Summary Of The Book 'A Toolkit For A Global Age'
Guest, Kenneth J. Cultural Anthropology: A Toolkit for a Global Age. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2017.
This book Cultural Anthropology: A Toolkit for a Global Age by Kenneth Guest explores the expansion and development of Anthropology throughout the years. Reading this book shows the progress of culture anthropology presenting how to understand and engage today’s world. Using the skills provided in the reading will show insight how anthropologist can analyze and build experience around the world. The concept of culture has changed and reframed the ways of thinking for anthropologist, each chapter focuses a variety of subjects which build upon the ways of life in society. Applying the methods used by anthropologists can benefit readers …show more content…
the ability to comprehend the global challenges we face today. Part one begins by inspecting the basics and history of anthropology, demonstrating how an anthropologist has a better perspective to human cultures. Globalization is one of the key components of anthropology since it transform the world extensively and continues to reshape families, work roles, gender roles, sexuality, ethnicity, and many more. Anthropologist see how culture surrounds people’s way of life, where people create and share their ideas and beliefs amongst each other. Culture is viewed as a powerful system to anthropologist since it plays a big role of an individual’s core beliefs, norms, and values of themselves. Using the research conducted in chapter 3 introduces the approach of ethnographic fieldwork which studies how human society works. Conducting this study interprets how people perform their daily lives and the motives of their actions. It shows how anthropologist research the transformation and how it affects the communities within due to the relationship between globalization and the concepts of culture. Language is one of the four fields of anthropology which examines the role it plays in people’s lives. Communication plays an important role in all living things lives to vocalize information needed using words, sounds, and gestures. Linguistics anthropology shapes the human thought through many generations revealing how culture shapes language and vice versa. There are 7,000 languages around the world, where one is adapted to a certain area and share messages within. The development of language has led to where certain languages face death, about one for every ten day due to other languages mostly used. Losing the language loses the knowledge and development within that community. Nowadays, there are new forms of communication due to the digital age people live now. The rapid expansion of technology using internet, phones, social media, and many more have transformed the ways of obtaining information. Although it can create a separation for the world of accessibility of electronic devices, 95% of the world have access to the internet due to globalization. Anthropologist and archaeologists research where humans come from providing a deeper understanding of human development. Evaluating fossils display a genetic history of species on earth creating a theory of evolution interpreting the biological adaptation changes over time. Scientists discover the ways of evolution through the methods of natural selection, mutation, gene flow, and genetic drift, by investigating the evolvement of Homosapiens explains the advancements of human ancestors. Humans have the ability to adapt in four different forms, genetic adaptation, development adaptation, acclimatization, and culture adaptation which is the reason why they have the ability to survive and pass genetic inheritance on to the future. We continue to evolve due to physiological, genetic, and adjust to changes in the environment where human development continue to live. In part two inspect the structures of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and kinship that inspect how humans organize themselves. Anthropologist see these categories are created as a framework to organize human classifications. Race and racism is one of the powerful dynamics that has been put to destructive use in the past due to conquest, enslavement, domination by other humans. Race is a belief system used to classify physical characteristics which has influence the perspective of people and institutions. This generates a way for people to recognize their level in society. This idea leads to creating racism where someone establish unequal privileges and opportunities based on their differences. This idea is culturally constructed to rank people and act discriminatory towards the inferior race. Ethnicity is how a person identifies themself through the connection in ancestry. Anthropologist see it as a cultural construction, people build their relationship with others due to similar cultural traditions. Ethnic boundary markers are created to display who share the same practices, beliefs, and such within the group and who do not. Nationalism is a group of ethnic community within nation-state where people can live with each other. Gender is considered as the main element of human culture which analyze the roles of gender in social movements. Sex is the biological differences in human reproduction, but gender is the idea and behavior created by culture which categorized the sex. Humans are born with their biological sex, but learn to be their gender which is referred as cultural construction of gender. The expectations of femininity and masculinity shaped the ways of thinking and behavior of an individual. Anthropologist explore the relationship between power and gender, how it can affect individuals on a personal basis which can lead to gender stratification. Depending on the culture they all have their own version of gender ideology, thus creating gender stereotypes that can justify the characteristics and capabilities of an individual. Sexuality is a range of desires, beliefs, and behaviors in relation to physical contact and pleasure. It presents the cultural diversity of humans sexual behavior and whom they want these sexual relations with. In relations to power, sexuality is more than an expression of desire, intersectionality displays a shift about the thoughts on sexuality. Sexual violence and harassment have been encountered as a power dynamic due to gender issues. Everyone is related to each other since 99.9% of our DNA is genetically shared, due to kinship humans rather create a system of common descent. The continuation of kinship happen due to marriage and children, from an anthropological perspective helps understand the experience of patterns interconnected world. The family tree explains more than defining an individual, it demonstrates the ties formed in society. The system of social class is created to define the structure of society due to human culture. Class stratification enables inequality due to ranking of social status, this relationship can be due to wealth, power, privileges, and such. Part three explains how globalization influences the modern world rapidly due to change in global economy, migration, politics, religion, health, and media.
