Anthropology means having different meanings to define a phenomenon. For instance, humans may study a case together and define it differently from the other. However, Eriksen defines anthropology as an intellectually challenging subject which tries to reach an understanding of culture and society through detailed studies of life by showing comparisons (Eriksen, 2004:7). This attempts to make theoretical sense of human behaviour, ways of human life and assumptions we make about other cultures. Anthropology is a field of two main branches namely the social and cultural branch which apply different views/ different lenses to show the controversy of anthropology. My essay will further focus on showing the controversy of Anthropology.
Breaking it down, we will look at culture. The first definition of culture presented cultures are traditions and customs transmitted through learning that guide the beliefs and behaviour of the people exposed to them, (Kottak, 2014, 3). But later another controversy was evident as another view was provided later that culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, morals and other capabilities and habits acquired by man living in a society, (Tylor, 1871/1958).
Although Kottak’s definition seems so broad, Tylor’s definition is very specific in its applications that qualify as culture. Introducing my example, looking at the Ganga River case study (Vice News, 2019) example shown in class. Firstly, I will define ethnocentrism (people tend to feel more superior and judgemental when defining a phenomenon) and with that being said, people with different beliefs and cultures when viewing the case study they can quickly refer to that as unhygienic as the river might consist of “germs” in their context and that can be called ethnocentrism.
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According to Eriksen what is conceived of as ‘the good life’ in the society in which we happen to live may not appear as attractive at all if it is seen from a different vantage point? To understand people’s lives, it is, therefore, necessary to try to grasp the totality of their world and that can be done by avoiding looking only at selected isolated ‘variables.’ This kind of argument may be read as a warning against ethnocentrism [see Eriksen (2010)
Although anthropology helps people to avoid being ethnocentric by implementing what we call etic perspective whereby people can use scientific “outside” lenses in defining the practised culture behind Ganga River and look above “germs do not kill,” and look at the case study beyond their perspective and find meaning to the culture behind Ganga River according to the context of those who defined the practices of bathing and drinking from the same river as a culture to them. Showing that even with anthropology there are always different sides to defining a phenomenon and how the society use the lenses to identify and analyse the occurrences also says a lot about the outcomes the society may expect to see.
Secondly, when looking at social culture in anthropology. Back in the days, there was a race paradigm which used to tell stories of race and culture. But it was later discovered that the concept was of a social and political construct. Besides, it was said that with the racial classification, human aspects were the main way of identifying and classifying one into a race they are known to be in now. Race is a concept used to redefining the ‘collectivised groups.’ That is where human variation occurs. People come in different shapes, height, weight etc. People were classified based on their physical appearance. It was said that the shape of your head, nose shape, skin colour, hair texture, facial form would determine your ethnicity which was a concept used back in the days as a political process of defining a group and their intellectual literacy and capabilities.
Thirdly, race which can be defined as what people consider as ideas of what would define a race in the society. For instance, when it comes to race, human beings look at each other differently and use stereotypical discrimination to feed their idea of what marks a race differently from another race. One of my favourite example in class towards cultural anthropology showed an ideology by Amapiano dance vs Ballerina dance it is still said that the current trending dance amapiano is a normal dance done by blacks better and that whites cannot dance, but they think whites are more superior in dances like Ballerina dance making it seem like it is a western dance. It is claimed as a fact that blacks dance for fame and whites for leisure but to blacks, it is also for leisure thus should we consider them to be the same thing?
However cultural branch can stretch out to involving concepts like tribe which can be defined as “a powerful symbol of expression of political difference” (Skalnik,1988:69). According to Skalnik tribe can be used to describe “African cultural curiosities” it can also be underpinned by racial categories and used to disaggregate the African population (Skalnik, 1988:69 ).To identify each tribe we can look at aspects that make up a tribe for instance tribe can be specified by tribal dances, tribal music and manhood initiations and other practises that make one tribal group appear different to another.
How do the different elements of a tribal people’s lifeway once come to be presented and represented to outsiders in book and video form? Biologically how do we come to better understand patterns of human genetic variation- yet do so in ways that truly respect the privacy and rights of all individuals (see Olson, 2001)? There is a book named darkness in anthropology, this is a book about human systems and ways in which humans react to externally induced change that can be internally reinforced to them. It also a book about ‘the Other,’ and in this case, ‘the Other’ is us the African population. It is also evident how human beings constantly evolve to ‘change.’
According to Eriksen, social and cultural anthropology has the whole of human society as its area of interest and tries to understand how human lives are unique, but also the sense in which we are all similar. (Eriksen, 2010). Anthropology tries to account for the social and cultural variation in the world, but a crucial part of the anthropology aims at conceptualising and understanding similarities between social systems and human relationships (see Eriksen, 2010, p.197). Relatively, anthropology applies differently per tribe, and that supports the controversy of anthropology. According to Eriksen the principle of cultural relativism in anthropology is a methodological one- it is indispensable for investigation and comparison of societies without relating them to a usually irrelevant developmental scale: but this does not imply that there is no difference between right and wrong [see Erikson (2010)].
In another example, with the African tribes, they consider their practices adequately to still follow the norms and values their past tribe followed. For instance, with African tribe we have traditional tribal practises per ceremony when there is an African ceremony it is normalised that the ceremony has to also appease the ancestral recognition and that is normally evident in most African traditional weddings whereby they perform an ancestral ceremony first and that is done by two joined families being the bride and the groom’s family.
That is normally done to introduce the unity amongst the two joined families whilst still there the African tribe has normalized that there has to be a certain bridal price ceremony ‘lobola’ done by the groom’s family to show respect and properly ask for the bride’s hand in marriage the traditional normalised manner. With African tribe they have multiple wedding ceremonies whereas with the Western tribe, they only get married in a church, make vows in front of family and friends, get announced as husband and wife and express affections with a sealed kiss in church or whichever fancy venue then the newlywed head to honeymoon straight ahead.
Another instance is expressing affections towards each as it considered being human to most. However, the kiss is not a universal symbol of affection; some may consider it suggestive of cannibalism. Although in the Western, the typical ways of life are being transformed. Youth culture, trends in music and fashion made it difficult for older people to follow to those twists and turns” [Eriksen (2010)]. Hence making it evident that certain practices may present what it means to be human to other tribes whilst those practises do not to others.
Conclusively, these concepts attempt at simplifying how different yet similar human beings are depending on the context they look at and define a phenomenon. The concepts second to show the controversy of anthropology to the complex social life by showing that with anthropology, a conclusion can depend on the way one observes, meaning we can study the same thing but conclude differently. Most importantly, according to Eriksen, anthropology contributes to a long conversation about what it is to be human. (Eriksen, 2010)
