Ethnography studies the customs, languages, rituals, survival methods etc. that a group of humankind uses in order to progress and/maintain their culture. Participating, listening, and observing are all parts of fieldwork – which is a very important part of research. Interacting and observing is essential to ethnography. The more opportunities Anthropologists have to participate in ethnography and fieldwork, the more open society can be about all the different types of humans there
It requires living, breathing, acting and becoming a part of the community that you are studying. There are various aspects of a community that you can be a part of, for example, cooking, rituals, ceremony, celebration, survival methods, sleeping accommodations and general activities that the group takes part in – which can vary from our own customs and norms. “The reason for the continuation of fieldwork in participant observation, broadly understood, derives to a great extent from the fact that such fieldwork is distinguishing and defining feature of social anthropology; however else anthropology could be defined, to do anthropology meant to study a specific community through long term participant observation.” (Ellen & Firth, 1984: pg. 17) It is not unlikely to have to prepare your sleeping area for the conditions over night, such as bugs. You will have to live like they do, there is most likely no 5-star resort waiting for you when you are off the clock, so you will live like the community has to. You might also get the chance to learn how they cook there, or (at least) you will have to eat their local food – again, no cheeseburgers waiting for you after
Sir Raymond Firth famously said that ethnography “makes the exotic familiar and the familiar exotic.” You mainly hear stories of ethnographers and anthropologist going to other countries to study societies that are fascinating and unknown so that we can become familiar with their culture and understand. This is how we make the exotic familiar. Within our own country we are under the impression that because we live around these people we know them and there is nothing to learn, but when we step in and begin to observe what’s in our own backyard we realize there are things that we don’t know. This is what Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg have done in Righteous Dopefiend.
Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge, 14th Edition William A. Havilland; Harald E. L. Prins; Bunny McBride; Dana Walrath Published by Wadsworth, Cengage Learning (2014)
This essay is an ethnographic study of Whole Foods Market which is located in Kensington, London. Whole Foods Market is a niche supermarket that sells high quality organic and natural products at high prices. In this essay, I will provide a brief orientation of ethics with regards to the concepts of Corporate Social Responsibility - macroethics and Business Ethics - microethics and the theoretical frameworks of consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics. I will be using deontology framework in ethics devised by Immanuel Kant to assess if the marketing strategy and the products sold at Whole Foods Market support their principle of ‘organic and natural’.
In Essentials of Cultural Anthropology, the book defines ethnography as “a written account of how a single human population lives” (Bailey & Peoples, 2014, p. 8). It seems to be such a simple definition to the multiple levels needed to make a successful ethnography as shown by Douglas Raybeck in Mad Dogs, Englishmen, and the Errant Anthropologist. These multiple levels of ethnographic methods include problems that often arise, the assimilation into a culture, and the many different ways of perceiving culture. This method of study is particularly unique to the social sciences because of the extensive amount of assimilation one does in order to interpret a society's culture. There is the need for a year-long period--occasionally even longer--
Not only this, but anthropologists will also employ Ethnography, writing down a description and analysis, based upon the fieldwork. This helps keep a record of what was learned, while also keeping the culture being studied under its own viewpoint. These factors help impact the analysis of a culture, while still being observed under a cultural relativism outlook.
Anthropology is the study of humans through the ages. It aims to understand different cultures and practices that have existed from the origins of mankind as well. It differs from sociology in that it takes into account humans and cultures that no longer exist.
Reflexivity has recently been designated as an indicator of postmodernism in anthropological texts. In this context, the practice is attacked as self-indulgent narcissism, but its true scope reaches much further. While some ethnographic texts exhibit an overemphasis on the author, and his position within the work, this is one extreme of the range reflexivity, which also serves as a methodological tool, unincorporated into the writing, and as a means to account for the ethnographers biases and affects on his informants. This entire span of meaning is shown in anthropological research and writings, in varying manners and to different ends.
