Anthropology Theory

Throughout times anthropologists have sought out how the study of cultures can be categorized and proven to be a science. Science usually is defined in high school biology books as an organized way to learn about the natural world; and also, the bodies of knowledge scientists have built up after years of using this process. This scientific body of knowledge includes the idea that the complete physical universe is a structure, or group of parts and developments that interrelate. Therefore scientists gather and organize data in a careful, systematic way, looking for patterns and connections between events. Next they propose hypotheses or best explanations that can be tested by examining these patterns and observations. Similarly, anthropological theory studies the ideas surrounding observations, perceptions and meaning to human beings and society. The product of these theories is elaborated in ethnographies, which are writings by the observer. Building on these ideas, each time there is a new observation and it is added to an ethnography the anthropologists is using previous knowledge. These new hypotheses or theories are constructed on previous theories making them more credible and useful. Alternatively, this new data could lead to denying previous explanations and thus creating a whole new explanation. Anthropologists observe, study, and survey their research, collecting empirical data that serves in the production of their own ideas relevant to culture or issues that can be expanded through ethnography. Thus a notable link is verifiable that the study of anthropology is a discipline of science.

Some of the specific points of anthropology as a science come from Stanley Barrett. He explains that anthropologists can use all forms of biology in their analysis of culture (Barret 7). Anthropology amplifies the anthropologists’ ideas of culture and why its causes the differences as well as the universal comparisons that relate to ourselves. In addition, a further idea is that material phenomenon is the basis to studying much of culture and it is tangible and measurable (Lavenda and Schultz 211). Furthermore anthropology as a science is formed by the notion that anthropology is orderly and evolves within culture. According to Lavenda and Schultz, that culture can be researched empirically through hands-on experience and inspected by others which eventually can support and cultivate a theory (Lavenda and Schultz 211). Le Compte describes anthropological theory as finding truth and knowledge by knowing what to ask and how to ask it; thus, just like any other branch of science the ultimate goal is leading to trying to find knowledge through these answers.

Most scientific observations by anthropologists are put into two different kinds of anthropological principles, phenomenological and positivistic. Phenomenological focuses more on the idea that reality is socially constructed and focuses on the meaning of observations; as well as, focusing on micro- levels of people that affect the whole. Although it is driven by both qualitative and quantitative data, phenomenological focusing more on the human difference; in other words, how we create and react to culture inversely. Phenomenological research doesn’t give answer to reasons why culture is diverse. Phenomenologists accept that their research can never be totally objective and therefore there is a sense of bias in their ethnographies. Ultimately, their goal is to understand the culture and the individual that fits in it. Positivistic information is more scientific and uses quantitative data and focuses on facts such as statistics and surveys to understand culture. According to Le Compte these researchers use a scientific approach and discipline to be a relativistic researcher and self-discipline in obtaining and recording data (Lecompte60). Both of these approaches are used in ethnographies that anthropologists construct.

Ethnographies contribute to anthropological theory through ideas from a culture that are scribed down and dialogized; therefore, erecting theories and creating new models based off the writing of the fieldworker. Le Compte describes ethnography as producing the concept of culture and building on explanations of how people think, behave, and react in their local time and space. These studies can influence others in doing similar research, but are also able to construct or add to current theories in their own study (Lecompte12). Ethnographies provide us with accurate interpretations from the anthropologist that can explain behavior and even causation in their culture and how it interconnects with the whole society.

To conclude anthropological theory is the basis of explaining cultures: what, where, and when within society. Anthropologists have explained and developed their theories by participant observation and surveys that measure and give them hands- on experience. They use this in order to write ethnographies, thus creating theories that can be built on by other anthropologists. In the same way other sciences go about developing and proving theories the work produced by anthropologists is a scientific study that can be conducted as well as measured in culture.

Hayley Flowers

Essay 2

10/18/13

The bases for many theories put forth by anthropologists have originated from Charles Darwin and Karl Marx. These theories give way to the idea of how people behave, act upon, and react to their society. Darwin focused on conceptualization from within the individual, as well as their adaptation to environment and culture. Conversely, Marx focuses on the subject of culture through the foundation of economics; and thus, that culture adapts and changes through the basis of economy. Both philosophies influenced the future theories of anthropologist Leacock, Malinowski, Bougois, Johnson and Bering; shaping their ideas on either a Marxist or Darwinist basis.

The Darwinist theory includes man developing a need for religion, progression of morals, social behaviors, and sexual selection. Darwin focused a lot on how men may have evolved mentally, though man still maintains his lowly physical origins. Man develops physical traits as an adaptation to different environments that they have immigrated to (Darwin56). He believes that it isn’t the most intelligent that survive, but it’s the one who can adapt better to change (Darwin 56). Emotions are gained based on instincts, as well as, social dispositions in a culture (Darwin 57). Conversely, man’s intellectual and further development according to Mr. Chauncey Wright are explained by Darwin’s statement, “the largeness of the brain in man relatively to his body, compared with the lower animals, may be attributed in chief part to the early use of some simple form of language”(Darwin56).