Cultural Anthropology
What is anthropology?
According to Merriam-Webster, anthropology is "the study of human beings and their ancestors through time and space and in relation to physical character, environmental and social relations, and culture."
Cultural anthropology is one of the four main subfields of anthropology. Britannica defines cultural anthropology as, "the study of culture in all of its aspects and that uses the methods, concepts, and data of archaeology, ethnography and ethnology, folklore, and linguistics in its descriptions and analyses of the diverse peoples of the world."
Cultural anthropology can be used to explore the deep and multifaceted connection between humans and dogs, examining the roles dogs play in human societies.
The Four Subfields of Anthropology
Biological
"Biological anthropology is the study of human origins, evolution, and variation. Some biological anthropologists focus on our closest living relatives, monkeys and apes. They examine the biological and behavioral similarities and differences between nonhuman primates and human primates (us!)."
"Other biological anthropologists focus on humans in the present including their genetic and phenotypic (observable) variation." (Brown et al., 2020)
Linguistic
"Linguistic anthropological research focuses on the relationship between language, thought, and culture."
"Other linguistic anthropologists track the emergence and diversification of languages, while others focus on language use in today's social contexts. Still others explore how language is crucial to socialization." (Brown et al., 2020)
Language is the defining trait of humans and it allows us to communicate, coordinate efforts, think abstractly, and so much more.
Cultural
"Cultural anthropologists study the similarities and differences among living societies and cultural groups. Through immersive fieldwork, living and working with the people one is studying, cultural anthropologists suspend their own sense of what is
"normal" in order to understand other people's perspectives." (Brown et al., 2020)
Archaeological
"Archaeologists focus on the material past: the tools, food, pottery, art, shelters, seeds, and other objects left behind by people. Prehistoric archaeologists recover and analyze these materials to reconstruct the lifeways of past societies that lacked writing." (Brown et al., 2020)
Archaeologists' research method is excavation - carefully digging and removing debris from an artifact to learn and record the story behind it.
A Subdiscipline of Anthropology
Applied anthropology is what it sounds like-it's how we apply anthropology to the world around us. It "involves the application of anthropological theories, methods, and findings to solve practical problems." Applied anthropology spans all four of the subfields (Brown et al., 2020).
Exploring Anthropology
The Role of Religion in Human Societies
Characteristics of Religion:
1. Concerned with the supernatural
2. Serves emotional needs
3. Collective system of meaning
4. Explains the unexplainable
5. Social in nature
Religion is a type of social control. It helps people cope with adversity, fear, and tragedy—it offers hope that things will get better. Religion can work by getting inside people and mobilizing emotions. People can feel a deep sense of shared meaning, experience, communion, belonging, and commitment. Because of this, religion can become a powerful influence on people's attitudes and behavior, proving a moral compass.