Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Anthropologists learn about the intricacies of a subgroup or community to
describe it in all its richness and complexity. In the process of studying these
details, they typically discover underlying forces that make the system tick.
These cultural elements are values or beliefs that can unite or divide a group,
but that are commonly shared focal points. An awareness of what role these
abstract elements play in a given culture can give the researcher a clearer pic-
ture of how the culture works. For example, each culture has a specific kinship
structure and religious and economic practices. These elements of culture
operate unnoticed in day-to-day situations—much as grammar operates in lan-
guage. Different subgroups in a culture may have widely disparate attitudes
about the surface level of their kinship, religious, and economic systems, but
they generally share a common belief in the deeper, often subconscious mean-
ing behind these culture elements. For example, a young American couple
might argue about whether the woman will assume the man's name when they
marry. The fact that they need to argue the question indicates an underlying
kinship system in which the woman and any children traditionally adopt the
man's name. Thus, although the two disagree about their future name (or
names), they acknowledge in their discussion the dominance of the kinship
system known as patrilineal descent and a shared focal point of interaction and
underlying assumptions about traditionally shared beliefs and behavior (for
additional discussion about kinship and social organization, see Bohannan &
Middleton, 1968).
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Many anthropologists consider cultural interpretation ethnography's
primary contribution. Cultural interpretation involves the researcher's ability
to describe what he or she has heard and seen within the framework of the
social group's view of reality. A classic example of the interpretive contribu-
tion involves the wink and the blink. A mechanical difference between the two
may not be evident. However, the cultural context of each movement, the rela-
tionship between individuals that each act suggests, and the contexts sur-
rounding the two help define and differentiate these two significantly different
behaviors. Anyone who has ever mistaken a blink for a wink, particularly in a
smoke-filled bar, is fully aware of the significance of cultural interpretation
(Fetterman, 1982a, p. 24; Geertz, 1973, p. 6; Roberts, Byram, Barro, Jordan,
& Street, 2001; Wolcott, 1980, pp. 57, 59).
Adopting a cultural interpretation is critical for classroom observation. For
example, in an ethnographic study of an inner-city educational program, two
students looking at each other's work might be interpreted as “cheating” in a
conventional classroom. However, the accurate characterization is coopera-
tion, given the philosophy of the school and the specific instructions provided
by the teacher (see Figure 2.1).
