Anthropology Today Essay Research Paper In society

Anthropology Today Essay, Research Paper

In society today, the discipline of anthropology has made a tremendous

shift from the practices it employed years ago. Anthropologists of today have a

very different focus from their predecessors, who would focus on relating

problems of distant peoples to the Western world. In more modern times, their

goal has become much more local, in focusing on human problems and issues

within the societies they live.

This paper will identify the roles anthropologists today play, such as where

they perform the bulk of their work, and what it is they do in both problem

solving, as well as policy making. It will also identify the issues they are faced

with, that is, the nature of the problems they address. Ethics have always been an

important part of anthropology, and this paper will also deal with the ethical goals

of today’s anthropologists and some of the ethical problems they are faced with.

The information of this paper was obtained entirely from the internet. It

was designed as an internet project structured to both teach and familiarize

research through the World Wide Web. Any data in this paper was derived

through information posted publicly on internet sites available to any member of

the public with an internet connection.

As a result of the narrow area of research, the information provided both to

the author and the reader is limited. While it is true that the internet is a source of

boundless information, the sheer amount of it all makes reading all of it

impossible. Also, the total lack of journal reports, or texts, means that while the

information provided may not be minimal, it is nonetheless limited.

When people think of an anthropologist, the image of the jungle traveling

character comes to mind. A white man sitting in a hut on some primitive island,

taking notes on the local tribes s/he is living with. Decades ago, this was actually

the case. However, as time progresses, so does the role of the anthropologist in

today’s society. Very rarely now does anthropology actually involve extensive

fieldwork in an exotic location. Today, an M.A. or a Ph.D. in the field of

anthropology means that a job locally may be available to you. There is always

the academic side of things, such as becoming a professor of the discipline, but

this paper will focus more on the non-academic roles of the anthropologist today.

Jobs today are available on not only the academic level, but also in government,

and in the private sector.( SfAA, 2000) An example of the role of an

anthropologist today is that of a developmental researcher. This job would entail

dealing with the development of children and adolescents by studying them,

publishing reports, and training them to better prepare for life in the workplace.

( SfAA,2000) Based on the decisions and recommendations of someone in this

position, actions will be taken to shape young lives. Persons in this role would

have to solve many problems involving relationships and understanding of today’s

youth. Several jobs of the same nature of urban development involve national

surveys, case-studies involving a sample of the local people, and a series of

interviews all help in forming ideas on which anthropologists base their decisions

for development on. It would be the results of these types of data collections by

which plans and policies suitable for everyone can be formed. There are also

many positions being opened in the business world for the anthropologist to fill.

The discipline of anthropology targets study, and today’s business want many

different aspects of their market studied. For example, anthropologists may be

asked to study employee production, and ways to improve it. They may be asked

to find out through market research different ways to change or alter their product

to fit the optimum desires of the general public.(Cassell, 2000 ). It is these kinds

of positions and these kinds of problems facing the graduate of the field of

anthropology today, and they will only increase. The SfAA (Society for Applied

Anthropology) writes

For the past two decades the majority of

anthropologists have found employment outside of

university settings…with the trends in electronic

multimedia education and the decrease in tenured

academic positions, and even larger percentage

of…anthropologists will be employed outside of

academic positions in the upcoming decade.

With so many new positions becoming available outside of the academic

atmosphere, the M.A. or Ph.D. in anthropology becomes not only a valuable tool

for employment in a growing number of positions, but also a valuable asset for a

very flexible area of development.

Even with all of these new positions becoming available to anthropologists,

the code of ethics they must follow is universal. Scrutiny over past methods of

research

Внимание, отключите Adblock

Вы посетили наш сайт со включенным блокировщиком рекламы!
Ссылка для скачивания станет доступной сразу после отключения Adblock!

Скачать