ANTH 1001 Lecture : Anthro Lecture 3
Document Summary
How do anthropologists study culture: fieldwork. Try to make objective observations: participant observation, other methods. Armchair anthropology: early anthropology armchair anthropologists . Based their work on the accounts of other travelers. They didn"t go out to the communities, they would read and then make observations based on that. Based their ideas of societies based on social evolution. Societies classified from simple to complex on basis of development of technology, social institutions. Society based on family relations> societies with. Thought their own society was the best, the most evolved. They ranked other societies: weaknesses of evolutionary theory. Focused on exotic characteristics found in a society that made travelers more famous. Instead of focusing on what may be similar to other societies, they would talk about what was different. Evolutionists molded their data to fit the theory. Ignored anything that didn"t fit their own theory.
