cultural anthropological research

Examples of cultural anthropological research in the following topics:

• Animals and Culture

  • Animal culture refers to cultural learning in non-human animals through socially transmitted behaviors.
  • Animal culture refers to cultural learning in non-human animals through socially transmitted behaviors.
  • Much cultural anthropological research has been done on non-human primates, due to their close evolutionary proximity to humans.
  • In non-primate animals, research tends to be limited, so the evidence for culture is lacking.
  • The subject has become more popular recently, prompting more research in the field.

• Material Culture

  • Material culture consists in physical objects that humans make.
  • For instance, the clothes that you are wearing might tell researchers of the future about the fashions of today .
  • This view of culture, which came to dominate anthropology between World War I and World War II, implied that each culture was bounded and had to be understood as a whole, on its own terms.
  • The result is a belief in cultural relativism, which suggests that there are no 'better' or 'worse' cultures, just different cultures .
  • They constitute an increasingly significant part of our material culture.

• Documents

  • It is possible to do sociological research without directly involving humans at all.
  • One such method is documentary research.
  • In documentary research, all information is collected from texts and documents.
  • Researchers may also develop and employ theories and methods from disciplines including cultural studies, rhetoric, philosophy, literary theory, psychology, political economy, economics, sociology, anthropology, social theory, art history and criticism, film theory, feminist theory, information theory, and political science .
  • While sociological research involving documents is one of the less interactive research options available to sociologists, it can reveal a great deal about the norms, values, and beliefs of people belonging to a particular temporal and cultural context.

• Fieldwork and Observation

  • Ethnography is a research process that uses fieldwork and observation to learn about a particular community or culture.
  • Ethnography is a qualitative research strategy, involving a combination of fieldwork and observation, which seeks to understand cultural phenomena that reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group.
  • It was pioneered in the field of socio-cultural anthropology, but has also become a popular method in various other fields of social sciences, particularly in sociology.
  • Although it often involves studying ethnic or cultural minority groups, this is not always the case.
  • In participant observation, the researcher immerses himself in a cultural environment, usually over an extended period of time, in order to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals (such as a religious, occupational, or sub-cultural group, or a particular community) and their practices.

• Cultural Evolution

  • In this sense, high culture no longer refers to the idea of being cultured, as all people are cultured.
  • Most social scientists today reject the cultured vs. uncultured concept of culture.
  • This view of culture, which came to dominate anthropology between World War I and World War II, implies that each culture is bounded and has to be understood as a whole, on its own terms.
  • The result is a belief in cultural relativism, which suggests that there are no "better" or "worse" cultures, just different cultures.
  • More recent research, however, suggests that human culture has reversed this particular causal direction and, culture can actually influence human evolution.

• Social Interaction in Urban Areas

  • Social scientists have focused on social interactions in urban areas because cities bring together many cultural strands.
  • As a result, the people there have to respond to new influences, often bringing dominant strains of culture to the fore.
  • Urban anthropology is an anthropological subfield primarily concerned with urbanization, poverty, and the consequences of neoliberalism, or the contemporary political movement that advocates economic liberalization, free trade, free movement, and open markets.
  • There are four central approaches to an anthropological study of cities.
  • Design a research question using one of the four central approaches to the anthropological study of cities

• Kinship Patterns

  • In anthropology, kinship refers to the web of social relationships that form an important part of human lives.
  • One of the founders of anthropological relationship research was Lewis Henry Morgan, who wrote Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871).
  • Descent, like family systems, is one of the major concepts of anthropology.
  • Cultures worldwide possess a wide range of systems of tracing kinship and descent.
  • Anthropologists break these down into simple concepts about what is thought to be common among many different cultures.

• The Origins of Culture

  • Culture is a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of human phenomena that cannot be attributed to genetic inheritance.
  • Culture allows humans to more quickly adapt.
  • Culture (Latin: cultura, lit.
  • In the 20th century, "culture" emerged as a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of human phenomena that cannot be attributed to genetic inheritance.
  • Specifically, the term "culture" in American anthropology had two meanings: (1) the evolved human capacity to classify and represent experiences with symbols, and to act imaginatively and creatively; and (2) the distinct ways that people living in different parts of the world acted creatively and classified or represented their experiences.

• An Overview of U.S. Values

  • Cultures have values that are largely shared by their members.
  • Values are related to the norms of a culture, but they are more global and abstract than norms.
  • Different cultures reflect different values.
  • The flexibility of U.S. culture and its highly symbolic nature lead some researchers to categorize American culture as a mythic identity, while others recognize it as American exceptionalism.
  • However, the term "family values" is arguably a modern politicized subset of traditional values, which is a larger concept, anthropologically speaking.

• Introduction

  • For that, we need culture.
  • In this sense, high culture no longer refers to the idea of being cultured, as all people are cultured.
  • This view of culture, which came to dominate anthropology between World War I and World War II, implied that each culture was bounded and had to be understood as a whole, on its own terms.
  • The result is a belief in cultural relativism, which suggests that there are no "better" or "worse" cultures, just different cultures.
  • Recent research suggests that human culture has reversed the causal direction suggested above and influenced human evolution.