Why Study Culture and Anthropology

Why study Culture and Anthropology

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Following introduction is from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_anthropology


Cultural anthropology is one of four fields of anthropology (the holistic study of humanity) as it developed in the United States. It is the branch of anthropology that has developed and promoted "culture" as a meaningful scientific concept, studied cultural variation among humans, and examined the impact of global economic and political processes on local cultural realities.

Following text is from http://www.he.courses-careers.com/anthropology.htm

The anthropological concept of "culture" reflects in part a reaction against earlier Western discourses based on an opposition between "culture" and "nature", according to which some human beings lived in a "state of nature". Anthropologists have argued that culture is "human nature," and that all people have a capacity to classify experiences, encode classifications symbolically (i.e. in language), and teach such abstractions to others. Since humans acquire culture through the learning processes of enculturation and socialization, people living in different places or different circumstances develop different cultures. Anthropologists have also pointed out that through culture people can adapt to their environment in non-genetic ways, so people living in different environments will often have different cultures. Much of anthropological theory has originated in an appreciation of and interest in the tension between the local (particular cultures) and the global (a universal human nature, or the web of connections between people in distinct places/circumstances).

Parallel with the rise of cultural anthropology in the United States, social anthropology, in which "sociality" is the central concept and which focuses on the study of social statuses and roles, groups, institutions, and the relations among them, developed as an academic discipline in Britain. An umbrella term socio-cultural anthropology makes reference to both cultural and social anthropology traditions.

Anthropology concerns itself with humans as complex social beings with a capacity for language, thought and culture. The study of anthropology is about understanding biological and cultural aspects of life among peoples throughout the world.

All humans are born with the same basic physical characteristics but, depending on where they grow up, each individual is exposed to different climates, food, languages, religious beliefs, and so on. However human beings are not simply shaped by their environment, they also actively shape the world in which they love. A key aim of anthology is to understand the common constraints within which human beings operate as well as the differences which are evident between particular societies and cultures.

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Why we need to understand the difference?

Following text is from : http://www.morris.umn.edu/academic/anthropology/whystudy.html

Why study Anthropology?...anthropology prepares students for excellent jobs and opens doors to various career paths: the course of study provides global information and thinking skills critical to succeeding in the 21st century in business, research, teaching, advocacy, and public service.