More specifically, anthropologists study human groups and culture, with a focus on understanding what it means to be human. Toward this goal, anthropologists explore aspects of human biology, evolutionary biology, linguistics, cultural studies, history, economics, and other social sciences.

Most frequently, theorists have applied the term to non-Western peoples or cultural “others.” Early anthropologists and sociologists postulated magic as an evolutionary stage, contrastable with religion, or as evidence of primitive as opposed to rational thinking.

Malinowski’s theory of magic is well-known and has been widely ac- cepted. 2 He holds that any primitive people has a body of empirical knowl- edge, comparable to modern scientific knowledge, as to the behavior of nature and the means of controlling it to meet man’s needs.

Cultural anthropologists study how people who share a common cultural system organize and shape the physical and social world around them, and are in turn shaped by those ideas, behaviors, and physical environments. Cultural anthropology is hallmarked by the concept of culture itself.

The four field approach also encourages scholars to look holistically at an artifact, ecofact, data etc. in almost an omnipotent way. Meaning, having knowledge from all perspectives helps to eliminate bias and/or incorrect assumptions of past and present cultures.

Anthropology is the study of human behavior, beliefs, and adaptations. In the U.S. this study is traditionally divided into four sub-fields. The Anthropology department at U.W. offers courses in all four sub-fields: Archaeology and Biological, Cultural, and Linguistic Anthropology.

Four common qualitative anthropological data collection methods are: (1) participant observation, (2) in-depth interviews, (3) focus groups, and (4) textual analysis. Participant Observation. Participant observation is the quintessential fieldwork method in anthropology.

Anthropology is the systematic study of humanity, with the goal of understanding our evolutionary origins, our distinctiveness as a species, and the great diversity in our forms of social existence across the world and through time.

Boas, holding that the objective of anthropology is the attempt to understand the steps by which man has come to be what he is biologically, psychologically and culturally, also holds that its material must be historical in the widest sense of the term, and that in the argument for diffusion it is not a safe method to …

The goal of anthropology is to understand the human condition. again, the great thing about anthropology’s subfields is that we can use each other’s knowledge and research techniques to better understand why we act the way we do, and how it affects our physical, cultural, social, and political environments.

With its roots in the expansion of Europe during the 19th century, anthropology is now well placed at the outset of the 21st century to make important contributions to human well-being, economic growth, and mutual understanding of peoples around the world.