Anthropology Topical Essay 1

Anthropology Topical Essay 1
Taten Evans B3 4/26/11

Ethnocentrism is the belief that your race and/or culture is the right one that everyone should be. If you are ethnocentric then you tend to be rude to other races or cultures or just do not think that they might think differently than their own culture does.
Cultural Relativism is when a person or people think about how the other race or culture will react to the situation. Not all cultures think the same way so if you are culturally relative then you do think about what they might think. It is technically the opposite of ethnocentrism.
In Shakespeare in the Bush Laura found out that the Bushman culture did not quite understand and take Hamlet the way that most people in her culture do. She tried to tell them but they would not understand because they didn’t or couldn’t really think differently than what they had grown up knowing. When you are taught some and you grow up knowing it for your entire life and somebody tries to tell you differently it is hard to see their point of view because it has always been that way and you never thought that it would change. That was Laura’s problem in the story Shakespeare in the Bush. One of the problems that she faced was that the tribesmen believed it right for the dead king’s brother to marry his widow, where in Laura’s culture that is not something that people generally do. But the tribesman believed that it was the right thing for him to do because in their tribe the brother always married his brother’s widow (though you do have to know that also in their tribe it was ok to have multiple wives). Another problem that she faced was that the tribesmen do not believe in ghost, so the dead king who came to speak to Hamlet was not a ghost but an omen sent from a witch.
In Eating Christmas in the Kalahari Richard, an Anthropologist studying in the Kalahari Desert stumbled upon some problems. His problem was that he bought a big cow for the tribe and the tribes that were invited to eat for their big Christmas celebration. The cow that he bought was the biggest one that he had found after watching the cows come to the watering hole for many days. But after he bought it everyone in the tribe kept coming to him and telling him how poor of a decision he had made and that the cow is worthless to them. He did not understand how that could be because of how big the cow is. He even got the point where he was going to buy another cow to make up for the supposed lose that was inevitable from this cow. But when they cut open the cow it was very fatty which is exactly what they like it to be like! He was very confused by this and started to ask around. He found out that it is their custom to tell the person that it is not good to keep them humble. I guess you could say they ‘pride themselves in their humility’ per say. No matter what the event was whether it was an animal that was killed in a hunt or a fish caught they never told each other how big or good it was but rather how little or bad it was. Richard was very confused because that was not at all the way that it happened in his culture.
Anthropologists face many trials in their field of work. They sometimes have tribes or people who do not want to cooperate with them which can make your research very difficult. When you want to learn more about a culture of people you need them to cooperate with you for you to learn the very most that you can. Other problems that they might face is not seeing things the way that the people do, if you do not think the way they do then you will not fully understand them. You may even be ostracized from the group because you cannot fit in. Both Richard and Laura faced these problems but seemed to be able to work past them by the end of the stories. Anthropologist need to learn how to see things in other people’s eyes. Like in Eating Christmas in the Kalahari Richard did not think that people provide food for each other all the time so him providing the people with a cow was not that big of a deal at all, but he did not think of that and thought it to be a big deal in his opinion, which in his culture it probably would have been. Anthropologists have to deal with many challenges in their field of work.