Chapter 1
What Is Anthropology?
Learning Objectives
After reading and studying Chapter 1, students should be able to answer the following questions:
1. How does anthropology differ from other social and behavioral sciences?
2. What is the four-field approach to the discipline of anthropology?
3. What do anthropologists mean by holism?
4. What is meant by cultural relativism, and why is it important?
5. What skills will students develop from the study of anthropology?
6. How can anthropology help solve social problems?
Chapter Outline
I. WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?
A. The study of the origins, development, and contemporary variations of all humans
who have existed anywhere on earth
B. A discipline that spans the gap between the humanities, the social sciences, and
the natural sciences
C. An attempt to understand the human condition
D. Recent anthropologists have devoted increasing attention to cultural and
subcultural groups in industrialized areas
E. A very diverse four-branch structure or subfields consists of: biological
anthropology, archaeology, anthropological linguistics, and cultural anthropology
II. FOUR-FIELD APPROACH
A. Biological Anthropology: deals with humans as biological organisms
1. Paleoanthropology: examining the biological evolutionary record
2. Primatology: the study of humans’ nearest living relatives
3. Physical Variations among Primates: racial categories
a. Genetics (inherited physical traits)
b. Population biology (interrelationships between population characteristics
and environments)
c. Epidemiology (occurrences, distributions, and controls of disease)
B. Archaeology: the reconstruction of cultures
1. Historic and Prehistoric: limited material about cultures including, in some
cases, written records
1
© 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
,CHAPTER 1 / WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?
2. Types of material remains:
a. Artifacts
b. Features
c. Ecofacts
3. Cultural resource management: laws passed to identify and protect cultural
and historic resources from devastation
C. Anthropological Linguistics: focuses on the study of language in historical,
structural, and social contexts
1. Historical linguistics: the emergence of language in general and how it has
diverged over time
2. Descriptive linguistics: the study of sound systems, grammatical systems, and
the meanings attached to words in specific languages
3. Ethnolinguistics: the examination of the relationship between language and
culture
4. Sociolinguistics: the examination of the relationship between language and
social relations
5. Applied linguistics: the work of educators to plan effective strategies for
teaching English as a second language
D. Cultural Anthropology: examines similarities and differences among
contemporary cultures of the world
1. Ethnography: the study of specific contemporary cultures
2. Ethnology: the study of contemporary cultures, wherever they may be found
3. Areas of Specialization:
a. Urban anthropology
b. Medical anthropology
c. Development anthropology
d. Ecological anthropology
e. Psychological anthropology
III. GUIDING PRINCIPLES
A. Holism
1. Biological and sociocultural diversity
2. A time frame of several million years
3. A global perspective
4. Human experience such as family structure, marital regulations, conflict
resolution, means of livelihood, religious beliefs, language, space usage, and
art
a. Problem-oriented research approach
b. Viewing together all the various specialties within the discipline
represents a comprehensive or holistic view of the human condition
B. Ethnocentrism
1. The belief that one’s own culture is most desirable and superior to all others
2. Most people are raised in a single culture and never learn another, so their
ways of life seem to be the most natural
2
© 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
, CHAPTER 1 / WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?
a. Becoming aware of our own ethnocentrism allows us to temporarily set
aside our own value judgments in order to learn how other cultures operate
C. Cultural Relativism
1. Early anthropologists recognized a need for dispassionate and objective
descriptions of the people they were studying
2. Cultural relativism is the notion that any part of a culture must be viewed in
its proper cultural context rather than from the viewpoint of the observer’s
culture
3. Rejects the notion that any culture, including our own, possesses a set of
absolute standards by which all other cultures can be judged
4. There are both methodological and ethical limitations to cultural relativism
D. The Emic (insider view) versus Etic (outsider view) Approaches
1. Emic approach: seeks to describe another culture in terms of the categories,
concepts, and perceptions of the people being studied
2. Etic approach: the use of the anthropologist’s own categories and concepts to
describe the culture under analysis
IV. CONTRIBUTIONS OF ANTHROPOLOGY
A. Examines all aspects of humanity during all periods of time in all parts of the
world
B. Integrates the various disciplines dealing with human physiology and culture
C. Enhances international/cross-cultural understanding
D. Corrective to deterministic thinking
E. Provides a unique perspective on the study of globalization
F. Allows us to learn about human nature based on cross-cultural analysis
G. Helps us to better understand ourselves
H. Gives a fuller understanding of other cultures
I. Serves as a bridge to personal development
V. APPLYING ANTHROPLOGICAL CONCEPTS TO SOCIAL PROBLEMS
A. Basic research
1. Gains scientific understanding for its own sake
B. Applied research
1. Gains scientific understanding for the sake of solving particular social
problems
2. Interest has increased over the past decade with a noticeable increase in
anthropologists working outside universities and museums
3. Graduate and undergraduate courses in applied anthropology have increased
over the past decade
4. The applied research of Susan Squires in the area of new product design has
led to the development of a new breakfast food for the entire family
3
© 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
, CHAPTER 1 / WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?