Economic system is constructed to collectively to help meet the needs of the community. All cultures have developed a system of distribute and exchange of goods, resources, services, labor, and ideas. Due to mobility and connection around the world is how mass production has advance with low labor cost, taxes, and restrictions. Global economy facilitates people, states, and corporations attempting to provide the needs of human life. Back in the day, people have been migrating from Africa to all over the world searching for a better place of natural resources. By analyzing and comparing the journey of the immigrants today, people see them as a threat to their ways of living. Anthropologist explain how migrants are motivated to make the decision to leave in hopes for a better place in order for them to succeed. Anthropologist explore the relationship between humans and political system process where people organize a way to balance power and achieve what is needed for the community. Politics help create strategies to solve issues within schools, communities, nations, and cultural
dynamics. Anthropologist also understand religion as a different role in an individual’s life, which is a set of spiritual beliefs and rituals focused on how they imagine the world to be. Researching symbols in religious belief navigate the interconnected world of faith. Culture shape the ways we view health focusing on a person’s physical, mental, and social well-being. Medical anthropologists analyze how disease and health conditions affect populations and their ways of treating the problem, which made it useful to distinguish disease, illness, and sickness. Anthropology can help understand, and take on the issue by applying research methods which can help resolve health problems and enhance health care for the global human population. Art comes in many ways representing ideas, forms, techniques, and strategies for someone to express themselves in a creative way. Anthropologists interprets art as a communal demonstration on social norms, values, and events communicated to their audience. Understanding art can help comprehend the complexity of human culture and creativity with the world. This book focuses all aspects of anthropology, exploring the development of a variety of cultures around the world. Using the anthropological perspective demonstrates a better way of interpreting anything in relation to the influence of society. It is very informative figuring out how to understand culture in today’s time period. It provides insight and strategies on navigating the multicultural world we live in today.
This book Cultural Anthropology: A Toolkit for a Global Age by Kenneth Guest explores the expansion and development of Anthropology throughout the years. Reading this book shows the progress of culture anthropology presenting how to understand and engage today’s world. Using the skills provided in the reading will show insight how anthropologist can analyze and build experience around the world. The concept of culture has changed and reframed the ways of thinking for anthropologist, each chapter focuses a variety of subjects which build upon the ways of life in society. Applying the methods used by anthropologists can benefit readers …show more content…
the ability to comprehend the global challenges we face today. Part one begins by inspecting the basics and history of anthropology, demonstrating how an anthropologist has a better perspective to human cultures. Globalization is one of the key components of anthropology since it transform the world extensively and continues to reshape families, work roles, gender roles, sexuality, ethnicity, and many more. Anthropologist see how culture surrounds people’s way of life, where people create and share their ideas and beliefs amongst each other. Culture is viewed as a powerful system to anthropologist since it plays a big role of an individual’s core beliefs, norms, and values of themselves. Using the research conducted in chapter 3 introduces the approach of ethnographic fieldwork which studies how human society works. Conducting this study interprets how people perform their daily lives and the motives of their actions. It shows how anthropologist research the transformation and how it affects the communities within due to the relationship between globalization and the concepts of culture. Language is one of the four fields of anthropology which examines the role it plays in people’s lives. Communication plays an important role in all living things lives to vocalize information needed using words, sounds, and gestures. Linguistics anthropology shapes the human thought through many generations revealing how culture shapes language and vice versa. There are 7,000 languages around the world, where one is adapted to a certain area and share messages within. The development of language has led to where certain languages face death, about one for every ten day due to other languages mostly used. Losing the language loses the knowledge and development within that community. Nowadays, there are new forms of communication due to the digital age people live now. The rapid expansion of technology using internet, phones, social media, and many more have transformed the ways of obtaining information. Although it can create a separation for the world of accessibility of electronic devices, 95% of the world have access to the internet due to globalization. Anthropologist and archaeologists research where humans come from providing a deeper understanding of human development. Evaluating fossils display a genetic history of species on earth creating a theory of evolution interpreting the biological adaptation changes over time. Scientists discover the ways of evolution through the methods of natural selection, mutation, gene flow, and genetic drift, by investigating the evolvement of Homosapiens explains the advancements of human ancestors. Humans have the ability to adapt in four different forms, genetic adaptation, development adaptation, acclimatization, and culture adaptation which is the reason why they have the ability to