Major 2 DOING FIELDWORK

• Fieldwork


  The most important method by which cultural anthropologists gather data to answer their research questions
• Field


  Anywhere the people are, where anthropologists go to study
• Making the Strange Familiar and the Familiar Strange

  • The goal is to describe a group of people to others in a way that makes strange or unusual features of the culture seem familiar and familiar traits seem extraordinary
• Cultural determinism


  The idea that one's cultural upbringing and social environment, rather than one's biology, primarily determine behavior
• The book Coming of Age in Samoa encouraged American readers to reconsider their own cultural assumptions about what adolescence in the United States should be like, particularly in terms of the sexual repression and turmoil that seemed to characterize the teenage experience in mid-twentieth century America
• The essay Body Ritual among the Nacirema challenged the readers and anthropologists in particular to think differently about their own cultures and re-examine their cultural assumptions about what is "normal"
• Why cultural anthropologists do fieldwork

  The goal is to describe a group of people to others in a way that makes strange or unusual features of the culture seem familiar and familiar traits seem extraordinary. The point is to help people think in new ways about aspects of their own culture by comparing them with other cultures.