VI. BUILDING SKILLS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
A. The process of studying cultural anthropology is valuable because of the skills
and competencies that it develops, including:
1. Developing a broad perspective
2. Appreciating other perspectives
3. Balancing contradictions
4. Emphasizing global teamwork
5. Developing cognitive complexity
a. Open-mindedness
b. Perceptual awareness
6. Developing perceptual acuity
B. A number of skills and capacities that are considered essential for effective living
and working in the twenty-first century can be mastered by the comparative study
of the world’s cultural diversity and shared heritage
VII. THE BOTTOM LINE: UNDERSTANDING OTHER CULTURES
A. Acquiring accurate data about other cultures
B. Cultural self-awareness
C. Knowing how people from other cultures view our culture
Key Terms
These are the anthropological terms introduced in Chapter 1. You may want to ask your students
to write definitions of one or more of these terms during class to see how well they understood
the reading.
anthropological linguistics (p. 10)
archaeology (p. 8)
artifacts (p. 8)
biological anthropology (p. 6)
cultural anthropology (p. 11)
cultural relativism (p. 16)
cultural resource management (p. 9)
descriptive linguistics (p. 11)
ecofacts (p. 8)
emic approach (p. 17)
epidemiology (p. 8)
ethnolinguistics (p. 11)
ethnocentrism (p. 15)
ethnography (p. 11)
ethnology (p. 11)
etic approach (p. 17)
features (p. 8)
genetics (p. 8)
historical linguistics (p. 10)
4
© 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
What Is Anthropology?
Learning Objectives
After reading and studying Chapter 1, students should be able to answer the following questions:
1. How does anthropology differ from other social and behavioral sciences?
2. What is the four-field approach to the discipline of anthropology?
3. What do anthropologists mean by holism?
4. What is meant by cultural relativism, and why is it important?
5. What skills will students develop from the study of anthropology?
6. How can anthropology help solve social problems?
Chapter Outline
I. WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?
A. The study of the origins, development, and contemporary variations of all humans
who have existed anywhere on earth
B. A discipline that spans the gap between the humanities, the social sciences, and
the natural sciences
C. An attempt to understand the human condition
D. Recent anthropologists have devoted increasing attention to cultural and
subcultural groups in industrialized areas
E. A very diverse four-branch structure or subfields consists of: biological
anthropology, archaeology, anthropological linguistics, and cultural anthropology
II. FOUR-FIELD APPROACH
A. Biological Anthropology: deals with humans as biological organisms
1. Paleoanthropology: examining the biological evolutionary record
2. Primatology: the study of humans’ nearest living relatives
3. Physical Variations among Primates: racial categories
a. Genetics (inherited physical traits)
b. Population biology (interrelationships between population characteristics
and environments)
c. Epidemiology (occurrences, distributions, and controls of disease)
B. Archaeology: the reconstruction of cultures
1. Historic and Prehistoric: limited material about cultures including, in some
cases, written records
1
© 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
,CHAPTER 1 / WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?
