Essay about Anthropology

For you and I this type of adventure could sound scary and intimidating, however, through Chagnons writing we quickly are able to understand his groundwork and excitement when preparing to study another lifestyle and culture. Yet, we quickly learn that there is no amount of preparation that can prepare someone for the ‘culture shock’ they are about to embark. He discusses

A sudden change in one’s surroundings can result in culture shock. Culture shock refers to the anxiety and surprise a person feels when he or she is discontented with an unfamiliar setting. The majority of practices or customs are different from what a person is used to. One may experience withdrawal, homesickness, or a desire for old friends. For example, when a person goes to live in a different place with unfamiliar surroundings, they may experience culture shock. Sometimes it is the result of losing their identity. In the article “The Phases of Culture Shock”, Pamela J. Brink and Judith Saunders describe four phases of culture shock. They are: Honeymoon Phase, Disenchantment Phase, Beginning Resolution Phase, and Effective

1. Based on reading this selection, how is ethnographic research different from other social science approaches to research?

Cultural shock is a common feeling a person experiences when transitioning into a completely different environment and living situation. Throughout the world, immigrants experience many difficulties when assimilating into a new culture.

Father Franz Boas--Father of American Anthropology Franz Boas is often referred to as the father of American anthropology because of the great influence he had in the lives and the careers of the next great generation of anthropologists in America. He came at a time when anthropology was not considered a true science or even a meaningful discipline and brought an air of respectability to the profession, giving those who followed a passion and an example of how to approach anthropology. Boas directed the field studies and trained such prominent anthropologists as Alfred Louis Kroeber, Robert Lowie, Margaret Mead, as well as others. Although he did not leave as his legacy any specific line of thought, he left a pattern that was

In society today, the discipline of anthropology has made a tremendous shift from the practices it employed years ago. Anthropologists of today have a very different focus from their predecessors, who would focus on relating problems of distant peoples to the Western world. In more modern times, their goal has become much more local, in focusing on human problems and issues within the societies they live.

After reading through the chapter on the DMIS stages (denial, defense, minimization, acceptance, adaptation, and integration), I would say that personally, I fall under the “acceptance” stage. “This stage represents an individual’s ability to recognize and appreciate cultural difference in terms of both people’s values and their behavior” (Cushner, McClelland, Safford, Pg. 152). As it states, the individual experiencing acceptance is “beginning to demonstrate the ability to interpret phenomena within a cultural context”, I believe that this is a fitting sentence for myself. Being that I am from a rural prairie town in the middle of nowhere in Oklahoma, and the only people where I lived were other Senecas like my family and friends, I did not experience a cultural shock until I was in the sixth grade and had moved to Florida. In this town in Oklahoma, it was rare to even see someone described as “white”, as racial prejudice is still rampant throughout Oklahoma against Natives and basically, everybody who isn’t. I was taught to be accepting and welcoming throughout my life, and I believe that made the transition into a new cultural system much easier.

Culture shock is the feelings of alienation, hostility, heightened ethnocentrism, sense of loss, depression and/or self doubt that may result from immersion in a new culture.

Pederson (7) explains that there are stages of culture shock, which he identifies as the honeymoon, negotiation, adjustment, and adaptation. In the honeymoon phase, a person is likely to get excited about being in a new place, meeting new people, tasting new foods, and acquiring new habits. However, as time passes by, they get into a phase of negotiation, where the differences between the culture one is used to and the one they find themselves in start to become apparent. Feelings of anxiety, anger, and frustrations start to take shape as unfavorable events perceived as strange come in the way of the person 's life, especially if a person does not feel accepted in the new culture (Mukherjee 273). Loneliness may set in, and the urge to go back to the familiar culture strongly comes into play. However, as time goes by, adjustment sets in, usually within six to twelve months, and one gets accustomed to the culture and also comes up with a routine. By this phase, one knows what is expected of them, and life once again becomes ‘normal.’

On September 24, 2010, an airplane carried me to the ground of another country, to another dialect, new culture, new places, new habits, new challenges, new people and all in all, new life. I won't describe for you a lot about how hard it was to say farewell to all my relative and my friends, because I think you can picture yourself what would it feel like to leave everybody you know in your own country and move to America. When you leave your adolescence home — the place where you grew up, your local area or your country of residence or your homeland or anyway you feel to call it — you leave a piece of you behind. Before I came here in America, I thought that I would be in Hollywood, cozy house, bunches of tall structures, however to my mistake

I had already moved once to a different country where, from my point of view at eleven years old, the culture and the people were strange. The change from Cuba to Mexico had been difficult and adapting to their traditions and their dialect had been challenging, but I was able to adjust to this new place. It wasn’t bad, moving from my birth country to Mexico had taught me to observe the world in a different perspective and while struggling to adapt I learned a lot about myself.

Culture shock always occurs to people who migrated from a native country into a new country. In the novel, The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier, shows Honor the protagonist, an English Quaker living in Bridgport, England, migrated to the US with her sister, Grace. As Grace was supposed to engage with Adam Cox and had to join him in Ohio, Honor came with her to flee a broken engagement. However, as Honor and Grace arrived in the US and stayed about few weeks, Grace suffered an illness called, yellow fever and this illness killed her. As a result, Honor faces new struggles in life, where she had to overcome by herself, adapt into the difficult lifestyle in USA, and tell Adam about Grace’s death. The novel shows how Honor sees the differences between the US and England’s nature, homes and food.

1. In which region and in what country is San Basilio located? What is the language of the linguistic minority in this region? What are the cultural advantages of being in this linguistic minority?

The earliest fossil of the primate can go back before the extinction of the dinosaur over 65 million years ago. Bones and teeth were discovered in Montana and Wyoming (Park, 2008). Even though there was primate like evidence before the dinosaur extinction, (Shipman, 2012).

Learning about a new culture is very common now days. Most people immigrate to other countries looking for different goals in life. Some people immigrate for safety purposes; some people are looking for better opportunities and different quality of life. For some people adjust themselves to a new culture is easy; the younger they are the easiest is to adjust to a new different culture and a different way to live. However, there are many people who struggle every day trying to learn about a different culture.