How Cultures Are Studied

Due to the existence of ethnocentrism, all cultures tend to see themselves as "the best culture." Cultures other than one's own are thought to be "subhuman" or "savage" even though we are of one humanity. Ethnocentrism can be dangerous in that it can lead to the extinction of whole groups of people. In order to preserve the highly diverse cultures of the world, it is important for people to understand the beauty in all cultures.

Fieldwork and participant observation are important to understanding different cultures. While teaching at the University of California Santa Barbara, Dr. Napoleon Chagnon declared "You cannot learn about another culture without fieldwork. In order to truly understand another culture, one must immerse themselves into that culture." Through participant observation, the anthropologist must eat the people's food, sleep under their roof, and experience their habits and customs. The anthropologist must discover how all parts of the culture work in order to understand the culture as a whole. Fieldwork and participant observation are essential to understanding cultures to a further extent.

The idea that one must suspend judgment of other people's practices in order to understand them helps anthropologists to recognize other peoples on their own cultural terms. Anthropologists must suspend their judgments on all aspects of a culture, including their social, political, economic, and religious practices. During Chagnon's study of the Yanomamo people, he developed a record of the Yanomamo people's kinship and social structure. Chagnon took pictures of the natives of one village and asked the natives of another village how they were related to themselves. The Yanomamo people often used different names in different villages and would lie about their kinship making it difficult for Chagnon to create accurate records and identify any patterns in their social structure. In the end, Chagnon was able to create and maintain an accurate kinship record allowing him to analyze patterns of relatedness, marriage, cooperation, and settlement. The social structure of the Yanomamo people is only one aspect of the Yanomamo culture. Chagnon also examined the Yanomamo on the political, economic, and religious levels. Chagnon once stated, "All cultures create solutions to problems. Cultural relativism is the solution for people to see the beauty in all cultures." All cultures have biological, instrumental, and integrative needs. Different cultures address their needs in different ways. In order for one to suspend their judgment of another people's practices, they must understand how those practices address the culture's needs. Cultural relativism is important to understanding the beauty of a culture for the reason that it helps one to understand the practices of a culture on the culture's own terms.

All cultures are wonderful in their own way. Ethnocentric views originate due to the lack of a culture's comprehension to see another culture as unique. Instead, cultures fail to recognize that they are a small portion of one humanity. Fieldwork and cultural relativism help cultures to see each other as people rather than "savage" or "subhuman." The differences in cultures arise because different cultures answer the basic needs of human existence in different ways. Once we realize that we are all just trying to survive we will be able to accept each other and preserve each other rather than kill off each other. Ethnocentrism can be dangerous...but how dangerous?

Sources:
Napoleon A. Chagnon. The Fierce People