Cultural Anthropology

Cultural Anthropology is a holistic and also a scientific study of humanity and of the global cultures. It is otherwise called as Social Anthropology, which is one of the recognized fields of Anthropology. This study is based on the development of the cultures of human beings based on social, linguistic, ethnologic, psychological concepts, beliefs, values, technologies, practices, economy and other fields of social organization.

The history of Cultural Anthropology has its foundations in the 19^th century and was called as “Ethnology”. Modern Cultural Anthropology is still under the domination of Ethnography, a study in which anthropologists live among another society of people for a particular period of time and observe the social and cultural life of a group. Anthropologists use a variety of methods to learn about people and their culture. They study people by the methods such as Participant observation, Reflexivity, Cross-culture comparison, Life history analysis, Participatory approach, etc.

Participant observation is a basic method of anthological researches, in which the researchers live within the given group of people for a particular period of time. They observe their daily life and learn about their culture by interacting with the people. This method allows the researcher probe into a deeper study on the culture of the group. But sometimes this method is not perfect as the observed people or group may alter their activities or behavior since they know they are being observed. Reflexivity focuses on the assessment and awareness of the anthropologist and the influence of them on his subjects and his findings. According to this method, the anthropologist’s field work is a reflexive experience. It mainly deals with the political, ethical concepts of the research work and the background of the anthropologists. The anthropologist must make it explicit who the person is, only then he will be able to interact and get to involve deeply in his field work. He should set aside his beliefs and has to place himself into their life in order to do his research and study their beliefs. Cross-culture comparison refers to the study of different cultures and comparing one with the other. Every culture has its own uniqueness and cross-culture comparison helps in finding the similarities and variations that exist between cultures. Life history analysis helps the anthropologists to get a better understanding of the life and culture of a group of people. Life history can be recorded for a wide range of period of time to understand the people. Participatory research is about the interviews and surveys with the subjects. It has community commitments such as Investigation, Interpretation and few other ways which are conducted by other group of people, who are closely connected to the subjects or the group that the anthropologist is observing.

The study of different cultures helps people gain knowledge about the lifestyles, customs, religious beliefs, values, etc., of the people across the globe. Cultural Anthropology also brings about cross-cultural learning and helps in building relationships with different people of the world.