2. Types of material remains:
a. Artifacts
b. Features
c. Ecofacts
3. Cultural resource management: laws passed to identify and protect cultural
and historic resources from devastation
C. Anthropological Linguistics: focuses on the study of language in historical,
structural, and social contexts
1. Historical linguistics: the emergence of language in general and how it has
diverged over time
2. Descriptive linguistics: the study of sound systems, grammatical systems, and
the meanings attached to words in specific languages
3. Ethnolinguistics: the examination of the relationship between language and
culture
4. Sociolinguistics: the examination of the relationship between language and
social relations
5. Applied linguistics: the work of educators to plan effective strategies for
teaching English as a second language
D. Cultural Anthropology: examines similarities and differences among
contemporary cultures of the world
1. Ethnography: the study of specific contemporary cultures
2. Ethnology: the study of contemporary cultures, wherever they may be found
3. Areas of Specialization:
a. Urban anthropology
b. Medical anthropology
c. Development anthropology
d. Ecological anthropology
e. Psychological anthropology
III. GUIDING PRINCIPLES
A. Holism
1. Biological and sociocultural diversity
2. A time frame of several million years
3. A global perspective
4. Human experience such as family structure, marital regulations, conflict
resolution, means of livelihood, religious beliefs, language, space usage, and
art
a. Problem-oriented research approach
b. Viewing together all the various specialties within the discipline
represents a comprehensive or holistic view of the human condition
B. Ethnocentrism
1. The belief that one’s own culture is most desirable and superior to all others
2. Most people are raised in a single culture and never learn another, so their
ways of life seem to be the most natural
2
© 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
, CHAPTER 1 / WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?
a. Becoming aware of our own ethnocentrism allows us to temporarily set
aside our own value judgments in order to learn how other cultures operate
C. Cultural Relativism
1. Early anthropologists recognized a need for dispassionate and objective
descriptions of the people they were studying
2. Cultural relativism is the notion that any part of a culture must be viewed in
its proper cultural context rather than from the viewpoint of the observer’s
culture
3. Rejects the notion that any culture, including our own, possesses a set of
absolute standards by which all other cultures can be judged
4. There are both methodological and ethical limitations to cultural relativism
D. The Emic (insider view) versus Etic (outsider view) Approaches
1. Emic approach: seeks to describe another culture in terms of the categories,
concepts, and perceptions of the people being studied
2. Etic approach: the use of the anthropologist’s own categories and concepts to
describe the culture under analysis
IV. CONTRIBUTIONS OF ANTHROPOLOGY
A. Examines all aspects of humanity during all periods of time in all parts of the
world
B. Integrates the various disciplines dealing with human physiology and culture
C. Enhances international/cross-cultural understanding
D. Corrective to deterministic thinking
E. Provides a unique perspective on the study of globalization
F. Allows us to learn about human nature based on cross-cultural analysis
G. Helps us to better understand ourselves
H. Gives a fuller understanding of other cultures
I. Serves as a bridge to personal development
V. APPLYING ANTHROPLOGICAL CONCEPTS TO SOCIAL PROBLEMS
A. Basic research
1. Gains scientific understanding for its own sake
B. Applied research
1. Gains scientific understanding for the sake of solving particular social
problems
2. Interest has increased over the past decade with a noticeable increase in
anthropologists working outside universities and museums
3. Graduate and undergraduate courses in applied anthropology have increased
over the past decade
4. The applied research of Susan Squires in the area of new product design has
led to the development of a new breakfast food for the entire family
3
© 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
, CHAPTER 1 / WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?
VI. BUILDING SKILLS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
A. The process of studying cultural anthropology is valuable because of the skills
and competencies that it develops, including:
1. Developing a broad perspective
2. Appreciating other perspectives
3. Balancing contradictions
4. Emphasizing global teamwork
5. Developing cognitive complexity
a. Open-mindedness
b. Perceptual awareness
6. Developing perceptual acuity
B. A number of skills and capacities that are considered essential for effective living
and working in the twenty-first century can be mastered by the comparative study
of the world’s cultural diversity and shared heritage
VII. THE BOTTOM LINE: UNDERSTANDING OTHER CULTURES
A. Acquiring accurate data about other cultures
B. Cultural self-awareness
C. Knowing how people from other cultures view our culture
Key Terms
These are the anthropological terms introduced in Chapter 1. You may want to ask your students
to write definitions of one or more of these terms during class to see how well they understood
the reading.
anthropological linguistics (p. 10)
archaeology (p. 8)
artifacts (p. 8)
biological anthropology (p. 6)
cultural anthropology (p. 11)
cultural relativism (p. 16)
cultural resource management (p. 9)
descriptive linguistics (p. 11)
ecofacts (p. 8)
emic approach (p. 17)
epidemiology (p. 8)
ethnolinguistics (p. 11)
ethnocentrism (p. 15)
ethnography (p. 11)
ethnology (p. 11)
etic approach (p. 17)
features (p. 8)
genetics (p. 8)
historical linguistics (p. 10)
4
© 2018 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part.
