Anthropology is the study of past and present aspects of human society. It has the sub-sects of cultural anthropology, social anthropology, biological anthropology, archaeology, and linguistic anthropology. I'm currently taking this course as an elective with no background knowledge of what to expect. So far it's been a week and so far this course seems to be made up or rather a lot is up to interpretation. It's a pseudoscience that does not appear to be concrete. So I've been asking myself how can anthropology be an actual field of study? I don't mean to offend anyone, but I'm curious as to why it is considered a study.
For one, cultural anthropology can apply to anyone learning about a culture. Looking at art, reading a written text and even using cell phones in a way is all looking at culture. To me, it's not even a study because it's happening unconsciously all the time. Anything can be considered culture(technology, clothing etc.) and everything is generally about culture. Not to forget that there are still cultures that no one has even heard about. It's difficult to understand a culture when you yourself are not from that culture. I was born in America, but my culture is South Asian based and I find it difficult to understand American culture even though I'm from here. I can learn about it, but it's not the same. I know there are cultures that are inclusive and wouldn't share information with an “outsider.” It's hard to tell what information is accurate. The same could be said for social anthropology.
Archaeology is the study of human activities through the analysis of materials. They study human prehistory to understand a culture and why they did activities in the manner they did. For example, stone tools from millions of years ago or shell use in areas that did not have stone. This, of course, makes you question religion and that's something up to interpretation from person to person depending on what they believe. If the information is up to interpretation, then it's more
I think linguistic anthropology is more concrete. Language has changed and these changes are easily shown through literature. I think it's hard to understand why they changed or why a language took a different route than the original sayings. For example, my language Bengali is similar to Urdu. Urdu is similar to Hindi, but Bengali and Hindi sound very different. These languages are spoken in close proximity to one another and there is an even overlap of the languages but how the languages came about would be hard to identify. Although in a Western viewpoint all of these languages are considered to be in one group.
Again I don't mean to offend anyone. I think cultures and languages are fascinating to learn about, but as I mentioned it's not possible to fully understand a culture without actually experiencing it. I find it hard to understand how it could be a profession. Perhaps I just don't know enough.