Regarding my high school students, Preparatoria de la Arquidiósesis de Monterrey, ethnographic observation can be done as an extension of the socioeconomic study each student has before each semester. The totality
When I was a kid my parents always took me to Nathdwara to take the blessings of Lord Krishna every now and then because my parents are so religious. So by going there several times I am also attached to that place. Actually Nathdwara is situated in Rajasthan state and I live in the state called Gujarat and in the city called as Ahmedabad. It takes six hours drive from my city to Nathdwara and this is the only nearest place where I could get mental peace. This is very important place for me and my family because it is a tradition of our family that whoever goes there gives free food to the hungry and poor people. We do so because we think that if we do good work in our life we will be allowed by god to go to the heaven. [The two states on the left are Gujarat and Rajasthan. One in light blue color is Gujarat with the arrows and on the top of it with cream color is Rajasthan. I live in the middle of the state and Nathdwara is at the border of the Rajasthan]
James P. Spradley (1979) described the insider approach to understanding culture as "a quiet revolution" among the social sciences (p. iii). Cultural anthropologists, however, have long emphasized the importance of the ethnographic method, an approach to understanding a different culture through participation, observation, the use of key informants, and interviews. Cultural anthropologists have employed the ethnographic method in an attempt to surmount several formidable cultural questions: How can one understand another's culture? How can culture be qualitatively and quantitatively assessed? What aspects of a culture make it unique and which connect it to other cultures? If ethnographies can provide answers to these difficult questions, then Spradley has correctly identified this method as revolutionary.
Personal experience and reflexivity should be used within anthropology as a tool to reflect on the culture that is being studied and not a refocusing of attention on the self. Works such as Dorinne Kondo’s “Dissolution and Reconstitution of Self,” use the idea of reflexivity as a mirror in which to view the culture being studied in a different manner. This use of reflexivity allows for the focus to stay on the culture being studied. A move away from this is the new branch of humanistic anthropology represented in this essay by Renato Rosaldo’s “Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage” and Ruth Behar’s “Anthropology that Breaks Your Heart” allows anthropologists to use reflexivity as a way to explore universal human feelings. For me, this is not the study of anthropology as much as self-reflexive psychology. The focus shifts from culture to self. The anthropologists completely understands the feelings of the people he/she is studying. I think that it is rather ambitious to state that emotion is univeral, and I do not think that it is the job of anthropologists to do so. The reflexive voice is a necessary aspect of ethnographic writing, but the anthropologist must be careful not to shift focus from concentrating on culture to concentrating on herself.
Good ethnography recognizes the transformative native of field work where as research to questions about peoples we might find ourselves in the stories of others and converting it on something important.
The majors that seem intriguing to me are the ones that deal with social sciences. People’s personalities are so interesting and diverse, I constantly find myself studying them. In high school, my favorite subjects were psychology, sociology, and health.
The American Anthropological Association 's (AAA) aim is to offer guidelines and promote education and discussion. American anthropologists do this often by speaking and interacting with individuals living and experiencing the culture. Truly understanding, learning, and becoming accustomed to a new cultural environment takes a significantly long period of time, perhaps even years of exposure to the culture in order to truly understand traditions, morals, and customs. For instance in the Shostak`s study on the !Kung people, it was important for the researchers to say words correctly, at appropriate times, and in a culturally accepted manner, in addition, in order to interview individuals, specifically women, the anthropologist would ask one to “enter work” with her and they would talk for an hour or a day, or over a long period of time, perhaps two weeks. When studying another culture, American anthropologists include host country colleagues in their research planning and when requesting funding, establish true collaborative relationships, include host country colleagues in dissemination, including publication, and they also ensure that something is given back to the host. When studying other countries, the process is done carefully and thoughtfully, in order to end the study with new information on a culture and to establish new connections
Anthropology is a varied social science with for main groups. (Gusterson) The first group is sociocultural anthropology; it is the study of societies.