Anthropology

The Ethnographic Perspective – In The Style of the Nacirema
The only criteria are that you should be familiar with this setting. You should conduct observations in your chosen setting for at least one hour and take notes on the different activities and behaviors you observe.
conclude your essay with a discussion on how you see this assignment as relating to ethnocentrism and cultural relativism. How has this assignment changed the way you view cultures that are different from your own? How has this assignment changed the way you view your own culture?

ANSWER

The Ethnographic Perspective – In the Style of the Nacirema

Every culture exhibits a specific style or configuration. The term culture means the customs, ideas and social behaviour linked to a particular group of people or society. Comaroff and Comaroff (2019) state that culture is a historically transferred pattern of meaning embodied in systems and a symbol of inherited conceptions demonstrated through symbolic forms. Considerably, this is the single pattern or value of perceiving the world which leaves its stamp on various societal institutions. Ethnographic research and perspective have played a significant role in understanding a cultural group. Therefore, this paper will focus on a ethnographic viewpoint of a specific culture with references to the style of Nacirema, which focuses on a single pattern or value in society.

Horace relies on an exotic ethnographer’s perspective, which entails a description of behaviours and beliefs in terms of what is meaningful to the people that belong to a particular culture. The exotic ethnographer’s perspective focuses on how people categorize and perceive their experiences and culture and why they believe in what they do, and how they explain and imagine things (Dewan, 2018). Horace covers the body ritual among the Nacirema, where he demonstrates the attitudes or perceptions about the body that has a pervasive influence on many institutions within Nacirema society. Horace became familiar with the diversity in patterns and how different people behave in certain situations to the point that he was not surprised by exotic customs. In the Nacirema society, the ultimate belief is that the human body is horrible and has an expected affinity of disease (Launer, 2018). Therefore, with such thoughts, the only hope in a man is to avert these characteristics through ceremony and ritual. In Nacirema, every household has one or more shrines linked to this purpose. The most influential individuals within Nacirema society has more shrines in their homestead. The Nacirema believed that the ritual practices were significant in the concerns of the appearance of their bodies and health (Launer, 2018).

Exotic‘ Ethnographer’s Perspective in Family Event

While in South Carolina during the holidays, I observed a family reunion among the African Americans. The family reunion is conducted once a year and aims to strengthen the family and bring people together through constant fellowshipping, dance, and big feast (Copeland, 2018). Family reunions are cultural practices in African American families that are believed to be vehicles where togetherness and cohesiveness could be revitalized and restored.

For this particular family reunion event, food was prepared, and people shared meals, stories, laughter and success as the day went on. Parents and older children reunited while the younger children were happy to hear the older children’s stories. The African American family reunion’s birth dates back to Emancipation, where former slaves started to search for distant family members. For those who could connect, the reunions were a significant and glorious affair. The family reunion plans begin about 18-24 months before the actual celebration. One or two family members have delegated the task of leading others in planning the family gathering with a time plan for other family members to commit to the event. The plans are done from an imaginative and flexible perspective due to the size of the group, time and weather constraints.

A significant occurrence of this event that instructed my personal experience is the soul food and the roasting and eating of a pig. Considerably, African Americans have food inclinations born from traditional necessity and influences. The choice for a specific kind of cooking was soul food, leading to several health issues. The soul food entails fried potatoes with tons of fatty meat cooked with more gravies. Whenever African-Americans come together, they have social interactions centred on food. Soul food has a substantial connection with African Americans, so they are unwilling to give up its consumption during family reunions. I learnt that the African-Americans have to serve the distinctive soul food to be deliberated as good hosts and societal charms to prevent guests from requesting better foods. They feel that more beneficial types of soul food may not taste as good as the typical soul food.

To understand how a pig contributes to the ritual and cultural traditions of the African American family reunions, it’s essential to understand that the pig was a sort of cultural icon. The generations of women and men that trace their roots from South Carolina, Michigan and Georgia highly defend the sanctity of the pig. Considerably, despite the cautions from physicians about the consumption of soul foods, most of the families have rejected the arguments that it contributes to ill health. The African Americans believe that the pig should be consumed in its entirety.

Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism

Although human beings are common, cultural variations are more prevent than cultural linkages. The world is not divided into uniformed society but is a mixture of overlapping groups and societies where every individual in every society has their norms, beliefs, views and moral issues that vary extremely. Ethnocentrism beings the belief that an individual’s culture is superior than all others and ought to stand as the typical theme of reference, while cultural relativism is viewing a culture from its standard rather than an individual’s culture (Emoto, 2021). Ethnocentrism brings about cultural shock due to variations in cultural beliefs. For instance, the American culture expresses repulsion in other cultures’ food and think it’s uncultured to consume meat from a guinea pig while they fail to examine their habit of eating pigs or cows.

Ethnocentrism blocks the minds of individuals from comprehending the cultural practices and ways of life of other people (Emoto, 2021). This has greatly influenced social interactions, especially in the United States, between the African Americans and the Native Americans. This has influenced the functioning of social groups within the United States since it makes it unstable for people living within the same geographical area. To practice cultural relativism, one must be willing to consider, have an open mind, and adapt to new norms and values. However, one of the greatest challenges is not indiscriminately embracing everything about a new culture. While trying to absorb in cultural relativism, one may fight to relate their cultural characteristics with the aspects of another culture. Increasing interaction between members of different cultures boosts cultural relativism.

Cultural Perceptions

Culture plays an important role in the human response to a setting and how they conduct their lives. Understanding an individual’s behaviour from their cultural practices prevents judging other people’s culture to personal standards of right or wrong. For instance, a culture may link its cultural practice to consuming a particular animal which is prohibited in another culture. The emic perspectives have influenced my perception of other cultures since they significantly describe the cultural behaviour and why people do what they do, thus avoiding interpreting others through my own cultural beliefs. The ethnographic perspective has enabled me to acknowledge and analyze unexpected issues within my culture and better understand how I have adapted to my culture. The approach has effectively understood how my daily life is linked to my culture. It’s important to understand that most cultural practices and norms are ritualized and routinized to ease identity development.

References

Comaroff, J., & Comaroff, J. (2019). Ethnography and the historical imagination. Routledge.

Copeland, R. W. (2018). Ensuring the Continuity of the African-American Family Reunion by Organizing a Nonprofit Entity. Western Journal of Black Studies, 42.

Dewan, M. (2018). Understanding ethnography: An ‘exotic’ethnographer’s perspective. In Asian qualitative research in tourism (pp. 185-203). Springer, Singapore.

Emoto, T. (2021). ANTH 101: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology.

Launer, J. (2018). The peculiar health beliefs of the Nacirema. Postgraduate Medical Journal, 94(1113), 423-424.