McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 1

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 2 Supplements The following students supplements are available with the textbook: The Kottak Anthropology Atlas, available shrink-wrapped with the text, offers 26 anthropology related reference maps. The Student's Online Learning Center features a large number of helpful study tools and self quizzes, interactive exercises and activities, links, readings and useful information at PowerWeb, available via a link on the Student's Online Learning Center, offers help with online research by providing access to high quality academic sources."

3 McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. O v e r v i e w Applying Anthropology This chapter discusses the role of applied anthropology. It discusses the ways in which it is related to and separate from academic anthropology. It also discusses in depth several fields of applied anthropology such as urban anthropology, medical anthropology, and forensic anthropology.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 4 Introduction Applied anthropology refers to the application of anthropological data, perspectives, theory, and methods to identify, assess, and solve social problems. Applied anthropologists work for groups that promote, manage, and assess programs aimed at influencing human social conditions.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 5 Applied Anthropology Applied anthropologists come from all four subfields of anthropology. Biological anthropologists work in public health, nutrition, genetic counseling, substance abuse, epidemiology, aging, mental illness, and forensics. Applied archaeologists locate, study, and preserve prehistoric and historic sites threatened by development (a.k.a. cultural resource management). Cultural anthropologists work with social workers, businesspeople, advertising professionals, factory workers, medical professionals, school personnel, and economic development experts. Linguistic anthropologists frequently work with schools in districts with a wide range of languages.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 6 The Role of the Applied Anthropologist Anthropologists have held three views about applying anthropology. The ivory tower view contends that anthropologists should avoid practical matters and focus on research, publication, and teaching. The schizoid view holds that anthropologists should carry out, but not make or criticize, policy. The advocacy view argues that since anthropologists are experts on human problems and social change, they should make policy affecting people. –Identify locally perceived needs for change. –Work with those people to design culturally appropriate and socially sensitive change. –Protect local people from harmful development schemes. Kottak favors advocacy.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 7 Jobs for Applied Anthropologists Professional anthropologists work for a wide variety of employers: tribal and ethnic associations, governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), etc. –During World War II, anthropologists worked for the U.S. government to study Japanese and German culture “at a distance.” –Malinowski advocated working with the British Empire to study indigenous land tenure to determine how much land should be left to the natives and how much the empire could seize.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 8 Responsibility to people and animals. The primary ethical obligation of the anthropologist is to the people, species, or materials he or she studies. Researchers must respect the safety, dignity, and privacy of the people, species, or materials we study. Researchers should determine in advance whether their hosts wish to remain anonymous or receive recognition. Researchers should obtain the informed consent of the people to be studied and of those whose interests may be affected by the research. Anthropologists who develop close relationships with individuals must adhere to the obligations of openness and informed consent. Anthropologists may gain personally from their work, but they must not exploit individuals, groups, animals, or cultural or biological materials.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 9 Responsibility to scholarship and science. Anthropologists should expect to encounter ethical dilemmas during their work. Anthropologists are responsible for the integrity and reputation of their discipline, of scholarship, and of science. Researchers should do all they can to preserve opportunities for future fieldworkers. To the extent possible, researchers should disseminate their findings to the scientific and scholarly community. Anthropologists should consider reasonable requests for access to their data for purposes of research.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 10 Responsibility to the public. Researchers should make their results available to sponsors, students, decision makers, and other nonanthropologists. Anthropologists may move beyond disseminating research results to a position of advocacy.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 11 Ethics Pertaining to Applied Anthropology The same ethical guidelines apply to all anthropological work— academic and applied. Applied anthropologists should use and disseminate their work appropriately. With employers, applied anthropologists should be honest about their qualifications, capabilities, aims, and intentions. Applied anthropologists should be alert to the danger of compromising ethics as a condition for engaging in research or practice.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 12 Academic and Applied Anthropology After World War II, the baby boom fueled the growth of the American educational system and anthropology along with it, starting the era of academic anthropology. Applied anthropology began to grow in the 1970s as anthropologists found jobs with international organizations, governments, businesses, hospitals, and schools.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 13 Theory and Practice Like most other disciplines, anthropology boomed immediately after the Second World War, and again in the sixties as the strengths of the discipline fit with prevailing social interests, which began a turn toward practical applications. Anthropology’s ethnographic method, holism, and systemic perspective make it uniquely valuable in application to social problems. Applied anthropologists are more likely to focus on a local, grassroots perspective in approaching a problem than to consult with officials and experts.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 14 Anthropology and Education In particular, anthropology has helped facilitate the accommodation of cultural differences in classroom settings. Examples include English as a second language taught to Spanish- speaking students; different, culturally based reactions to various pedagogical techniques; the application of linguistic relativism in the classroom to B.E.V.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 15 Urban Anthropology Human populations are becoming increasingly urban. Urban anthropology is the cross-cultural and ethnographic study of global urbanization and life in cities. Urban versus Rural –Robert Redfield was an early student of the differences between the rural and urban contexts. –Various instances of urban social forms are given as examples, African urban (Kampala, Uganda) social networks in particular. Applying anthropology to urban planning starts by identifying the key social groups in the urban context.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 16 Medical Anthropology Medical anthropology is both academic (theoretical) and applied (practical). –Medical anthropology is the study of disease and illness in their sociocultural context. –Disease is a scientifically defined ailment. –Illness is an ailment as experienced and perceived by the sufferer. The spread of certain diseases, like malaria and schistosomiasis, have been associated with population growth and economic development.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 17 Theories of Illness There are three basic theories about the causes of illnesses. –Personalistic disease theories blame illness on agents such as sorcerers, witches, ghosts, or ancestral spirits. –Naturalistic disease theories explain illness in impersonal terms (e.g., Western biomedicine). –Emotionalistic disease theories assume emotional experiences cause illness (e.g., susto among Latino populations).

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 18 Health-Care Systems All societies have health-care systems. Health-care systems consist of beliefs, customs, specialists, and techniques aimed at ensuring health and preventing, diagnosing, and treating illness.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 19 Health-Care Specialists All cultures have health-care specialists (e.g., curers, shaman, doctors). Health-car specialists emerge through a culturally defined process of selection and training.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 20 Lessons from Non-Western Medicine Non-Western systems of medicine are often more successful at treating mental illness than Western medicine. Non-Western systems of medicine often explain mental illnesses by causes that are easier to identify and combat. Non-Western systems of medicine diagnose and treat the mentally ill in cohesive groups with full support of their kin.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 21 Western Medicine Despite its advances, Western medicine is not without its problems. Overprescription of drugs and tranquilizers Unnecessary surgery Impersonality and inequality of the patient-physician relationship Overuse of antibiotics

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 22 Biomedicine surpasses non-Western medicine in many ways. Thousands of effective drugs Preventive health care Surgery

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 23 Medical Development Like economic development, medical development must fit into local systems of heath care. Medical anthropologists can serve as cultural interpreters between local systems and Western medicine.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 24 Anthropology and Business Anthropologists can provide unique perspectives on organizational conditions and problems within businesses. Applied anthropologists have acted as “cultural brokers,” translating managers’ goals or workers’ concerns to the other group. For business, key features of anthropology include ethnography, cross- cultural expertise, and focus on cultural diversity.

McGraw-Hill © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 25 Careers in Anthropology Because of its breadth, a degree in anthropology may provide a flexible basis for many different careers (with appropriate planning). Other fields, such as business, have begun to recognize the worth of such anthropological concepts as microcultures. Anthropologists work professionally as consultants to indigenous groups at risk from external systems. Other employers of anthropologists include USAID, USDA, the World Bank, private voluntary organizations, etc.