Exploring Anthropology Specializations: Political Economy, Power & Politics, Law - Essay Sample

Introduction

There are different specializations in anthropology. One of these specializations is the political economy, an approach that contextualizes the world as an open system. It pays attention to the intersection between culture and power. Another of the specializations is one that focuses on power and politics. This approach focuses on power and politics and examines such aspects such as means of exerting power and the role of free will in power relations. Law is another of the specialization and focuses on the functions of the law, its absence or presence, processes of negotiation, retaliation, adjudication, and mediation.

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Urban anthropology is the fourth specialization in anthropology and focuses on topics ranging from urban violence, poverty, immigration, ethnicity, class, and drugs. Health and medicine is another specialization and focuses on the construction of human beliefs about the causes of illnesses and systems for preserving health. For example, this specialization is likely to examine the spread of malaria especially the link between its spread and population growth and changes in food production. The last type of specialization focuses on violence and war. This approach seeks to search for and explain violence especially intercommunal violence such as the one witnessed in Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland, and former Yugoslavia (Brown, Gonzalez & McIlwraith, 2017).

Define the idea of culture. What is culture? Anthropologists disagree on many things, but they agree that all cultures share some characteristics. Define and describe them.

Culture is an integrated system of mental elements the behaviors motivated by those mental elements and the material items that are created by those behaviors. The mental elements include norms, attitudes, worldviews, beliefs, and values. All cultures share some characteristics including culture is 100 percent learned and not innate, culture is also based on symbolic systems, the most important being a language, culture is also humankind's most important adaptive mechanism and lastly, culture is dynamic, constantly changing.

What are the main characteristics of human language? How do infants acquire language? How did human beings "invent" language?

The main characteristics of human language include cultural transmission (some aspects of the language are learned through interaction with others), interchangeability (the ability to both send and receive a message), arbitrariness (the form of a sign is not logically related to its meaning), discreteness (made up of small number of meaningless discreet sounds), duality of patterning (two levels of combination "phonemes and morphemes), displacement (ability to communicate about things that are outside the here and now), productivity (ability to produce and understand messages that have never been expressed before).

Infants acquire language automatically because they are hard-wired with a basic template for human language which is embedded in their genes. Hence, infants have an innate ability to acquire the language or languages that are spoken around them because they are born with a brain wired to grasp language. As a result, without any form of formal instruction, an infant can acquire the sounds, words, grammatical rules, and the appropriate social functions of the language or languages around them. By the time an infant is three to four months, they can master the language.

Human beings invented language as a means of encoding their culture and also as a means through which culture is shared and passed from one generation to another (Brown, Gonzalez & McIlwraith, 2017). In other words, human beings invented language as a means of making and sharing their culture with other members of the same culture. Using language, human beings of a certain culture were able to able to do all cultural activities. Without a language, human beings would not have a complex culture and neither would they be able to pass it to the next generation.

Describe the major types of subsistence strategies adopted by human societies around the world. Make some examples taken from the textbook.

Foraging is one of the major subsistence strategies characterized by reliance on wild plants and animals for food resources available in the environment. The Ache is an example of a foraging group living in the subtropical rainforest in Paraguay (Brown, Gonzalez & McIlwraith, 2017). Another major type of subsistence strategy is pastoralism. Pastoralists rely on herds of domesticated livestock such as pigs, sheep, goats, and cows. An example of a pastoralist group is the Maasai of East Africa (Brown, Gonzalez & McIlwraith, 2017).

Horticulture is another major type of subsistence strategy whereby a group of people relies on the produce of their gardens. The communities that practice this form of subsistence grow their foods for consumption rather than selling for profit. Agriculture is the fourth type of subsistence strategy and is characterized by the cultivation of domesticated plants and animals using such technologies as irrigation, mechanization, drafting, and the use of inputs such as pesticides and fertilizers.

Describe the major types of political organizations adopted by human societies around the world. Make some examples taken from the textbook.

An egalitarian society is one of the major types of political organization adopted by human beings around the world. This form of political organization is characterized by inequality in terms of gender, age, abilities, and wealth and status. For example, in many societies, the status of women is low relative to the status of men. Band-level is another major type of political organization almost primarily made up of foraging societies. This type of political organization lacks formal leadership. Tribal political organization is the third type of political organization and is characterized by fairly complex social institutions but there is an absence of centralized political structures or offices. For example, while there might be a headman, there might not be a rule of succession as roles are open to anyone.

A stratified society is another major type of political organization and is characterized by the control of strategic resources by a numerical minority of elites. An example of this type of political organization is the caste system in traditional Indian society (Brown, Gonzalez & McIlwraith, 2017). The last major type of political organization is ranked societies and chiefdoms and is characterized by greater differentiation between individuals and the kin groups to which they belong.

Reference

Brown, N., Gonzalez, L. T., McIlwraith, T. F. (2017). Perspectives: An open invitation to cultural anthropology. Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association.