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• What Is Applied Anthropology?• The Role of the Applied Anthropologist• Academic and Applied Anthropology• Urban Anthropology• Medical Anthropology• Anthropology and Business• Careers and Anthropology
– Academic anthropology – includes cultural, archaeological, biological, and linguistic anthropology
– Applied anthropology – application of anthropological data, perspectives, theory, and techniques to identify, assess, and solve contemporary social problems
• American Anthropological Association (AAA) recognizes two dimensions
• Practicing anthropologists practice their profession outside of academia
• Applied anthropologists work for groups that promote, manage and assess programs and policies aimed at influencing human behavior and social conditions
• Combats ethnocentrism – tendency to view one’s own culture as superior and to apply one’s own cultural values in judging the behavior and beliefs of people raised in other cultures
– During 1970s, and increasingly thereafter, most anthropologists still worked in academia but others found jobs with international organizations, government, business, hospitals, and schools
– About half of students graduating with PhDs in anthropology will have careers outside academia
• Academic anthropology grew most after World War II
• Disease – scientifically identified health threat caused by a bacterium, virus, fungus, parasite or other pathogen
• Unites biological and cultural anthropologists in the study of disease, health problems, health-care systems, and theories about illness in different cultures and ethnic groups
• Illness – condition of poor health perceived or felt by an individual
Medical Anthropology
• Scientific medicine – distinguished from Western medicine, a health-care system based on scientific knowledge and procedures, encompassing such fields as pathology, microbiology, biochemistry, surgery, diagnostic technology, and applications
– All cultures have health-care specialists (e.g., curers, shaman, doctors)
– Curer – specialized role acquired through a culturally appropriate process of selection, training, certification, and acquisition of a professional image; a cultural universal
• Beliefs, customs, specialists, and techniques aimed at ensuring health and preventing, diagnosing, and treating illness
– Knowledge about traditions and beliefs of many social groups within a modern nation is important in planning and carrying out programs that affect those groups
• Anthropology’s breadth provides knowledge and an outlook on the world that are useful in many kinds of work