What is Cultural Anthropology

The field of cultural anthropology, initially referred to as social anthropology in Britain, deals with the study of culture with respect to social structure, religion, politics and many other factors. Expanse of the discipline of anthropology is vast. Every change that takes place in the society gets reflected in the customs, practices and language.

All these changes together create a picture, an image of a particular society that is termed as culture of that society. There are many interesting facts and concepts to study in the process of learning about cultural anthropology. Let us get into the details and essentials of cultural anthropology through this story.

The branch of anthropology that is concerned with the study of variations of culture of humans can be referred to as cultural anthropology. Study of cultural anthropology includes the activity of collecting facts about influence of politics, economy and other factors on local culture of a particular region.

The professionals or people who work in this field are known as cultural anthropologists. The field work that they conduct for obtaining facts is done through activities or methods like surveys, interviews, participant observations, etc. Let's understand what is cultural anthropology through information presented in the following paragraphs.

The study of cultural anthropology began in the 19th century. Originated as a reaction to ethnology, the branch of cultural anthropology started to develop with the help of efforts taken by Edward Tylor and other scholars.

Study of ethnology revolved around the activity of organized comparison of human societies. Scholars like J.G Frazen and Edward Tylor used the materials collected by traders, explorers and missionaries for the purpose of reference. Now let us find more about contributions of Edward Tylor.

Edward Tylor was a 19th century British anthropologist. He described culture as a human thought and behavior that is patterned by society. In the year 1872, British Association for the Advancement of Science had taken up the work of preparing an inventory of cultural categories.

Edward Tylor assisted this committee in their work. The outcome of this project was that 76 culture topics were listed; these topics were however, listed in a random order.

The study of cultural anthropology is conducted in different ways by different scholars. However, there are some standards or basic concepts which remain the same. For eg., the basic components of cultural anthropology are: what people 'think', 'do' and 'produce'. All the concepts and theories of culture anthropology revolve around these basic concepts.

One can use these concepts as guidelines to study the culture of a particular society. Confluence of the mental and physical world of human beings is said to create the culture of that particular society.

The different properties that culture of a society exhibit are as follows: the culture can be learned, it can be shared, it can be transmitted, it can be adapted, it can be integrated and it is symbolic.

The study of development of agriculture should prove to useful in understanding the topic of cultural anthropology to a great extent. The different practices included in the agriculture as a whole were important from the point of human beings living a stable life.

The study of lives/culture of nomads and agrarian community points out to the extreme differences in their culture. As the agrarian community started living a stable life (compared to that of nomads), their culture began to change.

People with a land holding (agrarians) lead a much secure life than that of nomads. The nomads on the other hand wandered in search of food and had to struggle a lot.

The topic of cultural anthropology is studied from as many aspects and angles as possible. Applying cultural anthropology concepts in the betterment of society is necessary. In the process of studying what is cultural anthropology one gets to learn the basics and certain standards that one can apply to the human behavior. Finally, the knowledge of this field enriches our lives and makes us sensitive to problems faced by different people across the globe.