Naked Anthropology

I'm in the home stretch with the last few courses of my degree. The light's finally at the end of the tunnel! The latest course which I'm just finishing up is on Cultural Anthropology, and it's been one of the most interesting courses I've enjoyed taking. Anthropology, if you were wondering, is simply the study of humanity. It's a broad field of study with many sub-fields. Anthropologists study human development, and covers areas like linguistics, archeology and paleontology (the study of people's physical development). But the biggest sub-field is the study of human culture, which is what I've been learning. And learn I did! My eyes were opened in a lot of ways. I'd like to share with you what I saw.

I think the biggest thing I learned is how different and even unbiblical our way of life is in comparison to the rest of the world. While we in the west look at things from a rational, material and individualistic perspective most of the world does not. Life for most people on the planet is about family, kinship, reciprocity and stopping to smell the roses. While we're busy making money and hiding away in our homes most people on earth are busy taking care of others, finding meaning and being relational. Time for us westerners is a precious commodity that dare not be wasted; everyone else sees time as the place where life happens. Life for most is all about the journey, whereas westerners live for the destination.

What I also realized is how much my worldview shapes the way I see things. I knew beforehand that we see life not for what it is, but for who we are; how deep that went was something I wasn't aware of. Case in point: one of my assignments was to interview a friend about any topic he chose to talk about. The aim was to find out as much about that topic in an unbiased way, but in the end I unknowingly had steered the conversation in a direction he hadn't originally intended. The topic stayed the same but the context of the conversation was different than what he planned to talk about. The whole experience has made me second guess my perspectives until I realized that what I knew about life wasn't necessarily wrong, it was just incomplete.

One of the suggested readings in the course was "The Naked Anthropologist"; this was a collection of humorous stories about an Anthropologist who experienced the hazards of adapting to new cultures. Here's an example of what not to do: don't give the OK sign to someone in South America. To them you have just given them the finger! I guess we all do naked anthropology; we're all stumbling through life trying to relate to a world we don't understand. It's easier to say that the world should be like we want it to be instead of appreciating our differences. I'm not saying that everything is relative, but that I've learned to ask more questions and not be so hasty to jump to conclusions. I hope it's a lesson I'll carry with me through the rest of my life.