Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Anthropology today is more relevant than ever before. Society is in a continuous state of flux, whether due to globalisation, conflict, natural disasters, modernisation and other factors. The many applications of the discipline are extremely diverse, e.g. heritage, commerce and industry, medicine, criminology. In addition, it develops skills that are easily transferable to other career fields. In today's world, ethnographic methods are equally applied to humanitarian issues as in business and are increasingly important in informing decision-making in the public sector, industry and NGOs.

Salvage anthropology, provides us with a link to the past, through the preservation of cultural heritage, e.g. museums, art, archaeology, etc. of disappearing peoples and changing societies. In the field of applied anthropology governments increasingly employ anthropologists for commercial or humanitarian purposes. As in the restitution of land to Aboriginal people in Northern Australia, where "legal changes in the past quarter century, which by recognizing traditionally defined Aboriginal rights to land, have created a demand for the services of anthropologists and made their options consequential" Anthropology today (1998).

Economic development agencies use the aid of anthropologists to better interpret the needs of the people receiving aid. Another valuable contribution, in this era of multi-ethnic urban societies, is in the field of racial relations, within and between communities; also in areas of war and conflict, to help in understanding behaviour in extreme situations. In business, ethnographic methods help in the development of new products, by identifying for example, how different groups of people use technology.

In addition to such diverse applications, ethnographic training is particularly well suited to the 21st Century job market. In an increasingly international economy where workforces and markets are more diverse, anthropology provides multi-cultural training and develops such skills as critical thinking, writing and communicating, observing, interviewing, collecting oral histories, reviewing literature, writing research reports and analysing data. It helps students of the discipline understand the inter-connectivity of knowledge about people and their culture. Ethnographic perspectives and skills are particularly useful in fields that require planning, managing, analysing and evaluating large volumes of data.

Anthropology is the comparative study of man in its biological and cultural aspects and the aim of anthropologists is to achieve understanding of similarities as well as the differences between different societies it provides us with tools for understanding the multicultural, international and global issues that are fundamental for our continued existence. Anthropology asks questions about humanity that span and bridge the biological and the cultural, the international and the local, the present and the past. It uncovers the essence of other cultural groups, which exposes us, to formerly hidden aspects of our own culture, and allows for critical reflection on our own life. As an inter-disciplinary structure Anthropology builds intellectual dialogue between humanitarian and exact disciplines and provides a level of understanding of human practices that cannot be found within the framework of any other science.

Anthropology is the only contemporary discipline that approaches questions about humanity from such diverse perspectives, historical, biological, linguistic, and cultural. Due to the unique methods ...