Anthropology, Subdivisions of

Cultural Anthropology

Cultural anthropology deals with the origins, history, and development of human culture. Cultural anthropologists often, although not always, tend to study groups that have different goals, values, views of reality, and environmental adaptations that are very different from those of themselves. Cultural anthropologists note that culture is learned and that it is through culture that people adapt to their environments; therefore, populations living in different places with different environments will have different cultures. Much of anthropological theory has been motivated by an appreciation of and interest in the tension between the local(particular cultures) and the global (a universal human nature or the web of connections between people in distant places). This allows us to develop a concept of human nature very different from the research other disciplines provide.

Also called ethnographers, cultural anthropologists are known for producing ethnographic works (or holistic descriptions of human culture, based on extensive fieldwork). These works traditionally have focused on the broad description of the knowledge, customs, and institutions of a particular culture group. More recently, however, cultural anthropologists have also examined the ways in which culture can affect the individual and his or her experience. Cultural anthropologists stress that even though the behavior of people in different cultures may seem silly or meaningless, it has an underlying logic that makes sense in that culture. The goals of cultural anthropology, [Page 185]therefore, serve to make sense of seemingly bizarre behavior in terms of the people practicing the behavior. Cultural anthropologists are often thought of as studying people in faraway, exotic places. More often than not, cultural anthropologists tended to study non-Western groups, especially during the early development of this subdiscipline. Today, however, cultural anthropologists also focus on the subgroups (or subcultures) within Western culture. Each of these groups is a part of a larger culture and can help us to better understand the human condition. Even research on our own society attempts to uncover the logic behind how we behave.

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