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Summary SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY 222 NOTES
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Week 1: What is anthropology exactly and how does it relate to Health & Illness?Anthropology Definition
- Studies of humans and their behaviour.
- Tends to focus on smaller things, where sociology has a border interest.
- Question the things we might take for granted.
- Study of diversity, not singular experiences.
- Studies the conversations on why we do things.
- Helps us understands that our particular ways of being, our habits, our ideas, our
stories are created in a particular social and cultural environment.
- Anthropology is “a social science that involves the study of human groups and their
behaviour: their interactions with each other, and with the material environment. Most
anthropologists study contemporary societies (or smaller groups within them),
although in some countries anthropology also includes archaeology and the study of
past societies. 3 It sits alongside related social sciences like sociology (which tends
to be more quantitative), and psychology (which focuses more on individuals).”
(Strang, 2009: 4)
- Types of Anthropology
o Social anthropology
o Cultural anthropology
o Political anthropology
o Economic anthropology
o The anthropology of religion
o Biological anthropology
o Medical anthropology
o Environmental anthropology
What makes anthropology unique?
Critical analysis/comparison, which allows Anthropology to understand.
Diversity in all its forms.
o Seeks to understand different ways of life (all people in pursuit of life).
Differences and sameness.
“Our ways” is just one among many possibilities.
o Allowing to apply the “archive of social possibilities” to social justice and
transformation.
Examples: socioeconomic inequality, gender, etc.
1
,Positionality is the space in which habitus takes place (Pierre Bourdieu)
What is different of different societies? (Question that early anthropologist asked)
Origin
Started out in westerner and Eurocentric (racist) view.
CRITICAL ARUGMENT = HYPOTHESES + EVIDENCE
Participant Observation = long, in-depth fieldwork that allows Anthropology to develop.
The “insider’s perspective” by learning from our interlocutors through participating in
their activities (seeing the world from the other’s perspective).
Provide detailed descriptions and deep analysis in “ethnographies”.
o Example: Cheryl Mattingly – Healing Dramas and Clinical Plot, Dance Civet,
Raw Life, New Hope.
Scope of Anthropology
“Anthropology tries to achieve an understanding of culture, society and humanity
through detailed studies of local life.”
In the past, Anthropology studies mostly small-scale, “traditional” societies,
Anthropology studies all kinds of societies everywhere.
Anthropology studies big issues of society, culture and humanity through actual
people, their relationships to each other and the groups they belong to.
Relevance of Anthropology
Relevant because intensive studies of small places help to understand large issues
in-depth:
o How do people experience the world?
o How do people make sense of the social processes that shape their lives?
Relevant because through participant observation and long-term ethnographic
fieldwork ensure knowledge gained is:
o Reliable and culturally variant reflecting the complexity of society.
o Usable in comparison through theory and methodological analysis.
“Anthropology is an intellectually challenging, theoretically ambitious subject which
tries to achieve an understanding of culture, society, and humanity through detailed
studies of local life, supplemented by comparison” (Eriksen, 2004: 7)
Anthropology helps to understand:
o What is it that all humans have in common?
2
, o What are the multiple realities that exist in the everyday?
Anthropology helps us understand that our particular ways of being, our habits, our ideas,
our stories are created in a particular social and cultural environment.
Video - The Danger of a Single-Story
Creates stereotypes.
Problem with stereotypes is that it is not the complete story.
We need a “balance story” in order to break the Single-Story narrative.
The way you start your story will determine how the rest of your complexity will
unfold. (Hypothesis)
Continue to question, do not accept everything as it is.
Ones you accept a stereotype you flatten you views on everything else surrounding
it.
[How patters and behaviours in society are regulated and control are related to bio-
power.]
Fieldwork and Participant Observation
Research: Systematic production of knowledge
o Preparation: reading, defining topic and research questions (what do I want to
find about?)
o Fieldwork: long-term field study to develop as intimate an understanding as
possible of the phenomenon and group investigated = the most important
source of new knowledge about culture and society.
Field-work consist of
o Participant observation
Forms the basis of anthropology field research.
Aim: to make sense of people’s experiences, using their own everyday
categories (cultural relativism!)
Method: Observe with all senses while participating in local life as fully
as possible.
Long-term: Become a natural (‘fly on the wall)
Learning inside-out: immersion to learn the locals’ ways of
doing things and how they make meaning
Informal: participate, informal conversations
3
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