For Intro to Anthropology 2025, after reading the first part of chapter 1 on the four fields of anthropology, we explore what makes anthropology anthropological through reading the second part of chapter 1 (starting with section 1.2) in The Human Story. Next up is Meredith Small’s “Our Babies, Ourselves.” This class is part of the core concepts gathered in Anthropological Foundations.
What Makes Anthropology “Anthropological”?
How do you know when someone’s doing anthropology versus sociology, psychology, or biology? It’s a fair question. If anthropology is the study of humanity—which seems way too big and overwhelming to actually accomplish—what makes a study distinctively anthropological?
Key Concepts: What Makes Anthropology Anthropological
- Anthropology is unified across all four subfields by attention to symbols and learned behavior—humans have very few instincts, and culture shapes human life far more than instinct does.
- Fieldwork means gathering data outside labs, offices, and classrooms, because the existing record of human diversity is insufficient and societies are constantly in motion (11).
- Cultural relativism is a method of understanding practices within a society’s own values—it is NOT moral relativism, and understanding is not approval (11).
- Comparative approaches distinguish anthropological analysis: cross-species, cross-cultural, and historical comparisons, plus attention to variation within any society (11-12).
- Anthropology embraces diverse scholarly traditions, spanning hypothesis testing and humanistic interpretation—Eric Wolf called it “the most scientific of the humanities and the most humanistic of the sciences” (13).
- Anthropology aspires to create knowledge with people rather than extracting knowledge from them or performing studies on them (13).
- Making research relevant means applied anthropology addresses problems communities actually face, while activist anthropology pursues political change (14-15).
- A common code of ethics requires avoiding harm, obtaining informed consent, prioritizing community interests, and constant self-reflection (16-17).
The Power of Symbols and Learned Behavior
The first thing that unites all anthropological subfields is attention to how symbols and learned behavior shape human life. Unlike other creatures, humans have very few instincts guiding what we do. We are guided by things we learn from peers, parents, and elders—what we call culture. Without being a particular kind of human, raised in a particular human society, you can’t really be human at all. Humans raised outside human societies usually don’t make it very far.
Consider the strangeness of your own situation. It’s 10:00 a.m. on a Tuesday, and through the use of symbols, I can get you to sit in uncomfortable chairs and copy things down. No other creature would submit to this. Baboons would be long gone. Chimpanzees would be having more fun. Most other humans throughout history wouldn’t be here either—they’d be off doing something useful like hunting or fishing.
But here we are, organized by symbols. You’re here because of things called credits and grades, which are just numbers on paper. All of this is supposedly to get other symbols like money, which is just numbers on a screen. The power of symbols is extraordinary—and sometimes cruel. Nobody’s jumped up to leave yet. You’re all still sitting there, poised for the next move I make on a symbolic PowerPoint slide.
This attention to learned behavior and symbolic systems distinguishes anthropological approaches across all subfields. Biological anthropologists consider symbolic capacity fundamental to human evolution. Archaeologists look for evidence of symbolic behavior in material remains. Linguistic anthropologists study language as our most important symbolic system. Cultural anthropologists examine how norms and symbols organize entire societies.
Conducting Fieldwork (11)
The first core principle of anthropological research is fieldwork—gathering data outside labs, offices, or classrooms. You’re going out into the world where human life actually happens. Now, I’ll caution you: if you become an anthropologist, fieldwork is actually a small part of your life. You might spend a year doing intensive fieldwork, but most of your career involves classrooms and offices. If you want to go fishing, just go fishing. Don’t become an anthropologist thinking you’ll escape desk work.
But fieldwork matters for several reasons. Much of what we know about human behavior comes from studies within European and North American societies. Many psychological studies that supposedly tell us about “the human mind” were conducted on college undergraduates who signed up for experiments. The existing record of human diversity is insufficient (11).
Dr. Lawrence Ralph, for example, conducts fieldwork in Chicago studying gang violence. This shows that fieldwork can happen in U.S. cities, not just distant societies. What makes it anthropological is the method—extended engagement with people in their own contexts, trying to understand behavior through their frameworks rather than imposing external categories.
Archaeological evidence has its own limitations. Most of what people made disappears over time—structures fade, plants reclaim sidewalks. What remains is often garbage or leftovers, and interpretation is difficult. Imagine future archaeologists finding a toilet rim and thinking it’s a headband worn by ancient people. The artifacts we find require careful interpretation.
Fieldwork among living people can provide windows into how objects acquire meaning—not to project the present onto the past, but to expand our imagination about what past practices might have involved. We must be careful here: societies are constantly in motion, not “living fossils” (11). Something documented twenty years ago may be different now. That’s why fieldwork continues—it keeps anthropologists grounded in something outside our own heads and textbooks.
Cultural Relativism and Its Limits (11)
In order to do fieldwork, anthropologists adopt cultural relativism—understanding behaviors in the context of a society’s own values and learned practices. It’s like walking a mile in someone else’s shoes before making judgments.
I want to be very careful here. Cultural relativism is NOT the same as moral relativism. This is not “anything goes.” When Dr. Lawrence Ralph studies gang violence from a culturally relative perspective, he’s not saying “Oh yeah, that’s their culture, that’s cool.” He’s trying to understand what’s happening—perhaps to suggest changes or mitigate harmful effects. Understanding why people do things is different from excusing those things.
Cultural relativism is a method of understanding, not ultimate approval. It’s easier with practices like food or clothing preferences. It becomes much harder with fundamental values like parenting—people get heated in bookstores about whether to breastfeed or not. But even there, the anthropological move is to first understand practices in context before evaluating them.
Embracing Comparison (11-12)
Another way you know you’re doing anthropology is through comparison. There are several kinds.
