tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-317819145040672622012-02-16T05:15:20.212-06:00Uncovering the anthropological everywhere you least expect it.the Everyday Anthropologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10100648455592681825noreply@blogger.comBlogger81100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31781914504067262.post-48989119792921508552009-12-01T20:02:00.012-06:002009-12-01T20:21:38.138-06:00

I’ve recently started substitute teaching, which is a fascinating vantage point from which to conduct all manner of ethnography. Having previously tutored at an assortment of after-school programs targeted specifically towards assisting students who struggle in school, I have long been aware of how much academic success is connected to the mastery of specific behavioral patterns. For instance,

the Everyday Anthropologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10100648455592681825noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31781914504067262.post-9021409621715780422009-11-25T20:56:00.002-06:002009-11-25T21:02:11.931-06:00

Assuming that my claim that controlling culture just might be the most effective route to world domination is true, what is it that gives culture this degree of power? Why are we so likely to be led to do things we would not otherwise prefer simply because someone else has told us, overtly or implicitly, that it’s how we should behave? Aren’t we smart enough to notice when we’re being tricked

the Everyday Anthropologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10100648455592681825noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31781914504067262.post-6763394478937534502009-11-23T12:44:00.007-06:002009-11-23T12:58:45.771-06:00

I wrote in my last article about one way that culture can have (what I believe are) negative effects on those under its influence, particularly when it is perceived as reflecting the underlying nature of reality rather than being recognized as something both imposed and imitated. But culture can also have (what I at least believe to be) positive effects, and so today I’d like to briefly discuss

the Everyday Anthropologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10100648455592681825noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31781914504067262.post-35981237411513391742009-11-21T16:18:00.004-06:002009-11-25T21:01:36.268-06:00

While I’m on the subject of color, allow me to turn for a moment to the topic of fashion or style—a topic I personally find to be simultaneously fascinating and vaguely disturbing, not to mention yet another excellent illustration of some of the points I’ve been trying to make about the nature and influence of culture on the human experience. Color plays an often-central role in the

the Everyday Anthropologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10100648455592681825noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31781914504067262.post-24835713706365786972009-11-19T10:32:00.010-06:002009-11-19T14:19:31.191-06:00

…and other leading questions we ask our children.After having spent my past several articles laying out some basic conceptual groundwork on the topics of anthropology and culture, I would now like to plunge into the realm I plan to spend most of the rest of my articles in this blog exploring—namely, the way that the influence of culture crops up in the most unexpected aspects of our everyday

the Everyday Anthropologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10100648455592681825noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31781914504067262.post-65079168704909969192009-11-16T23:12:00.003-06:002009-11-16T23:51:51.533-06:00

In my previous article, I proposed one possible way of defining culture—as that which we learn from others rather than figure out on our own (which I called “culture as imitation”). In this article, I will propose another possible definition—namely, as that which is enacted upon the outside world rather than being inherently present within it (I will call this “culture as imposition”). These two

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Think back for a moment on all the things you have done in the course of your lifetime. How many of them did you come up with on your own, and how many of them did you learn to do through imitating others? Initially, I would guess that you're inclined to put the majority of your past activities in the former category of the self-invented, with only a few simple behaviors defined as imitations.

the Everyday Anthropologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10100648455592681825noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31781914504067262.post-25855573191203933892009-10-28T01:32:00.034-05:002009-11-16T23:19:17.555-06:00

(And what, exactly, IS anthropology, anyway?)Hello, my name is Elizabeth Edwards, and I will be your anthropologist for the day. Perhaps even for the everyday (that's my personal goal, at least). But before I can convince you to give me a perch somewhere inside your brain, from whence I hope to whisper anthropological nothings into your ear as you wander through your daily life, I should probably

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