Perspective and Interpretation in Ethnography

Cultural and Archaeological ANTH 2301 Perspective and Interpretation in Ethnography The use of ethnography is still widespread among cultural anthropologists. In contemporary research, practitioners engage with various informants to obtain diverse viewpoints of a culture or community. Multiple perspectives are necessary for a complete portrayal of a culture, as no one individual can fully or authoritatively represent their own. Male viewpoints were the only ones sought out for many early anthropological investigations, which resulted in ethnographies that were biassed towards men. These days, anthropologists actively seek out diverse viewpoints, speaking with individuals of all ages, genders, and roles. An ethnography may have substantial bias introduced by anthropologists. Being unbiased when seeing and studying a another culture is the most difficult part of fieldwork in cultural anthropology. When someone adopts an ethnocentric or etic perspective, they are evaluating a culture based on the values and customs of their own culture. Having an emic viewpoint means viewing a culture through the eyes of the subjects of the study. In order to be competent researchers, anthropologists need to be able to observe and collect information from objective, emic viewpoints. Furthermore, how an anthropologist interprets the data they have collected can have a big impact on the conclusions of their research. Because the majority of anthropologists in the past were White men, their conclusions were based on interpretations made via these glasses. The goal of feminist anthropology is to overcome this bias towards men. It is acknowledged that feminist anthropology got its start in the 1850s when male anthropologists tried to incorporate more data on women into their ethnographic studies. While female anthropologists like Zora Neale Hurston and Ruth Benedict started writing in the 1920s, it wasn't until 1928 that Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa was published that a female anthropologist rose to popularity. Later in the 20th century, women's ideas and contributions gained much more prominence. In addition to securing a position in the field on par with that of men, feminist anthropologists aim to broaden the scope of their research to encompass responsibilities in the home, workplace, and community as well as the roles that women play in society and the economy. Male-dominated roles and activities were favoured in analyses of human cultures due to the predominance of male anthropologists. For instance, a lot of early archaeological studies thought that women's duties in early civilizations were restricted to caring for their homes and rearing children, or it gave women no role at all. Either no evidence of women's economic activity or sustenance was sought after, or it was disregarded. It was also believed that women in prehistoric cultures had submissive roles to males, despite the reality that most of these societies were really very egalitarian and gave men and women equal status. In addition to broadening the scope of study to include women's responsibilities, feminist anthropology has sought to comprehend gender roles in other countries according to their own criteria, as opposed to the researcher's own society's gender roles. As more people from underrepresented groups started to work in anthropology in the 1970s, new viewpoints started to surface. People of Indigenous ancestry are one group of minority voices that anthropology has greatly benefited from. Practitioners in this subject belong to a subdiscipline known as Indigenous anthropology.