Cross-species comparisons examine human behavior alongside other species. When we look at macaques sleeping together in groups, we’re comparing their patterns to human sleep arrangements. This might seem strange for a social science—most political science classes don’t discuss primate behavior—but anthropology spans biological and cultural domains.
Cross-cultural comparisons analyze how different societies approach similar needs. Infant care practices vary dramatically across cultures. In societies without artificial lighting, where people don’t rely on bright illumination, sleeping patterns involve more co-sleeping, more group arrangements, and less rigid symbolic schedules governed by clocks.
Historical comparisons—usually reserved for the discipline of history—also matter to anthropology. If you look back 100 or 150 years in U.S. society, you’ll see co-sleeping and care patterns similar to what we observe in other societies today. What seems “natural” or “traditional” to Americans now is actually historically recent.
There’s also variation within societies. Not all members of any society follow the same patterns. There’s always diversity and dispute within any culture. Anthropologists recognize this internal variation rather than treating societies as uniform blocks.
Embracing Diverse Scholarly Traditions (12-13)
Anthropology embraces both scientific and humanistic approaches. We test hypotheses and falsifiable predictions—especially in biological anthropology. But we also embrace humanistic inquiry into meaning, experience, stories, and interpretation.
The anthropologist Eric Wolf described anthropology as “the most scientific of the humanities and the most humanistic of the sciences” (13). That’s something anthropologists aspire to—not always achieved, but a goal. We don’t want to exclude either scientific rigor or humanistic understanding.
Part of this generosity means valuing local knowledge and indigenous understanding alongside scientific analysis. When studying other people, we consider how they think about the world—what knowledge practices they’ve developed about plants, animals, climate, or the nature of life itself. Hunters, fishers, and others with direct experience often know things that go beyond laboratory settings or DNA analysis.
The aspiration is to create “knowledge with people, not just perform studies on or extract knowledge from them” (13). We don’t want to study people like insects under microscopes. We want to learn from and with people. Anthropology hasn’t always achieved this—the discipline emerged from colonial contexts where certain people went to study “others”—but it’s what we aim for now.
Making Research Relevant (14)
Anthropological research should address real problems and community needs, not just satisfy academic curiosity.
Applied anthropology uses research to address things people are dealing with in their lives (14). There might be a problem with crime in a society, and one approach is policing—lock people up. But another approach asks: Why are people doing these things in the first place? How might social adjustments lead to better outcomes? That’s an applied anthropology question.
Activist anthropology takes this further, helping people make political changes in their societies (14-15). If you’re studying gun violence in Chicago, you might become convinced that political action is needed to prevent guns flowing into the city. That goes beyond study to advocacy.
Forensic applications use anthropological knowledge—forensic osteology, for example—to identify victims of crimes or injustices. Anthropologists have uncovered unmarked graves and determined what happened to victims, providing truth that enables community healing and supports efforts to bring perpetrators to justice.
Anthropologists also work in industrial settings, studying how assembly lines are organized or how advertising campaigns might be culturally sensitive. They work in government policy, trying to bring more informed options to officials—many anthropologists have worked with agencies like USAID to figure out how best to distribute resources to communities they once studied. (Though as of early 2025, many of these positions are being eliminated.)
Commitment to Ethical Practices (16-17)
The final principle is commitment to a common code of ethics. The most important part: avoid bringing harm to people—especially those you’re researching with.
When studying with other people, you need informed consent. People should know they’re part of an anthropological study. You’re not trying to be a spy observing from a distance. If you’re doing participant observation, people should understand what’s happening. Anthropology hasn’t always been great at this, but we try.
We prioritize the interests of individuals and communities who are the focus of study over our own interests (16-17). This gets complicated—anthropologists also want degrees and publications—but it’s a guiding principle. We engage in constant self-reflection about research practices, questioning assumptions, reconsidering whether additional consent is needed, trying to improve as we go.
Basic professional ethics apply too: don’t plagiarize, don’t extract knowledge without giving credit, don’t harass or bully people.
Questions This Lecture Answers
What makes anthropology different from sociology, psychology, or biology? Anthropology is distinguished by attention to symbols and learned behavior across all four subfields, plus five core principles: fieldwork, cultural relativism, comparative approaches, embracing diverse scholarly traditions, and a common code of ethics. Where psychology has often generalized about “the human mind” from studies of college undergraduates in European and North American societies, anthropology insists the existing record of human diversity is insufficient (11).
Is cultural relativism the same as moral relativism? No. Cultural relativism is a method of understanding practices in the context of a society’s own values—not approval, and not “anything goes.” When Dr. Lawrence Ralph studies gang violence in Chicago from a culturally relative perspective, the goal is to understand what’s happening, perhaps in order to suggest changes or mitigate harmful effects (11).
Do anthropologists only do fieldwork in distant societies? No. Fieldwork can happen anywhere human life happens, including U.S. cities. What makes fieldwork anthropological is the method—extended engagement with people in their own contexts—not the distance from home. And fieldwork must continue over time, because societies are constantly in motion, not “living fossils” (11).
What is applied anthropology? Applied anthropology uses research to address problems communities are dealing with in their lives—asking why people do what they do and how social adjustments might lead to better outcomes, rather than only studying from an abstract outsider perspective (14). Activist anthropology takes a further step toward political change, and forensic applications have identified victims of violence and supported community healing (14-15).
Continue Your Journey
For more on the practical principles of conducting fieldwork, see the Mintz Fieldwork Catechism. For deeper exploration of how anthropology developed these methods—and the paradoxes of who got to be an anthropologist—see Origins of Anthropological Fieldwork.
Explore the Anthropological Foundations Hub for more core concepts.