Applied & Practicing Anthropology PDF

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Applied & Practicing Anthropology Tuesday, April 24, 2018

11:22 AM

Applied & Practicing Anthropology w

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Applied & Practicing Anthropology: The branch of anthropology that concerns itself with applying anthropological knowledge to achieve practical goals, usually in the service of an agency outside the traditional academic setting. Development Anthropology: Primary subfield of applied anthropology, aimed at improving people's lives ○ Decreasing poverty, huger, sickness, etc. ○ Ethical?

Development Anthropology Ethics w

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Anthropologists traditionally study disadvantaged groups ○ "Improvement" can be unforeseen side effects ○ Not helping can also be un-ethical ○ Code of Ethics- Main responsibility it to the people Codes of Ethics Example ○ Forced relocation(Gwembe Tonga) ○ Switch to Global-Market Farming ○ Arrival of Recession= No safety net Implementing Change ○ Many large projects unavoidable, smaller humanitarian projects can also be difficult. Most Important: ▪ Collecting good data ▪ Consulting with local communities to help understand change and help understand community ○ Advocates: Provide a voice for the under-represented ▪ Increasing use of grassroots approaches

Agencies and Professions of Applied Anthropology

w Environmental ○

Focuses on issues of how humans interacts with their environments at the local, regional, and global levels; especially on how to understand and alleviate environmental degradation ▪ Global climate change ▪ Regional and local land-use projects ▪ i.e. Haiti re-forestation

w Business and Organizational Anthropology ○

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Focus on studying "business culture"- employees form their own culture, can lead to conflict ▪ Mergers ▪ International Cooperation: g. U.S. and Japan Also study culture of customers to help sell all products

w Cultural Resource Management (CRM) ○ ○ ○ ○

Contract archaeology Government agency, private developer, native group Mitigation, protection, preservation, management Museum Anthropology

w Forensic Anthropology ○ ○ ○

Helping to solve crimes and identifying human remains, usually by applying knowledge of physical anthropology Male vs. female, "race" Mass graves

w Medial Anthropology ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

The application of anthropological knowledge to the study of health and illness Biological and social factors, effects of psychology Ethnomedicine: The health-related beliefs, knowledge, and practices of a culture group Understanding folk medicine- How to other cultures cure? Balance and equilibrium, supernatural forces Biomedicine: the dominant medical paradigm of the west, which focuses on illness, not necessarily health Medical Practitionersw Shaman - Charismatic leaders - Use of substances and medicine as well as ritual to cure

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both physical and supernatural/psychological ailments w Physician - "scientific" though often based in own experience - Treat symptoms, not patients - Often non holistic Public Health Issuesw HIV/AIDS- more than a medical problem, must be socially solved w Mental illness is culturally variable w Malnutrition? - Poverty - Rapid Culture change...