CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Introduction

Culture, as a concept, is one of the most complex ideas in academic use today. It is defined and applied in various and often incompatible ways and is the site of significant disagreement between academic disciplines regarding the fundamental character of human social life and the manner in which it is to be studied. For anthropologists, culture tends to refer to symbolic systems of beliefs, values, and shared understandings that render the world meaningful and intelligible for a particular group of people. While these systems, which provide the basis for such elementary concepts as food and kinship and even, influence how individuals experience time, space, and other aspects of reality, often appear to their adherents as natural and objective, they in fact represent variable, socially agreed-upon models.

In turn, humans must construct these models in order to find order and meaning in a world lacking an inherent sense of either. As we take into account recent steps in understanding culture, there must also be a discussion of the role culture, gender and race on society. Anthropology is not immune from this tension; social evolution refers to social or cultural change over relatively long periods of time.

Thesis Statement

The thesis statement for this paper is the impact of race class and ender on society in the perspective of cultural anthropology.Objectives of the study

To study the impact of race on society in the perspective of cultural anthropology;

To highlight the significance of class on society in the perspective of cultural anthropology; and

To analyze the impact of gender on society with reference to culture.

Significance of the study

With this paper, we shall be able to understand and identify the affects of race, gender and class on the society that have been undertaken in the light of cultural anthropology and also helps us understand and comprehend the relationship of racial, socio-classical and gender anthropology with the society better cater current and potential issue of the society.

Background

Anthropology, in the United States, has four subfields: biological, archaeological, cultural, and linguistic. Together they comprise the “study of humanity.” Largest of the four subfields, in number of anthropologists specializing in it, is cultural anthropology. People have followed different ways of life in different times and places; making sense of this diversity is the central task of cultural anthropology. The notion that different races not only look different, but also behave differently as a result of their physical differences, can be traced back in Western thought at least as far as the writings of the ancient Greeks, particularly to the humoral model of existence proposed by Hippocrates (460-377 BCE) in his Discourse on Airs, Waters, and Places. Dr. Alan Goodman, former president of the American Anthropological Association and a noted authority on the concept of race, firmly supports the idea that race is not a valid way of conceptualizing human biodiversity, but he also rejects the notion that “race” is a mere cultural construct that has no real impact on people's ...