anthropologists not only try to accurately describe different cultures but also wrestle with explaining them.?

Question

why do you think their work is so challenging?

Answer 1

Because personal bias can create a difficult barrier. Learning to incorporate yourself into another cultures discoursive frame work means learning to experience reality in a different way. I study human social patterns and it is really difficult at times because something might not even occur to me.

Discourse is like a conversation society has with itself that gives something significance over something else. (such as skin color.. and how we pay more attention to that than eyecolor. Discourse has created meaning around these things)

As an example of discoursive framework and differing realities:
When asked how many sexes are there, and how many genders are there, the majority of people from a western cultural pespective (along with a few other cultures) will answer that there are only two sexes and two genders (and most likely they will tell you those two things are the same things)
However, those ideas are not universal.
For some people, because of their culture's discursive frame work, they will only see two sexes that go with two genders, this is called the binary gender/sex system.

Because of this cultural reality lens, people will attribute male or female, man or woman to people who may not be a man, a woman, a male, or a female because they are not even aware that there is anything else because their discoursive frameworks creates a reality which will reenforce itself by focusing on information that supports it, and ignores or filters contrary proof.

As it is, there are actually more than 30 sexes because there are males xy chromosomes, females xx chromosomes, and over 28 others. Back in the 12th century in europe, they acknowledged 3 legal sexes. However, religious groups began to fear that they wouldn't be able to tell who was homosexual or committing homosexual acts, they began performing surgeries on individuals that were not necessary for health, in order to create an image of only two sexes, those who were note male or female were persecuted, discriminated against, and went into hiding to blend in with males and females taking on blending in with the two gender roles the religion had approved. Now, there is a very large invisible minority without equal access to protection, medical healthcare, information about their bodies and health concerning their bodies etc

whole 'nother reality, eh?

So, while a social scientist, such as an anthropologist, are trying to understand a culture, they might end up attributing things from their own cultural understandings, to others, Just like many people attribute incorrect sexes and genders to people possibly every day.

Answer 2

Ii has been an axiom in science that if you wish to solve a problem the best thing you can do is accurately define it and gather the available data.. I agree with what the first answerer said about cultural biases .. I watch documentaries about old earth civilisations and sometimes I find that they kinda jump into conclusions about why these people acted a certain way based on modern day human psychology.. I personnaly feel that we have no way of knowing what was going on in their subconscious (where creative impulses spring from).. and I strongly believe that we may never understand how these apparently primitive cultures rose to such creative heights... who were really the pyramid builders throughout the world, in Africa, Asia, S. America??.. what really compells blood thirsty warrior cultures to surpass their 'apparent' 'scientific' ignorance and out of nowhere manifest archtectural complexity and astronomy knowledge far beyond their physical means and tools??.. I am personnaly not satisfied with existing scientific explanation of these issues and I don't think that any intellectually honest person would

Answer 3

As someone who majored in Anthropology, the difficulty in following and describing another culture is getting your own cultural identity out of the way...it is next to impossible! Not only that it gets more complicated when you have to be neutral and not get as involved with your subjects as you would in a natural arena plus you cannot introduce too many outside influences, ideas or physical items that they might not otherwise have access to. We once studied how the introduction of a steel ax changed a culture completely. It is a very shaky tight rope to be just an observer especially if there practices you do not agree with such as female circumcision.
One more thing...explaining a culture and its practices may also be difficult to your target audience if they have no frame of reference for the cultures practices, everyday lives and beliefs.

Answer 4

I think they should stick to describing.

Any attempt at explanation from outside a culture must always be coloured by the views and cultural bias of the explainer, and can therefore be no real explanation. There can be no neutral framework.

Answer 5

Because they are dealing with the past and don't experience themselves, they have to go by hearsay