Analysis Of The Inuit People

Submitted By gisselle155
Words: 3876
Pages: 16

The women and her husband spend years in Alaska community. They went on a massive hunter for birds. They as outsiders are not told how the hunt will work. The birds are ducks. There’s a period each year where they molt. They shed their feathers so they are unable to fly. There’s a lot of autonomy within the group. Equality was also presented with the distribution of the birds. They have leaders in the group but they’re not really “the leaders.” Egalitarian, everyone’s equal. Everyone knew his/her place in the groups. The people in the village knew a lot of the environment and the animals habits while the

People use their own judgment. Kind of a watch and learn.

Everyone knew his or her role in the hunt without much direction. Anthropologists were confused at the lack of directions from the others. They felt a bit ethnocentric because they thought these people were very unorganized and didn’t have a method.

They learn that there’s a lot of consensual decision-making. The group works together.

*The Inuit people have a profound and an intimate knowledge of their environment and the flora and fauna within it.

Authority vs. Power:
Leaders from the villages/small scaled societies lead by example. They lead people by the respect they exhibit to the people. They influence people by their own example. People respect them through the way they behave. They have leadership grouped by respect not force. Authority not power. They authority is shown by their clothes and their possessions. Ex) priest

Cultural relativity: each culture will have its own worldview and we should try to see it from their eyes through their culture values and reframe from judging those cultures.

(Read papers about lynching end of period of reconstructions 1874-1950: New York times maladaptive behavior)

No universal elements

Key words:
Lack of trust
Importance of field work
State of Kelantan –SE Asia
Social deviance

Anthropologist- at the time was a grad student. Influenced by professors. At the beginning they didn’t understand what the SE Asia. Said regardless of how much rep work you do, you’ll be unprepared. You also may learned a lot about yourself in the process. You’ll go in thinking one thing about the people and then you change your perspective. He thought he learned the language but then realized he had no idea what they were saying. You need to be in a situation where you can’t rely on your native tongue. He settle in his new environment. He volunteered as a community guard. He wanted to knew certain information. 2 types of info- one you can talk verbally and another that was kind of hidden. They wouldn’t tell him the hidden information until they trusted him. (ex. There was an argument between these people and they wouldn’t tell him what the basis of the argument was.) They took him to a bar outside of their community. Other people from that community would go there too and they were Muslims so they weren’t supposed to drink. Because of that, all of he people could each other secret about going to the bar.

He was trying to study traditional values and deviants from it
He’s very awkward in many ways like how he dresses
Example) He was eating with them and drank the bowl of water which was a hand-washing bowl

Article about building trust between the anthropologist and the people being studied.
You’re not going to gain trust if you don’t trust others
You have to be courageous enough to show the people your vulnerabilities to gain their trust

Suspending judgment- cultural relativity. Depicting the society with the eyes of an insider
Ethnocentric-(opposite) judging a culture based on your culture

After the evening in the bar, breakthrough in his fieldwork
They would answer any of his questions now because they gained his trust

Franz boas- arm chair anthropologist
Writing about people he never encountered and knew nothing about
Started as a physicist
First anthropologist

- Margret Benidict

Ilongot