How is anthropology relevant to the US government?

Question

any help would be great..i cant figure it out...because i dont really understand what anthropology in the first place!

Answer 1

I will very basically answer this in a highly oversimplified manner. Anthropology is the study of humans and human culture specifically. Culture can be thought of as the technology, art, science, moral systems and the characteristic behaviors and habits of a group. It can be though of as falling into four main categories (if you're part of the American school of thought): linguistics, physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, and archeology.

Linguistics is the study of a cultures language, in structure, form, and relation to culture and interaction with our environment, etc. (i.e. Sapir-Whorf...look it up if you want to know more). Physical or biological anthropology is a broad realm that covers several aspects of humanity from evolution, foresnics, etc. Cultural anthropology studies cultural variation among humans, looking at their interaction with each other, their envirnment, and their perception of the cosmos among other things. (I.e. what make their culture their culture.) Archeology studies the remains of human culture by studying the artifacts left behind. It often intertwines aspects of physical and cultural to make conclusions about past cultures (and sometimes even todays). As you can imagine there is plenty of room for overlap among the four fields and a good anthropologist will have an understanding of each of them.

While this is a very basic description I think it gives you some room to move on with the assignment that you posted this and your previous question for. For instance you could argue that evolutionary or archaeological studies show us where we have been so that we can learn were we are going, or that cultural anthropology can give us insights into other groups for foreign policy, etc. etc. etc. While these answers may seem trite, the assignment seems pretty basic, and considering you didn't even know what anthropology was I must assume they aren't expecting a thesis here. Good luck.

Answer 2

If anthropology were relevent to the U.S. government then it wouldn't constantly be under attack from non-western, non-christian non-American "groups"