Job Descriptions - Definitions - Career Fields: Anthropologist
 

Home

Anthropologist   

A deep need to understand, without judging, different cultures is essential in this profession. It requires an intelligent, unbiased, enquiring mind to study people without trying to fit them into your norm. If a tribe, for instance, believes that it is morally necessary to kill newborn twins, you will not be allowed to make your opinions known to the people and will have to simply observe and report on your findings. Many anthropologists find themselves in situations which appal them. A friendly disposition and the ability to get along well with human beings who are totally alien to your own race is vital. A lack of tact could place you in a situation of great danger so you should also have to have the skills of a good politician; good language skills and the ability to quickly build a working vocabulary of the foreign tongue if you wish your finding to be accurate. A knowledge of photography is also very important as all findings are backed with notes and available photographic proof. Language skills are a must as the nuances of languages sometimes lead to a scientist committing a socially unacceptable action that would have seemed reasonable in his own society.
To a certain extent, we are all anthropologists if we are at all interested in how other people live. However, the study of Social Anthropology provides a systematic and exciting way of examining the social lives and cultures, their customs, values and modes of thought of societies which are very different from our own. Your first task would be to comprehend and record such things as myths, rituals, economic systems, family patterns and forms of political organisation of a given group or society. Anthropology has distinct but related sub-fields which have developed their own theoretical and methodological specialisations over the past century. They can be summarised as follows:

* Physical Anthropology: This has close connections to natural sciences like biology and genetics. This concerns an understanding of the way in which humans have evolved from their `hominid' ancestors over the last few million years as well as the extent to which we share genetic characteristics with other primates such as the great apes, gorillas and chimpanzees. Palaeoanthropologists examine fossil remains of extinct primates Physical Anthropologists are concerned with the science of Ethology and study the behaviour of animals in their natural settings.

* Archaeology: Archaeologists study the different forms of social organisations and cultures that have characterised humankind through time. They collect data by excavating sites of past habitations and meticulously record the objects, settlement patterns and remains of people whose lives they are trying to understand.

* Anthropological Linguistics: Language provides a rich subject for study. Without an understanding of the language spoken by a particular people, not much can be learnt about their myths, beliefs, political situation and so on.

* Social and Cultural Anthropology: This involves the study of the culture and social organisations of living peoples. It is related to Ethnology which is often defined as the comparative study of cultures.

Anthropology is a vibrant and developing science which provides intellectual stimulation as well as much valuable information which can be used in the formation of aid organisations, policy making, cultural interaction. 


Career Fields

Social Sciences



 
 

Courtesy: CareerExpo

If you want to contribute an article (share your views, experiences and thoughts) write in to us at info@123oye.com send us your jobs / career related articles. We promise to give you a chance to put your thoughts across to our visitors.