Name of Assignment: Ethnography
Subject: ANTH 200 (Cultural Anthropology)
Facilitator/Teacher: Melissa Kirkendall
Subject: ANTH 200 (Cultural Anthropology)
Facilitator/Teacher: Melissa Kirkendall
Project Description
Our main project in cultural anthropology this year is our ethnography paper. An ethnography is a research piece that describes individual cultures. Usually, ethnographies are written by anthropologists that do fieldwork in the place or traveling path of the people in the culture.
We chose an ethnography to study and wrote a paper about the culture it focuses on. We had to include specific details, such as subsistence mode and mode of production. The ethnography that I chose was The Headman Was a Woman, which is about the Batek people of Malaysia. It specifically focuses on how status and responsibilities are essentially the same among the men and women in the community. |
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Which 21st Century Skill do you feel this assignment addresses, and why?
This project addresses global awareness skills. In order to write my ethnography paper, I had to develop a deep understanding of the culture my ethnography was about. Ethnographies aim to describe the thinking, motivations, and practices of a culture and how these patterns are adaptive.
What are you most proud of from this assignment, and why?
I am still working on this project, but so far I am happy with the synopsis that I wrote for my paper. I think that it describes the main idea of my paper very well and it summarizes the ideas that were covered in my ethnography.
How did you develop and/or improve upon your 21st Century Skill with this assignment?
My professor emphasizes using cultural relativism when studying other cultures. Cultural relativism is the idea that we should seek to understand another person’s beliefs and behaviors from the perspective of their culture rather than our own. I developed my global awareness skills by trying to see through the eyes of someone of another culture, even though I might not be accustomed to their beliefs or practices.
What was most difficult about completing this task?
So far, the most difficult part of my project was analyzing my ethnography to find the specific information that I am being asked for. Some of the details that I needed to find were not directly stated in the book (such as the mode of subsistence or mode of production). I had to determine the mode of subsistence and mode of production based on the information I was given in the ethnography.
How could you improve this work? If you could start over, what would you do different?
I think that I need to work on managing my time for this project. So far, I have the synopsis and that first few paragraphs, but the entire paper needs to be at least 10 pages. The ethnography that I chose is fairly small, so I need to work on interpreting the details in the book and making larger connections.
How does this relate to what you have learned in the past?
This project relates to what we learned in class about cultural relativism, subsistence modes, politics/economy, and gender roles. I am also trying to incorporate the techniques I learned from English 100 as I write my paper.
How can you apply this to future learning?
I think that it is important for everyone to learn how to be culturally relative. It is a lot easier to communicate with people when you can understand their point of view. I think that being able to understand others will be helpful to me in my future courses and in my career.