AnthroPerspectives has been a long time coming. With a lifelong connection to reading and writing, my relationship to the human story has always felt like a part of me. During my childhood, I was an avid reader. Book after book, I delved into the lives of young girls from around the world who were experiencing such different realities, cultures and experiences. I was always infatuated by the individual’s story, and have not gone through a phase in my life where I wasn’t using writing as a tool for reflection, imagination or understanding. The seeds of this blog were planted even…
Tag: #human
How Humans Use Language to Create Meaning
Throughout history, humankind has used oral communication as a method for passing on traditions, rules, and inherited knowledge. From its origins, we have been using language to understand our surroundings and to create shared meaning around our experience of life. The ability to tell stories has helped us to define our world, and create ritual, belief, and society. We continue to do so every time we communicate. Through the use of narrative, we determine our perspective, and shape our life’s outcome. What is it about language that makes it such a powerful tool in shaping our experience as human beings?…
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…