ANT2000 What is anthropology o The study of humankind in all times and places o 4 subdisciplines Cultural Linguistic Archaeology Physical Can cross between different disciplines and researches and methodology o Anthropology draws on many different disciplines Medicine History Art Economics Biology Poly Science Genetics Sociology o The anthropological perspectives Holistic Example Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill o What were the different historical cultural economic and political factors that led to the spill o How were the effects of the spill variously experienced and interpreted by the people of different races ethnicities and economic statuses Comparative Example Work Time o Cross culturally do people work the same amount of time o Are Western societies privileged by more freetime o Who works more women or men o What are the effects of different types of work conditions Relativistic Example China s Reproductive Policy o Relativistically one must consider China s need to regulate population and evaluate the policy s impact on various segments of Chinese society o Morally at least from Western perspective it is considered flat wrong by many o Anthropology is about Everything Human The study of Human Variation What kind of variation Biological Social Cultural When where Through all time and space o Biological Variation Our 6 million year past includes at least 3 genera and many species of humans hominims Today we are all one sub species Homo sapiens sapiensbut biologically variable We can understand this variation as adaptations to environment as physiological plasticity and as result of interplay between culture and biology o Social Variation 2 Societies ranging from small bands of mobile foragers to populous nation states and beyond Variation can be understood alternatively as Evolutionary stages Ecological adaptations Histories of connections among societies o Cultural Variation If we consider culture to be symbol based learned behavior then we can understand how it is free to vary somewhat from biology and and society We ll see how things often considered to be biologically determined gender kinship are cultural and thus extremely varied 3
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