The Perception of Anthropology in Modern Complex Societies
The paper seeks to counter the argument that anthropology is of little consequence to life in modern complex societies due to the perception that anthropologists concern themselves with exotic and primitive peoples marginal to modern civilization.
The Study of Humanity and its Behaviors
Anthropology is the study generally the science of humanity. It is described as the study of people and their past as well as they are present in time according to their behavior, culture, and environment. It also focuses its research on hominids, language, and primates. Scholars describe anthropology as the art of exotic things made familiar and familiar things made fascinating.
Identity and Languages of the Societies in the United States
The social and cultural anthropology has been associated with the investigation of marginalized communities and remote places thus making it hard for complex societies to understand the impact of anthropologists in their regions. The organization in the United States is made up of 54 states each with the different culture and social issues. The states have a hierarchy of leadership, disparities in population and other factors that can't be made intensively by the anthropologist quickly hence their instincts may not be too much felt. Modern anthropology has majorly focused on the importance of an individual's selection and decision on social matters. The effects of anthropology are there and also very intense. The states in the United States of America are many comprising of simple and complex characteristics. The linguistic anthropologists in the United States of America face it hard to understand the dynamic nature of languages in the states.
Anthropologists and the Study of Complex Societies
Complex societies are those that have states and social statuses. These societies comprise of highly political, densely populated, as well as socially hierarchical; they appear to be very complicated for anthropologists. Another category of the complex organizations in the United States include sparsely populated, dependently political as well as less hierarchical. Anthropologists have found it hard to study their work due to the complexity of the societies and also the differences between the two categories of the communities. They see it challenging to shift focus from the complex to simple types of societies. It is not true that the anthropologists in the United States have their work with fewer consequences because of the cultures integrated into the modern states (Domínguez, Virginia & Jasmin, 30).
Ideology
In the years of 1960s and 1970s, evidence arose to cultural anthropologists that the complex range of ethnographic issues in the modern days no matter what they were pure or involved in their local reveal led to the formation of a single unified system. In other circumstances, it is evident that the world had too many varied processes of socialization, ideas and goods and services. Bearing in mind the fact that the human diversity studies touch all societies, from the largest to the smallest and from the simplest to the most complex, a high number of anthropologists in modern days perceive all communities in the contemporary nations to associated with the processes of considerable complexity. These enormous complexities include migration, worldwide economic crisis as well as climate change. They are substantially the main areas of focus of many anthropologists (Fabian & Johannes).
The Challenges of Modern Anthropology
Just the way early European and American anthropologists who conducted their study in Africa and other marginalized regions struggled to accomplish their work; it's the same case to modern contemporary anthropologists. They try so hard to grasp and explain the contemporary view of the society of the United States (Kluckhohn & Clyde, 16). The societal questions that concerned the old day's anthropologists are also transferable to the modern ones doing their work to be too much. These questions affect today's anthropologists in new ways.
The Complexity of Societies and the Perception of Anthropology
It's only the complexity of the societies and also the significant differences between the communities in the United States that make people perceive anthropology of being of less importance to their undertakings. Due to the demanding nature of the different worlds, anthropologists only compare the explicit or the implicit demands. Anthropology studies have it in modern days that the cultural evolutionary studies play an essential role in the gradual change of social instincts.
Conclusion
The anthropologists work in modern ways does not give solutions to societal challenges but only provides the practitioners with adequate skills and information on the background of the problem. In a matter of fact, anthropology is offered great knowledge to the society in different dimensions such as migration, tourism, trade and also organizational work. The consequences of anthropology can't be felt much in modern world society in the United States because of its complex nature, but the anthropologists keep working day in day out. The paper is contrary to the opinion that the anthropologist's work has less impact on the modern United States society. The only reason for the unnoticed implications is that the work in the hands of anthropologists is very intense and they cannot do it to result in a significant impact in complex societies. The paper also recommends other anthropology scholars to do extra research to ascertain or disapprove its findings.
Work Cited
Domínguez, Virginia R., and Jasmin Habib, eds. America Observed: On an International Anthropology of the United States. Berghahn Books, 2016.
Fabian, Johannes. Time and the other: How anthropology makes its object. Columbia University Press, 2014.
Kluckhohn, Clyde. Mirror for man: The relation of anthropology to modern life. Routledge, 2017.