survive and pass genetic inheritance on to the future. We continue to evolve due to physiological, genetic, and adjust to changes in the environment where human development continue to live. In part two inspect the structures of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and kinship that inspect how humans organize themselves. Anthropologist see these categories are created as a framework to organize human classifications. Race and racism is one of the powerful dynamics that has been put to destructive use in the past due to conquest, enslavement, domination by other humans. Race is a belief system used to classify physical characteristics which has influence the perspective of people and institutions. This generates a way for people to recognize their level in society. This idea leads to creating racism where someone establish unequal privileges and opportunities based on their differences. This idea is culturally constructed to rank people and act discriminatory towards the inferior race. Ethnicity is how a person identifies themself through the connection in ancestry. Anthropologist see it as a cultural construction, people build their relationship with others due to similar cultural traditions. Ethnic boundary markers are created to display who share the same practices, beliefs, and such within the group and who do not. Nationalism is a group of ethnic community within nation-state where people can live with each other. Gender is considered as the main element of human culture which analyze the roles of gender in social movements. Sex is the biological differences in human reproduction, but gender is the idea and behavior created by culture which categorized the sex. Humans are born with their biological sex, but learn to be their gender which is referred as cultural construction of gender. The expectations of femininity and masculinity shaped the ways of thinking and behavior of an individual. Anthropologist explore the relationship between power and gender, how it can affect individuals on a personal basis which can lead to gender stratification. Depending on the culture they all have their own version of gender ideology, thus creating gender stereotypes that can justify the characteristics and capabilities of an individual. Sexuality is a range of desires, beliefs, and behaviors in relation to physical contact and pleasure. It presents the cultural diversity of humans sexual behavior and whom they want these sexual relations with. In relations to power, sexuality is more than an expression of desire, intersectionality displays a shift about the thoughts on sexuality. Sexual violence and harassment have been encountered as a power dynamic due to gender issues. Everyone is related to each other since 99.9% of our DNA is genetically shared, due to kinship humans rather create a system of common descent. The continuation of kinship happen due to marriage and children, from an anthropological perspective helps understand the experience of patterns interconnected world. The family tree explains more than defining an individual, it demonstrates the ties formed in society. The system of social class is created to define the structure of society due to human culture. Class stratification enables inequality due to ranking of social status, this relationship can be due to wealth, power, privileges, and such. Part three explains how globalization influences the modern world rapidly due to change in global economy, migration, politics, religion, health, and media.
Economic system is constructed to collectively to help meet the needs of the community. All cultures have developed a system of distribute and exchange of goods, resources, services, labor, and ideas. Due to mobility and connection around the world is how mass production has advance with low labor cost, taxes, and restrictions. Global economy facilitates people, states, and corporations attempting to provide the needs of human life. Back in the day, people have been migrating from Africa to all over the world searching for a better place of natural resources. By analyzing and comparing the journey of the immigrants today, people see them as a threat to their ways of living. Anthropologist explain how migrants are motivated to make the decision to leave in hopes for a better place in order for them to succeed. Anthropologist explore the relationship between humans and political system process where people organize a way to balance power and achieve what is needed for the community. Politics help create strategies to solve issues within schools, communities, nations, and cultural
dynamics. Anthropologist also understand religion as a different role in an individual’s life, which is a set of spiritual beliefs and rituals focused on how they imagine the world to be. Researching symbols in religious belief navigate the interconnected world of faith. Culture shape the ways we view health focusing on a person’s physical, mental, and social well-being. Medical anthropologists analyze how disease and health conditions affect populations and their ways of treating the problem, which made it useful to distinguish disease, illness, and sickness. Anthropology can help understand, and take on the issue by applying research methods which can help resolve health problems and enhance health care for the global human population. Art comes in many ways representing ideas, forms, techniques, and strategies for someone to express themselves in a creative way. Anthropologists interprets art as a communal demonstration on social norms, values, and events communicated to their audience. Understanding art can help comprehend the complexity of human culture and creativity with the world. This book focuses all aspects of anthropology, exploring the development of a variety of cultures around the world. Using the anthropological perspective demonstrates a better way of interpreting anything in relation to the influence of society. It is very informative figuring out how to understand culture in today’s time period. It provides insight and strategies on navigating the multicultural world we live in today.