AN100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Peace Corps, Medical Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology
Document Summary
Human beings, unlike other animals create their own worlds and ascribe meanings to objects, persons, behaviours, emotions and events; meanings that together constitute a culture. Geertz(1973) suggest, human beings are compelled to create meanings if only to instill some sense of order in their lives . Kids height and weight increase as they drink goat milk. Anthropologist made fun of and thought disrespectful for trying to feed a big ox. Volunteers tried to teach skills and failed with local people. Looks at life of prostitutes emotional, physical, and mental health. Repeating symbolic acts about things and magic, rituals. Adjustment anthropology: increasing the predictability of social interaction among those who operate with different cultural codes. E. g. peace -corps volunteers are advised on the cultural codes of botswana; also an example of na ve realism. Administrative anthropology: uses knowledge for planned change by those external to the local cultural group. E. g. an anthropologist provides knowledge to a mayor about the culture of constitute.
