ANT207H1 Lecture Notes - Social Relation, Veranda, African Studies
Document Summary
We have customs and habits of what is the norm. Most social action has a deliberate communicative event. Actions make a statement and a social/cultural aspect. To understand what went on we need to know what is the norm in the circumstance (there may be a diversity of the norm- there is not only 1), must read body language. A person is a product of social/cultural forces ie socialization and desire to communicate certain things. Social/cultural anthropology is scientific: think about hypothesis systematically and you are curious/investigative, open to new surprises, be prepared to question diff people and contexts. Know about data/evidence (not the absolute truth- but the info we can come up with given the resources we have) Teacher: fieldwork makes you spend enough time in a place you learn to interprete the context, body language, who these people are. You get deep enough in context that you know social relation and how elements combine and interact.
