Gerhard: Welcome back to World101x: the Anthropology
of Current World Issues.
Last week, we discussed anthropology in fairly
general terms. We saw a variety of applications
of anthropology and the role anthropology
can and perhaps should play in current world
issues. As you saw, there was a variety of
opinions, and indeed these issues are always
intensely contested, but I think there's a
specific contestation within anthropology
about a range of issues.
Anthropology is intensely political, and the
anthropological project is always about difference:
a different worldview or dealing in some form
with difference.
In addition, as anthropologists, we're always
aware of having to be extra reflexive about
our own cultural baggage and worldview with
which we see the world. Thus, we love to debate
about how these differences are experienced
in everyday life, in politics, in religious
practice, in the home, at work, et cetera.
This week, we will talk about how difference
is experienced in a society we share with others.
We'll talk about cultural difference and how
it becomes political through migration of
peoples, their ideas, cultures, and ways of
life from one place to another.
