12 Facts About Cultural anthropology

Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans.

Cultural anthropology has a rich methodology, including participant observation, interviews, and surveys.

Cultural anthropology relativism is a principle that was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by Franz Boas and later popularized by his students.

Cultural anthropology relativism was in part a response to Western ethnocentrism.

Rubric cultural anthropology is generally applied to ethnographic works that are holistic in approach, are oriented to the ways in which culture affects individual experience, or aim to provide a rounded view of the knowledge, customs, and institutions of a people.

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Social anthropology is a term applied to ethnographic works that attempt to isolate a particular system of social relations such as those that comprise domestic life, economy, law, politics, or religion, give analytical priority to the organizational bases of social life, and attend to cultural phenomena as somewhat secondary to the main issues of social scientific inquiry.

Cultural anthropology's approach was empirical, skeptical of overgeneralizations, and eschewed attempts to establish universal laws.

Cultural anthropology believed that each culture has to be studied in its particularity, and argued that cross-cultural generalizations, like those made in the natural sciences, were not possible.

Economic anthropology as influenced by Karl Polanyi and practiced by Marshall Sahlins and George Dalton challenged standard neoclassical economics to take account of cultural and social factors, and employed Marxian analysis into anthropological study.

In keeping with the times, much of Cultural anthropology became politicized through the Algerian War of Independence and opposition to the Vietnam War; Marxism became an increasingly popular theoretical approach in the discipline.

Cultural anthropology'storically, the group of people being studied was a small, non-Western society.

Whereas cultural anthropology focused on symbols and values, social anthropology focused on social groups and institutions.