APPLYING ANTHROPOLOGY
ANTHROPOLOGY: CHAPTER 2
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY: CHAPTER 2
PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND ARCHAEOLOGY: CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
1.
Understand the relationship between academic and applied anthropology.
2.
Know the different views about applying anthropology.
3.
Understand the relationship between urban and rural communities.
4.
Know what medical anthropology is. In particular, you should know the different kinds
of disease theories and how they differ. You also need to be able to distinguish between
an illness and a disease.
5.
Know what anthropology has to offer business.
6.
Know the different kinds of careers in anthropology.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. Introduction
A. Applied anthropology refers to the application of anthropological data, perspectives,
theory, and methods to identify, assess, and solve social problems.
B. Applied anthropologists work for groups that promote, manage, and assess programs
aimed at influencing human social conditions.
C. Applied anthropologists come from all four subfields of anthropology.
1. Biological anthropologists work in public health, nutrition, genetic counseling,
substance abuse, epidemiology, aging, mental illness, and forensics.
2. Applied archaeologists locate, study, and preserve prehistoric and historic sites
threatened by development (a.k.a. cultural resource management).
3. Cultural anthropologists work with social workers, businesspeople, advertising
professionals, factory workers, medical professionals, school personnel, and
economic development experts.
4. Linguistic anthropologists frequently work with schools in districts with a wide range
of languages.
II. The Role of the Applied Anthropologist
A. Anthropologists have held three views about applying anthropology.
1. The ivory tower view contends that anthropologists should avoid practical matters
and focus on research, publication, and teaching.
2. The schizoid view holds that anthropologists should carry out, but not make or
criticize, policy.
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3. The advocacy view argues that since anthropologists are experts on human problems
and social change, they should make policy affecting people.
a. Identify locally perceived needs for change.
b. Work with those people to design culturally appropriate and socially sensitive
change.
c. Protect local people from harmful development schemes.
4. Kottak favors advocacy.
B. Professional anthropologists work for a wide variety of employers: tribal and ethnic
associations, governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), etc.
1. During World War II, anthropologists worked for the U.S. government to study
Japanese and German culture “at a distance.”
2. Malinowski advocated working with the British Empire to study indigenous land
tenure to determine how much land should be left to the natives and how much the
empire could seize.
III. Ethics and Anthropology
A. Research Ethics
1. Responsibility to people and animals.
a. The primary ethical obligation of the anthropologist is to the people, species, or
materials he or she studies.
b. Researchers must respect the safety, dignity, and privacy of the people, species, or
materials we study.
c. Researchers should determine in advance whether their hosts wish to remain
anonymous or receive recognition.
d. Researchers should obtain the informed consent of the people to be studied and of
those whose interests may be affected by the research.
e. Anthropologists who develop close relationships with individuals must adhere to
the obligations of openness and informed consent.
f. Anthropologists may gain personally from their work, but they must not exploit
individuals, groups, animals, or cultural or biological materials.
2. Responsibility to scholarship and science.
a. Anthropologists should expect to encounter ethical dilemmas during their work.
b. Anthropologists are responsible for the integrity and reputation of their discipline,
of scholarship, and of science.
c. Researchers should do all they can to preserve opportunities for future
fieldworkers.
d. To the extent possible, researchers should disseminate their findings to the
scientific and scholarly community.
e. Anthropologists should consider reasonable requests for access to their data for
purposes of research.
3. Responsibility to the public.
a. Researchers should make their results available to sponsors, students, decision
makers, and other nonanthropologists.
b. Anthropologists may move beyond disseminating research results to a position of
advocacy.
B. Ethics Pertaining to Applied Anthropology
1. The same ethical guidelines apply to all anthropological work—academic and
applied.
2. Applied anthropologists should use and disseminate their work appropriately.
3. With employers, applied anthropologists should be honest about their qualifications,
capabilities, aims, and intentions.
4. Applied anthropologists should be alert to the danger of compromising ethics as a
condition for engaging in research or practice.
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IV. Academic and Applied Anthropology
A. After World War II, the baby boom fueled the growth of the American educational
system and anthropology along with it, starting the era of academic anthropology.
B. Applied anthropology began to grow in the 1970s as anthropologists found jobs with
international organizations, governments, businesses, hospitals, and schools.
C. Theory and Practice
1. Like most other disciplines, anthropology boomed immediately after the Second
World War, and again in the sixties as the strengths of the discipline fit with
prevailing social interests, which began a turn toward practical applications.
2. Anthropology’s ethnographic method, holism, and systemic perspective make it
uniquely valuable in application to social problems.
3. Applied anthropologists are more likely to focus on a local, grassroots perspective in
approaching a problem than to consult with officials and experts.
V. Anthropology and Education
A. In particular, anthropology has helped facilitate the accommodation of cultural
differences in classroom settings.
B. Examples include English as a second language taught to Spanish-speaking students;
different, culturally based reactions to various pedagogical techniques; the application of
linguistic relativism in the classroom to B.E.V.
VI. Urban Anthropology
A. Human populations are becoming increasingly urban.
B. Urban anthropology is the cross-cultural and ethnographic study of global urbanization
and life in cities.
C. Urban versus Rural
1. Robert Redfield was an early student of the differences between the rural and urban
contexts.
2. Various instances of urban social forms are given as examples, African urban
(Kampala, Uganda) social networks in particular.
