In my Food and Culture class, we had a monthly extra credit cooking class where we made various types of food from different cultures each time. The first one, that soup was one of the items that was made. It was so good! However, I do have to agree with you-I also can’t create that soup, at least not by myself, haha!
That is interesting, especially what you said about the Russian language being gendered. I’m honestly not too familiar with Russian culture, even though I’m interested in bits of that history. I’ve also recently only begun to understand today’s version of feminism in the U.S. I don’t see myself as a feminist in its current form at least. I’m more accepting of an earlier form-one that is more about equality and less masculine vs feminine, more similar to Russian culture perhaps. I believe that it’s good to not want the erasure of something cultural while also accepting the evolution of something. It’s a very human thing to have.
While there are lines that don’t need to be crossed and boundaries that need to be acknowledged and accepted, I wish the multi-complexity of humanity was more accepted.
This was a great write up introducing Cultural Anthropology! It touches on all the major points someone needs to know if they are interested in Cultural Anthropology but don't know where to start. A quick story I would like share about ethnographies, a professor I had a few semesters ago was a master at integrating with cultures. He speaks 11 languages (7 of them are native languages of isolated hunter & gather tribes) but to make a long story short his biggest tip for integrating while do ethnographies is to truly live in the culture you're studying. He would go out for hunts and eat what he caught. I just thought he was a really interesting and wanted to share. As for the part of culture I find the most fascinating is how humans even came to develop culture and how it became such a critical part of being human. Great work I'm excited for the next article!
Thank you so much! I'm so glad that you liked this article! I agree, it is truly fascinating that humans developed culture-and multiple diverse cultures at that!
Yes, the professor is technically correct. Integrating within a culture while writing about is a good way to learn. He sounds like an interesting guy. What's his name? What class did you have him for? That's pretty impressive that he knows 11 different languages! I've been taking Spanish (am going to be on my 3rd semester of learning it) and I've been having a somewhat hard time learning just that one.
On the ethnography point: I had to look again, but that type of ethnographic research was also encouraged by Franz Boas and Bronislaw Malinowski, who both spent time in various places learning about the people and their cultures.
Yeah he’s incredibly smart, i took two semesters of French and gave up 😂his name is Kim Hill and I had him for Hunter-Gatherers. Those names sound familiar but it’s been a long summer lmao
Haha, I hear ya in that! That’s why I’m having to go back and make sure that my memory is matching the material learned as best as it can🤣
Yeah, if I wasn’t in my last two undergrad semesters, I’d consider doing a different language. I’m enjoying learning Spanish, it’s just the two classes that I’ve had so far like to jam alot lessons together, which for me is quite overwhelming. Those two were 5 credit hours each. However, I was told by another student that the 3 credit hours Spanish is somewhat better, so I’m hoping that’ll be the case these next two semester!🙃
I should probably do the same 🤣I’m also in my last two semesters (fingers crossed lmao) and a 5 hour foreign language class sounds intimidating 😅but you got this!!
I started this Substack to help people who aren’t anthropologists understand what anthropology is about, and to help build a bridge so that the field can be better understood😄
Emic-Outsider’s view. And I think it’s good that there is a distinction there, because it makes sense that outsiders interpretations would be vastly different to insider understandings.
I also didn’t realise so much corn was used for gasoline - that’s so interesting.
I hear you-when I was learning about that process, I was always referring to my notes to remember those two definitions, lol. Even typing this article I had to google to remind myself which one was which. I agree, it is important to be able to distinguish one view from the other. It’s also opened my eyes a bit to how other professions (like say writing) would refer to them: Emic (1st Person P.O.V), Etic (2nd/3rd Person P.O.V)-it’s been fun realizing how it’s mostly the same, but the descriptions of differerent words can bring about either a same meaning/different meaning as other words that we wouldn’t normally associate with each other.
Same with corn-it’s one word used to describe a specific food, but it has so many other uses as well!
Yes, I agree it is really interesting to examine the different meanings, connotations, and even the etymology of words and how they influence our thought.
Until I studied philosophy I had never really thought about it and instead just taken it for granted, but delving into language structures and words can be very interesting.
Wheew. I finally got around to reading your post. I’m sorry it took so long, I had it saved for a day when I was free, but eventually I just sat myself down and read the whole thing. I really liked it, it was full of information without being boring, and quite interesting. You are really letting your excitement for anthropology shine through! Can’t wait to learn more. I especially loved the etic vs emic bit, and I look forward to those perspectives being explored more in depth at some point. Kudos to you for finishing this massive beast, and I do hope you’ll continue!
Awww, thank you! No worries, I’m still going through most of your posts too, lol. I’m glad you liked this one!
After my next three posts, I’m going to try and shorten the length-even if that means splitting them into one or two parts, haha!
Yeah, etic and emic are interesting words! Gonna be exploring those two (in addition to a few other words) in my upcoming Linguisitc post so I’ll be learning along with everyone else that origin story😊
Thanks Nadia, I appreciate your comment!
In my Food and Culture class, we had a monthly extra credit cooking class where we made various types of food from different cultures each time. The first one, that soup was one of the items that was made. It was so good! However, I do have to agree with you-I also can’t create that soup, at least not by myself, haha!
