What is Anthropology? | The Geographic Times

 Anthropology

Where did it start?

Anthropology started as a science during the time of exploration when European countries started to colonize what they considered as primitive societies where people were believed to be savages and barbaric. 

Let it be clear that anthropology started as the study of nonEuropean people by European people (outward).

During their colonial encounter with these people, Europeans started to make a written

records about non-Europeans. They focus on kinship, language, race, religion, cultural perceptions, and others.

Who started this field?

Franz Boas –considered as the father of modern American anthropology. His study led to

the doctrine of “historical particularism,” where he stated that each society is considered as having a unique form of culture that cannot be understood under an overall definiton of general culture.

Concept

Anthroplogy is the study of people and their culture. It uses a special research method known as ethnography in which antropologists are required to live with their subject of study for a long period of time in order to make their writings more reliable and credible.

Subjects of Inquiry

Biological anthropology refers to the study of human origins (genetics, race, evolutions, fossils, primates).

Cultural anthropology is the study of living people (religion, social system, language,

clothing, foods, beliefs, traditions, etc).

Linguistics is the study of language, its evolution, its connection to other languages, and others.

Archeology refers to the study of dead culture (religion, social system, language, how they dress, foods, beliefs, traditions, etc).

Goals

The goals of anthropology are the following:

• See the commonalities among people (tradition, language, kinship, etc).
• Look at what makes us the same to understand more about human nature.
• Discover what makes people different from each other in order to understand and preserve diversity.
• Produce new knowledge and new theories about mankind and behavior.
• Look at one’s own culture more objectively.