Week 5 - Final Research Assignment PDF

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Week 5 – Final Research Paper Miranda Campbell ANT 101: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Instructor Kimberly Long October 7, 2019

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Cultural relativism is the idea that we should understand someone’s beliefs and values based off of their own culture. A lot of times people can be biased about learning about people’s cultures and the reason behind why they do what they do simply because it’s not their own culture. Being open-minded and understanding other’s cultures are important so you can better understand who they are, what they do, and why they do what they do. It’s also interesting to see what others, who are not used to your culture, feel about it. Throughout this paper, I will look at a certain part of my own culture, Western Culture, through an etic, or outsider’s, perspective and I will also look at a certain part of another culture from an emic, or insiders, perspective so that I can become more familiar with it. I will be looking at articles of Christianity and Western Culture and an article about Muslim women. For the first part of this paper, I will be looking at my own culture, Western Culture, through an etic, or outsider’s, perspective. The article that I chose to use for Part I is called “The Anthropology of Christianity: Context, Contestation, Rupture, and Continuity” and is written by Lampe (2010). This source is about the study of Christianity, what exactly it is, and why they do what they do. According to Lampe (2010) “The four books under review reflect the current state of the anthropology of Christianity in that they represent geographic, epistemological, and theoretical diversity.” (p. 67). In other words, there are books under review for this article and they reflect the anthropology of Christianity. This source is important because it informs us of information about my culture and how outsiders may view my culture. This source will be used throughout this article because I will be using it to gain knowledge on how outsiders view my own culture and also about how outsiders feel bout the things that I do and the reason for why I do them.

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I had also read another article about my culture from an etic, or outsiders, perspective. This article is called “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” and is written by Miner (1956). During this article, Miner(1956) stated “In addition to the private mouth-rite, the people seek out a holymouth-man once or twice a year. These practitioners have an impressive set of paraphernalia, consisting of a variety of augers, awls, probes, and prods. The use of [505 begins ->] these objects in the exorcism of the evils of the mouth involves almost unbelievable ritual torture of the client. The holy-mouth-man opens the client's mouth and, using the above mentioned tools, enlarges any holes which decay may have created in the teeth. Magical materials are put into these holes. If there are no naturally occurring holes in the teeth, large sections of one or more teeth are gouged out so that the supernatural substance can be applied. In the client's view, the purpose of these ministrations [8] is to arrest decay and to draw friends. The extremely sacred and traditional character of the rite is evident in the fact that the natives return to the holy-mouthmen year after year, despite the fact that their teeth continue to decay.” (para. 11). In other words, Miner (1956) is referring to when we go to the dentist although, he talked about it from his perspective, someone who doesn’t know much about our culture, what we do, and why we do what we do. For the second part of this paper, I will be looking at another culture, Muslim women, through an emic, or insider’s perspective. The article that I chose to use for Part II is called “Muslim Women Negotiating Collective Stigmatization: ‘We’re Just Normal People’” and this article is written by Ryan (2007). This source is about Muslim women and how they react to culture, gender, race, intelligence, and health. According to Ryan (2007) “This article aims to examine how individuals react to collective stigmatization. In the context of heightened suspicion and anti-Islamic stereotypes in the post 9/11 and 7/7 era,1 the article draws upon

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interviews with women of diverse Muslim backgrounds in London to explore experiences and negotiations of stigma.” (p. 1045). In other words, this article examines Muslim women and how they live with their everyday lives. This source is important because it is informing us of new information on Muslim women as well as allowing us to understand why they do what they do. This article will be used in this paper because I will use it for others, as well as myself, to gain more knowledge on Muslim women, the things that the do, and the reasons for why they do these things. After reading all of these articles, I was very surprised by the different things I learned about others culture as well as my own culture from an outsider’s perspective. I never realized how confusing my own culture may look or sound from an etic, or outsider’s, perspective. Due to it being the only thing I’ve ever been used to, I figured everyone else understood it as well and now that I have an idea of what outsider’s think or feel about our culture, it shows me that not everyone is the same, people and cultures are all very different. These articles are important because the all inform us of new information, whether it be how our culture looks from an etic, or outsider’s, perspective or how Muslim women’s culture looks from an emic, or insider’s, perspective. Throughout this paper I examined religion of my own culture, Western culture, through an etic, or outsider’s, perspective and I also examined religion of Muslim women’s culture through an emic, or insider’s, perspective and I became familiar with it as well as I understand it all a lot more than I understood it prior to this assignment.

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References Lampe, F.P. (2010). The Anthropology of Christianity: Context, Contestation, Rupture, and Continuity.

Reviews

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Anthropology,

39(1),

66-88.

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http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer? vid=15&sid=ad28bda1-80f7-429b-99cf-04947920de1a%40pdc-v-sessmgr02 Miner, H. (1956). Body ritual among the Nacirema. American Anthropologist, 58(3), 503-507. Retrieved from https://msu.edu/~jdowell/miner.html Ryan, L. (2011). Muslim Women Negotiating Collective Stigmatization: ‘We’re Just Normal People’. Sociology, 45(6), 1045-1060. Retrieved from https://journals-sagepubcom.proxy-library.ashford.edu/doi/pdf/10.1177/0038038511416170...