Introduce you to my “anxiety” and “admiration” of the holy subject, Anthropology.

“Anthropology is a uniquely comparative and holistic science. Holism refers to the study of the whole of the human condition: past, present, and future; biology, society, language, and culture.” Kottak (2015:3)

Did you guys know what or recognize Anthropology is? or even have you heard it someplace.? Commonly, this subject sounds odd for numerous of us, since it hasn’t popular studies among Indonesian students. Let me tell some basic assumptions that what we have to know about this subject. For the shortcut, I’ll compare it with Sociology, which is Anthropology in the odd moments recognized as this subject.

Anthropology is the study of what makes us human. Yes, the most human between all of us is me, because I'm on it. Furthermore, Anthropology studies human societies and cultures and their development. It compact and complex in the same box. Anthropology takes an abroad approach which we call holism.

For instance, holism means when we observe some particular societies with the subject “marriage”, we didn’t look just at this aspect matter, Anthropologist gonna dig another data outside “marriage” aspect such as “language” or “household system”, the purpose is to look out the interconnection between this aspect in the societies system (there is gonna be).

Ok, please don’t get nauseous with all this concept, cause I'm dealing with this all day for good. But as an Anthropology student, I've put up this concept tacky in my head. It is called “Cultural relativism”. It means that which holds that cultures cannot be objectively ranked as higher or lower, or better or more correct, but that all humans see the world through the lens of their own culture, and judge it according to their own culturally acquired norms. In any circumstances, all human beings have to know and permeate this concept. Why?. Franz Boas (1911) as the father of American Anthropology stated this concept to contend ethnocentrism way of think. He assumes that ethnocentrism leads us to make premature judgments about culture and the people that are a part of that culture. Cultural relativism also led to the formation of ethnology.

Well, hopefully with that two basic concepts you guys start to nod your head, if not that’s ok, I’ll continue to explain.

So, now we deal with Marx and Durkheim's heirdom “Sociology”. On daily basis, there is a radical gap that uniquely builds up the tendencies of the respective studies. As defined by the ​American Sociological Association, sociology is “the study of social life, social change and the social causes and consequences of human behavior.” A sociologist explores the structure of groups, organizations, and societies, such as their interactions and processes at a given period in time. To do this, a sociologist examines subjects ranging from gender to race to age, as well as social change, status, and movements.

On the one hand, anthropology studies humans and their ancestors through their physical characteristics, environment, and culture. The specialization of anthropology is sociocultural, linguistic, biological, and archaeological. On the other hand, sociology studies the development, structure, social interactions, and behaviors of human society at a specific time. Specializations in sociology include social institutions, which means a society’s economic life, education, family dynamics, politics, and religion.

While both fields study human behavior, the debate between anthropology vs. sociology is a matter of perspectives. Anthropology examines culture more at the micro-level of the individual, which the anthropologist generally takes as an example of the larger culture. In addition, anthropology hones in on the cultural specificities of a given group or community. Sociology, on the other hand, tends to look at the bigger picture, often studying institutions (educational, political, religious), organizations, political movements, and the power relations of different groups with each other. (Rebecca Bodenheimer: 2017).

From the research aspect, we clearly lookup some diverse between this two. The distinctive methodology can be observed with clear sight. If you heard Anthropology, make sure that the first word you recognize is “Ethnography”. It’ll be numerous discuss if we build up the root of ethnography, but this methodology tightly related to participant observation that generates complex qualitative data. Divergent from the former, sociology tends to do more qualitative research — studying large data sets, like surveys — than an anthropologist.

The nucleus between this science is the goal of the studies that the dormer one is to understand human diversity while that last one more solution-oriented that conduct data in number scale.

To be expected, this mini-article can encourage you’ll readers to more aware of Anthropology issues that provide critical thinking revenue in all aspects.

REFERENCE

Kottak, C. P. (2015). Cultural anthropology: Appreciating cultural diversity. McGraw-Hill Education.

Prasad, A. (2007). Cultural relativism in human rights discourse. Peace review, 19(4), 589–596.

Gabbay, D. M., Thagard, P., Woods, J., Turner, S. P., & Risjord, M. W. (2011). Philosophy of Anthropology and Sociology: A Volume in the Handbook of the Philosophy of Science Series. Elsevier.