D. Applying anthropology to urban planning starts by identifying the key social groups in
the urban context.
VII. Medical Anthropology
A. Medical anthropology is both academic (theoretical) and applied (practical).
1. Medical anthropology is the study of disease and illness in their sociocultural context.
2. Disease is a scientifically defined ailment.
3. Illness is an ailment as experienced and perceived by the sufferer.
B. The spread of certain diseases, like malaria and schistosomiasis, have been associated
with population growth and economic development.
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C. There are three basic theories about the causes of illnesses.
1. Personalistic disease theories blame illness on agents such as sorcerers, witches,
ghosts, or ancestral spirits.
2. Naturalistic disease theories explain illness in impersonal terms (e.g., Western
biomedicine).
3. Emotionalistic disease theories assume emotional experiences cause illness (e.g.,
susto among Latino populations).
D. Health-Care Systems
1. All societies have health-care systems.
2. Health-care systems consist of beliefs, customs, specialists, and techniques aimed at
ensuring health and preventing, diagnosing, and treating illness.
E. Health-Care Specialists
1. All cultures have health-care specialists (e.g., curers, shaman, doctors).
2. Health-car specialists emerge through a culturally defined process of selection and
training.
F. Lessons from Non-Western Medicine
1. Non-Western systems of medicine are often more successful at treating mental illness
than Western medicine.
2. Non-Western systems of medicine often explain mental illnesses by causes that are
easier to identify and combat.
3. Non-Western systems of medicine diagnose and treat the mentally ill in cohesive
groups with full support of their kin.
G. Western Medicine
1. Despite its advances, Western medicine is not without its problems.
a. Overprescription of drugs and tranquilizers
b. Unnecessary surgery
c. Impersonality and inequality of the patient-physician relationship
d. Overuse of antibiotics
2. Biomedicine surpasses non-Western medicine in many ways.
a. Thousands of effective drugs
b. Preventive health care
c. Surgery
H. Medical Development
1. Like economic development, medical development must fit into local systems of
heath care.
2. Medical anthropologists can serve as cultural interpreters between local systems and
Western medicine.
I. Beyond the Classroom: New Life, Good Health
1. Ann L. Bretnall worked with the Project New Life-Good Health through the
University of South Florida to establish a church-based farmers’ market.
2. The goal of the farmers’ market is to provide a venue to understand community needs,
to educate, and to improve the nutrition and health of the local Hispanic community.
VIII. Anthropology and Business
A. Anthropologists can provide unique perspectives on organizational conditions and
problems within businesses.
B. Applied anthropologists have acted as “cultural brokers,” translating managers’ goals or
workers’ concerns to the other group.
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C. For business, key features of anthropology include ethnography, cross-cultural expertise,
and focus on cultural diversity.
IX. Careers in Anthropology
A. Because of its breadth, a degree in anthropology may provide a flexible basis for many
different careers (with appropriate planning).
B. Other fields, such as business, have begun to recognize the worth of such anthropological
concepts as microcultures.
C. Anthropologists work professionally as consultants to indigenous groups at risk from
external systems.
D. Other employers of anthropologists include USAID, USDA, the World Bank, private
voluntary organizations, etc.
LECTURE TOPICS
1.
List the many ways in which anthropologists are personally involved in practical matters.
Give examples of how they have made a change or difference.
2.
Discuss attitudes toward the Third World, both popular attitudes and those of social
scientists.
3.
Describe the sequence of ethnic assimilation in the United States and its relationship to
crime. Discuss the case of African-Americans and how they fit, or do not fit, into the
typical sequence.
4.
An interventionist way of thinking is still relatively strong among Americans, and there
is a tendency to view foreign aid and development projects without criticism (aside from
objections over money not spent at home). Conversely, there is also an opposing-butalso-prevalent mindset that condemns development of any kind. Compare two
development projects (a “good” one and a “bad” one) in order to carry the point that
objections and admiration are best directed at actual practice, and to show the practical
value of an anthropological perspective.
SUGGESTED FILMS
The Talking Skull: Forensic Anthropology
1998 26 minutes
This film traces the efforts of forensic anthropologist Dr. Michael Charney and medical examiner
Dr. Mary Case to study the remains of a murder victim. From Films for the Humanities and
Sciences.
No Place to Hide: The UN’s Peacekeeping Efforts
1995 51 minutes
Hosted by Sir Brian Urquhart, head of UN peacekeeping in the 1970s and ’80s, this film presents
the history of the UN’s peacekeeping efforts and discusses the future of these operations. A
United Nations production.
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Series: Global Issues in Our Developing World
This series presents case studies that address problems and issues common to various developing
countries around the world. Each film compares a common theme in three different developing
countries. 4-part series, 30-33 minutes each. Titles in the series: Ecology and the Environment:
Galapagos, Mauritania, Madagascar; Economic Development: Colombia, Bolivia, India; Human
Rights: Haiti, Turkey, Oman; Drugs and Health: Peru, Uganda, Turkey. From Films for the
Humanities and Sciences.
USING THE ATLAS
Using the Chapter 2 map, Population Growth Rates, discuss the increasing need for
applied anthropologists in the world. Talk about the problems associated with population growth
and various means that have been used to address this problem. What role can anthropologists
play in mitigating unbridled population growth? Anthropologists study the causes and effects
and they also create and implement programs designed to reduce the problems of population
growth. Use case studies.
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