Cultural Anthropology
Cultural anthropology, also known as sociocultural anthropology, is the study of human culture. Cultural anthropologists study cognitive phenomena such as beliefs, systems of knowledge, and symbols, as well as products of human labor, such as technologies and the arts. They are also interested in human behavior as expressed in social structures and social relations, as well as economic and political systems.
Cultural anthropologists seek to understand the internal logic of another society. It helps outsiders make sense of behaviors that, like face painting or scarification, may at first seem strange. Through the comparative method, an anthropologist learns to avoid ethnocentrism, the tendency to interpret foreign or unfamiliar customs on the basis of preconceptions derived from one’s own cultural background.
Cultural anthropology shares many things in common with related fields, such as sociology and psychology. Like sociologists, cultural anthropologists study class, gender and ethnicity. Like psychologists, cultural anthropologists study human thought. What makes cultural anthropology unique, however, is that it examines not only larger social dynamics and the ways that people think and feel, but also the cross-cultural variation of social behavior and the meanings of fundamental categories such as "man," "woman," "thought" or "mind." This comparative perspective on culture brings into focus the extent of both human cultural diversity and our common humanity.
