Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Anthropology at it's best!

When I was a college student studying anthropology in the mid-1990's, there was a new view of Anthropology. Basically, it was to listen to the cultures and learn from them, rather than telling them whether or not they are civilized. Since the announcement of the 2016 Olympics will be in Rio de Janeiro, there have been a lot of people concerned about what will happen to the Indigenous communities in Brazil. This issues there are heated, and many tribes are facing extinction.

But let's, for a moment, consider how anthropology is approached today. Embedding yourself into the culture you are studying is still believed to be much better than "armchair anthropology"- where college professors don't go anywhere, but ponitificate about the civilized and uncivilized peoples of planet Earth. Here, National Geographic created a show to be broadcasted in the U.K. based on Cultural Anthropology with people from the South Pacific ~ with a twist. Now... this is my kind of reality show.

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