That is interesting, especially what you said about the Russian language being gendered. I’m honestly not too familiar with Russian culture, even though I’m interested in bits of that history. I’ve also recently only begun to understand today’s version of feminism in the U.S. I don’t see myself as a feminist in its current form at least. I’m more accepting of an earlier form-one that is more about equality and less masculine vs feminine, more similar to Russian culture perhaps. I believe that it’s good to not want the erasure of something cultural while also accepting the evolution of something. It’s a very human thing to have.
While there are lines that don’t need to be crossed and boundaries that need to be acknowledged and accepted, I wish the multi-complexity of humanity was more accepted.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts💞
Thank you, sweet friend💞You’re also appreciated too!
This was a great write up introducing Cultural Anthropology! It touches on all the major points someone needs to know if they are interested in Cultural Anthropology but don't know where to start. A quick story I would like share about ethnographies, a professor I had a few semesters ago was a master at integrating with cultures. He speaks 11 languages (7 of them are native languages of isolated hunter & gather tribes) but to make a long story short his biggest tip for integrating while do ethnographies is to truly live in the culture you're studying. He would go out for hunts and eat what he caught. I just thought he was a really interesting and wanted to share. As for the part of culture I find the most fascinating is how humans even came to develop culture and how it became such a critical part of being human. Great work I'm excited for the next article!
Thank you so much! I'm so glad that you liked this article! I agree, it is truly fascinating that humans developed culture-and multiple diverse cultures at that!
Yes, the professor is technically correct. Integrating within a culture while writing about is a good way to learn. He sounds like an interesting guy. What's his name? What class did you have him for? That's pretty impressive that he knows 11 different languages! I've been taking Spanish (am going to be on my 3rd semester of learning it) and I've been having a somewhat hard time learning just that one.
On the ethnography point: I had to look again, but that type of ethnographic research was also encouraged by Franz Boas and Bronislaw Malinowski, who both spent time in various places learning about the people and their cultures.
Yeah he’s incredibly smart, i took two semesters of French and gave up 😂his name is Kim Hill and I had him for Hunter-Gatherers. Those names sound familiar but it’s been a long summer lmao
Haha, I hear ya in that! That’s why I’m having to go back and make sure that my memory is matching the material learned as best as it can🤣
Yeah, if I wasn’t in my last two undergrad semesters, I’d consider doing a different language. I’m enjoying learning Spanish, it’s just the two classes that I’ve had so far like to jam alot lessons together, which for me is quite overwhelming. Those two were 5 credit hours each. However, I was told by another student that the 3 credit hours Spanish is somewhat better, so I’m hoping that’ll be the case these next two semester!🙃
I should probably do the same 🤣I’m also in my last two semesters (fingers crossed lmao) and a 5 hour foreign language class sounds intimidating 😅but you got this!!
Thanks for trying to make me understand anthropology. You know I don’t 😁.
- Mom
You’re welcome, Mom! Thanks for reading💜
I started this Substack to help people who aren’t anthropologists understand what anthropology is about, and to help build a bridge so that the field can be better understood😄
This was super interesting!
I had never heard of: Etic-Insider’s view
Emic-Outsider’s view. And I think it’s good that there is a distinction there, because it makes sense that outsiders interpretations would be vastly different to insider understandings.
I also didn’t realise so much corn was used for gasoline - that’s so interesting.
Thank you!
I hear you-when I was learning about that process, I was always referring to my notes to remember those two definitions, lol. Even typing this article I had to google to remind myself which one was which. I agree, it is important to be able to distinguish one view from the other. It’s also opened my eyes a bit to how other professions (like say writing) would refer to them: Emic (1st Person P.O.V), Etic (2nd/3rd Person P.O.V)-it’s been fun realizing how it’s mostly the same, but the descriptions of differerent words can bring about either a same meaning/different meaning as other words that we wouldn’t normally associate with each other.
Same with corn-it’s one word used to describe a specific food, but it has so many other uses as well!
Yes, I agree it is really interesting to examine the different meanings, connotations, and even the etymology of words and how they influence our thought.
Until I studied philosophy I had never really thought about it and instead just taken it for granted, but delving into language structures and words can be very interesting.
Thanks.
Wheew. I finally got around to reading your post. I’m sorry it took so long, I had it saved for a day when I was free, but eventually I just sat myself down and read the whole thing. I really liked it, it was full of information without being boring, and quite interesting. You are really letting your excitement for anthropology shine through! Can’t wait to learn more. I especially loved the etic vs emic bit, and I look forward to those perspectives being explored more in depth at some point. Kudos to you for finishing this massive beast, and I do hope you’ll continue!
Awww, thank you! No worries, I’m still going through most of your posts too, lol. I’m glad you liked this one!
After my next three posts, I’m going to try and shorten the length-even if that means splitting them into one or two parts, haha!
Yeah, etic and emic are interesting words! Gonna be exploring those two (in addition to a few other words) in my upcoming Linguisitc post so I’ll be learning along with everyone else that origin story😊