What Do Your Things Say About You?

People carry several different things around with them, and usually their things can help others learn more about them. In our society, wallets and items in peoples pockets reveal their financial status or small details about their lives. Anthropologist Erin B. Taylor was interested in how all types of people use their wallets, and why. She conducted research in which she asked people to empty their wallets, pockets, and bags and asked them why they carried around each object. In her article, “What Do the Things You Carry Say About You?” she describes a couple from the Dominican Republic. She found that peoples belongings can tell others a lot about the society they live in. Although people carry around the same basic items, such as a wallet, keys, and a phone, they are used for all different reasons depending on where you are in the world. What a person is carrying can give others information which may be crucial to have at certain points in their lives, such as in an emergency in which they can’t give information.

 

 

http://popanth.com/article/what-do-the-things-you-carry-say-about-you/

Myth Busters

Humans have always tried to define who we are and why we are here, which has proved to be very difficult. We have created sets of definitions and tried to analyze several aspects of our lives in order to understand. We’ve learned to accept these definitions and assumptions. However, anthropologist Augustin Fuentes has been examining the issue of human myths for nearly two decades, and he says that many of them are wrong. He says that the three mai myths to bust are race, aggression, and sex. In his book, Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You: Busting Myths about Human Nature, he shares his beliefs and findings that if society learned to bust these myths, humans would live in a world where communities co-exist peacefully and sustainably. He goes on in his article, “Busting myths of human nature,” to say that there is no such thing as nature vs. nurture that shapes who we are or why we do things. He says that when we believe things are in our human nature, that is what will cause bad behaviors. Fuentes believes that if societies around the world learn to accept the three myths as myths, not something that will happen inevitably, problems such as war, rape and murder, will be less frequent and not accepted as something that is in our nature,  and human equality between men and women of any race has the potential to be achieved.

http://popanth.com/article/busting-myths-of-human-nature/

Sex or Gender

In recent years, sex and gender issues have become more prevalent in our society. I read an article about how McDonalds is no longer allowed to ask “will that be a boy or a girl toy” when someone orders a kids meal, and instead have to ask which specific type of toy. However, this and similar policies creates a problem, as people are saying two genders rather than two sexes. Anthropologist Elizabeth P. Challinor further explores the problem in her article “Sex changes and changing rooms.” She says that people are using the terms sex and gender interchangeably. She says that this creates a problem because people then place parameters on the differences between being a biological sex and characteristics of a gender. Her argument is that inequality comes out of people not paying attention to the differences. Her example is that “There are always long queues outside the “ladies” which in many places have exactly the same number of toilets as those provided for men.” She says that in the end this issue becomes larger by creating “stereotyped images of girly gossiping, lipstick smacking as essentially feminine behaviour” instead of people talking about the reasons why, which are people not taking into account or caring about the differences between males, females, or any other sex. The gender characteristics is what she thinks needs to be pushed further in order to create the equality we are looking for.

http://popanth.com/article/sex-changes-and-changing-rooms/

 

Couchsurfing

Couchsurfing is a practice in which people let strangers who don’t have a place to stay live at their house for a few days. It is a great way to save money while traveling, but also demands a huge amount of trust from both parties. The host party is supposed to let them stay free of charge, and the guest accepts their kindness. Anthropologist David Picard wrote about one of his experiences couchsurfing, in which he asked his host  ‘if she was not scared to let strangers stay at her house and leave them with the keys. She wasn’t, she said: people return the trust and confidences they are offered. Or at least she hoped so.” With modern technology, couchsurfers everywhere have been using an international website called couchsurfers.org, whose mission is to create “a world where everyone can explore and create meaningful connections with the people and places we encounter.” Anthropologists can not only use this practice when they travel, but also use it study the way that people from different places and cultures interact, and they way that humans form trust in each other through connecting with them in such a way.

http://popanth.com/article/can-couchsurfing-make-a-better-world/

The Archeology of The Cold War

 

For decades, it was believed that archeologists studied only things from the distant past. However, recently they have been looking at the more recent past, such as the remnants of the Cold War in several European countries. Archeologist Dawid Kobialka went to survey and explore Soviet ruins in Poland from the Cold War. The ruins that were explored were a secret nuclear plant, where the Russians stored their nucleaur weapons and would have launched them from, and the second is where the people who worked underground lived. The peoples daily lives can be examined based on the things and structures they left there. Archeology can tell us about the way people were thinking and acting in the past. The Cold War especially, as  Kobialka says, has “military installations, nuclear bunkers, spy equipment, and a trail of documentation, the Cold War left behind a massive material legacy in many countries that is fascinating to study for its physical and human dimensions.” It is important to study the things that happened in the past, and the things that were left behind from the past, in order to better understand how humans think and act in the modern world.

http://popanth.com/article/exploring-the-ruins-of-the-cold-war/

The Ongoing Battle: Evolution v. Creationism

For as long as humans have been around, they have questioned how we got here and why. Anthropologist  Daniel Martin Varisco has been studying the people who try and explain that question. To do so, he has looked at debates between those who believe in creationism, and those who firmly believe in evolution. In his article “Anti Evolutionism Evolving,” he says that in his own opinion, “such debates have little value, since they only serve to satisfy those who already have their minds made up.” He says that the problem is creationists refuse to accept any scientific findings, and  only believe in the Genesis account. A poll from December 2013 found that 33% of Americans reject the evolutionary theory of the origin of humans. This leads to another problem on a smaller scale: deciding  what to teach in schools. He says that the curriculum is impacted heavily by creationists in more conservative parts of the country. However, it is not possible to change what people believe in. To solve this problem, he says, that people need to realize  “science is not a Satanic plot, as many of these creationists have long argued, but a method for understanding the universe based on replicable research, hypothesis testing and consensus among scientists.”

source: http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2014/02/27/anti-evolutionism-evolving/