For thousands of years storytelling has been an essential part of humankind. To keep tradition and history alive, information was shared from person to person until we found a way to keep record of our experiences by writing them down. My purpose in being a writer is to tell a story. Not just a story of one person’s life, but narratives of human experience. As individuals, we each hold within us a memory, a life-span of perspectives and experiences, something to share that is our story. In communicating our stories and perspectives, we are participating in this significant tradition of…
Violence and Values
The way people act and operate is constantly changing and shifting, forming and growing. What we have seen throughout history is a push and pull in this process. One significant area that is impacted by this is the ratio of violence to peace in any given culture. In the United States, public displays of violence have been on the rise over the past few years. This past week we witnessed the biggest mass shooting in U.S. history with 50 people dead and 400 injured in Las Vegas. Just over a month ago, we saw violence being expressed alongside messages of…
Research and Story Telling in Brittany, France
This past May, my undergraduate professor and mentor invited me to join her for an ethnographic research project in Brittany, France. Before we left, I didn’t know what to expect. My professor told me we would be doing research on small dairy farmers in France and that I would help her as a translator. As we got closer to our departure, she gave me a little more information, her goals and some interview questions. I began to read some literature on dairy farming and food systems, and learned a bit about French cheese varieties. Yet, I still had no clue…
Why anthropology?
Why anthropology? It’s just another social science. Why pay attention? The majority of people hear the word anthropology and know that it is somehow synonymous with culture. What is culture? It is a tool that shapes human behavior. It informs and creates our norms, patterns of thought and perceptions of reality. “There is a tendency for us to think that what we know, what we perceive, is solely a function of two things: our cognitive tools–our senses–and the physical reality that provides the stimuli for the senses. What we fail to realize, what we find difficult to admit…
My story: Growing up in a Fundamental Baptist Church
Recently I had the opportunity to go on to a good friends podcast and talk about my background growing up in a fundamentalist baptist church. The discussion got intense. Often we take for granted how differently we each grow up and how subcultures that we are a part of can have their own norms and values, giving the person within that culture an experience of culture shock when they move into new cultural dynamics and experiences as they grow up. Before joining this church I was raised as a “normal” kid, although by anti-establishment hippy parents who taught us to…
Coming soon…
Hi everyone, It’s been a few months since I’ve posted in here. A lot of stuff has been brewing in my mind, things I really want to write about but am having a hard time articulating. So there are a few articles on the way. I’m going to be writing about social justice and what we should do with that term now that people have taken it to the extreme and made a bad name for it, religion and how its place as behavior modification within individual cultural systems has changed as globalization and our ever changing world allow for…
Farmers Market Culture
Early in the morning, when the grass is still glistening with dew, the vendors begin to roll in one by one. Quietly the farmers unload crates of vegetables. The bakers carefully set up freshly piped cupcakes. People uncover their booths and the day begins. Walking around to stretch their legs and look at each other’s selections, the vendors engage each other in a bit of morning chit chat as they wait for the sun to fully come up and the customers to arrive. Farmers markets are a unique world. As you walk around, you may believe you have come to…
Imagine covered by Pentatonix
This song embodies the concept of creating a global community by focusing on how our diversity unites us. Belonging can be hard to attain for everyone when we define ourselves by where we fit into the norms and values of one culture or another. Often by creating space for one type of person, we are putting up barriers to someone or something else. Despite our cultural differences, we all have one thing in common, our humanity. “I hope some day you will join us, and the world will live as one.”
A first look at perspective
Any journey toward understanding ourselves or others begins with perspective. It seems simple. It’s just a word that implies subjectivity. What’s the big deal? I would say that perspective defines many crucial aspects of what it means to be, think, act, and interact as humans. It has the power to either create barriers or pathways to understanding each other. If we want to engage ourselves and others on discussions about humanity and society, we must first find ways to unpack what our perspectives are, how they came to be, and in what ways they inform our relationships with other people.…