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…
Tag: #belief
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…