Anthropology Today Essay Research Paper In society

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Anthropology Today Essay, Research Paper In society today, the discipline of anthropology has made a tremendous shift from the practices it employed years ago. Anthropologists of today have a very different focus from their predecessors, who would focus on relating problems of distant peoples to the Western world. In more modern times, their goal has become much more local, in focusing on human problems and issues within the societies they live. This paper will identify the roles anthropologists today play, such as where they perform the bulk of their work, and what it is they do in both problem solving, as well as policy making. It will also identify the issues they are faced with, that is, the nature of the problems they address. Ethics have always been an important part of

anthropology, and this paper will also deal with the ethical goals of today’s anthropologists and some of the ethical problems they are faced with. The information of this paper was obtained entirely from the internet. It was designed as an internet project structured to both teach and familiarize research through the World Wide Web. Any data in this paper was derived through information posted publicly on internet sites available to any member of the public with an internet connection. As a result of the narrow area of research, the information provided both to the author and the reader is limited. While it is true that the internet is a source of boundless information, the sheer amount of it all makes reading all of it impossible. Also, the total lack of journal reports, or

texts, means that while the information provided may not be minimal, it is nonetheless limited. When people think of an anthropologist, the image of the jungle traveling character comes to mind. A white man sitting in a hut on some primitive island, taking notes on the local tribes s/he is living with. Decades ago, this was actually the case. However, as time progresses, so does the role of the anthropologist in today’s society. Very rarely now does anthropology actually involve extensive fieldwork in an exotic location. Today, an M.A. or a Ph.D. in the field of anthropology means that a job locally may be available to you. There is always the academic side of things, such as becoming a professor of the discipline, but this paper will focus more on the non-academic roles of the

anthropologist today. Jobs today are available on not only the academic level, but also in government, and in the private sector.( SfAA, 2000) An example of the role of an anthropologist today is that of a developmental researcher. This job would entail dealing with the development of children and adolescents by studying them, publishing reports, and training them to better prepare for life in the workplace. ( SfAA,2000) Based on the decisions and recommendations of someone in this position, actions will be taken to shape young lives. Persons in this role would have to solve many problems involving relationships and understanding of today’s youth. Several jobs of the same nature of urban development involve national surveys, case-studies involving a sample of the local people,

and a series of interviews all help in forming ideas on which anthropologists base their decisions for development on. It would be the results of these types of data collections by which plans and policies suitable for everyone can be formed. There are also many positions being opened in the business world for the anthropologist to fill. The discipline of anthropology targets study, and today’s business want many different aspects of their market studied. For example, anthropologists may be asked to study employee production, and ways to improve it. They may be asked to find out through market research different ways to change or alter their product to fit the optimum desires of the general public.(Cassell, 2000 ). It is these kinds of positions and these kinds of problems