Scribd
Upload
126 views

1 PPT - ANT101 - Intro

Anthropology is the study of human beings and their societies and cultures. It provides a comparative perspective by examining both ancient and modern, simple and complex societies. The four main subfields are cultural anthropology, physical anthropology, linguistics, and archaeology. Anthropology emerged in the 19th century as Europeans sought to understand indigenous peoples in their colonies. Key methods include participant observation, ethnography, and cross-cultural comparison. Anthropology generates knowledge about human diversity and applies this knowledge to address real-world problems.

Uploaded by

Shahadat Hossain
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
126 views

1 PPT - ANT101 - Intro

Anthropology is the study of human beings and their societies and cultures. It provides a comparative perspective by examining both ancient and modern, simple and complex societies. The four main subfields are cultural anthropology, physical anthropology, linguistics, and archaeology. Anthropology emerged in the 19th century as Europeans sought to understand indigenous peoples in their colonies. Key methods include participant observation, ethnography, and cross-cultural comparison. Anthropology generates knowledge about human diversity and applies this knowledge to address real-world problems.

Uploaded by

Shahadat Hossain
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 31

ANT 101: INTRODUCTION TO

ANTHROPOLOGY

Dr. Harisur Rahman


Assistant Professor
Dept. of Political Science and Sociology
ANTHROPOLOGY
FROM GREEK
ANTHROPOS (HUMAN) AND LOGIA
(STUDY)

IT IS THE STUDY OF HUMAN KIND


WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?

Is this the study of fossils and nonindustrial societies?


•Anthropology is the study of human being and their society
and culture
•What does it mean to study of human being?
• Anthropology is a comparative science that examines all
societies, ancient and modern, simple and complex.
• Comparative study of human societies and culture
•It provides a cross cultural perspective, comparing the
customs of one societies with those of others.
• Learning about difference among ways of human life as well
as similarities.
How Did Anthropology Begin?
▪ During the nineteenth century, anthropology emerged as an academic discipline devoted to the
observation and analysis of human variation.
▪ Building on natural sciences developed during the Enlightenment or Age of Reason in the 1700s,
scholars began to apply similar methods to understanding human cultural variation in the 1800s.
▪ Three key forces shaped the foundation of professional anthropology in the 1850s:

 Disruptions caused by industrialization in Europe and America. Industrialization disrupted


American and European societies by bringing large numbers of rural people into towns and
cities to work in factories. Asking about how European villages and cities were organized and
how they perpetuated their cultures ultimately led to questions about how all sorts of non-
Western societies worked as well.

 The rise of theories of evolution: Evolution refers to the adaptive changes organisms make
across generations. Natural selection has been called Darwin’s “dangerous idea” because
when he published On the Origin of Species in 1859 it challenged religious beliefs about the
age of the earth and the assumption that all animal species (including humans) had been
created in their present form.

 The spread of European colonialism: the historical practice of more powerful countries
claiming possession of less powerful ones. To understand how to govern the poorly
understood indigenous peoples of their colonies, Europeans and Americans began
developing methods for studying those societies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5aglbgTEig
Four subfields prominent in
Western Academia

▪ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_jevR2FvzE
Cultural anthropology
Physical anthropology
Tying Physical Anthropology to Culture
Linguistics
Tying linguistics to culture
Defining archaeology
Tying Archaeology to Culture
Subfields of Anthropology
▪ Medical Anthropology - Seeks to better understand factors that
influence peoples' health and well being
▪ Forensic Anthropology - Analyzes skeletal, decomposed, or
otherwise unidentified human remains to aid in detection of
crime
▪ Media anthropology-emphasizes ethnographic studies as a
means of understanding producers, audiences, and other cultural
and social aspects of mass media.
▪ Business Anthropology - Applies anthropological theories and
methods to identify and solve business problems
▪ Visual Anthropology - Uses images for the description, analysis,
communication and interpretation of behavior
▪ Environmental Anthropology - Examines how people interact
with, respond to, and bring about changes in the environment
▪ Museum Anthropology - Studies the history of museums, their
role in society, and changes in this role
Career in anthropology
Anthropology’s breadth provides an excellent foundation for many careers
Anthropology majors go into medicine, law, business, and other professions with
little explicit connection to anthropology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0uxqukfBSI
How does anthropology study?

▪ Participant observation:
 Living with a ‘native community’. And the output is
ethnography

▪ Ethnography:
 Writing about another culture following participant
observation.
Contribution of anthropology

Generating Knowledge:
▪ Produce reliable knowledge about people and
their behaviour
▪ Produce knowledge about culture

Applied Anthropology:
▪ Application of anthropological knowledge to
design a solution.
▪ Identify reasons of problem and design an
intervention bring the voice of researched
people.
Culture and Society
What is Culture?
▪ Cultures are traditions and customs,
transmitted through learning, that form and
guide the beliefs and behaviour of the people
exposed to them.
▪ E.B. Tylor defined culture as the “complex
whole which includes knowledge, belief, art,
law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities
acquired [learned] by man [human] as a
member of society” (1920:1)
 Culture is an historical process, with any culture composite and
hybrid and showing variations with groups.
Culture and Society
▪ Enculturation: Children learn such a tradition by
growing up in a particular society, through a
process called enculturation
▪ Cultural tradition is transmitted through learning
rather than through biological inheritance.
▪ But it rests on certain features of biology:
 Learn, to think symbolically, to use language,
employ tools, strong adaptation skill etc.

The case: How About a Hug?


Culture and Society
▪ What is society?
 A society is the largest form of human group. It
consists of people who share a common heritage
and culture. Members of the society learn this
culture and transmit it from one generation to the
next. They even preserve their distinctive culture
through literature, art, video recordings, and
other means of expression.
 Members of society generally share a common
language, which facilitates day-to-day exchanges
with others.
Two crucial terms

▪ Emic view

▪ Etic view
Emic View

▪ What insiders do and perceive about their


own culture

▪ The insiders’ perceptions of reality

▪ Insiders’ explanations of why they do what


they do
Etic view

▪ Analytical framework & tools used by


outsiders
▪ In searching for patterns of the insider’s
culture
Water bath – Boisabi Festival
Boi from Boisu (Tripura), Sa from Sangrai (Marma) and Bi from Bijhu (Chakma)
Nature Culture Debate
Text and readings

Primary Textbook:
▪ Kottak, C. P. (2015) Cultural Anthropology:
Appreciating Cultural Diversity, 16th Edition,
McGraw-Hill Inc.
Additional:
▪ Nanda, Serena and Warms, Richard L (2007)
Cultural Anthropology, Ninth Edition, Thomson
Wadsworth, USA
▪ William A. Havilland, Harald E. L. Prins, Bunny
McBride, Dana Walrath (2013) Cultural
Anthropology. The Human Challenge. Fourteenth
Edition. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, USA

You might also like