What do cultural anthropologist do?

Question

What do cultural anthropologist do?

Answer 1

They travel to other countries and study other peoples within the context of their culture.  They give advice to political leaders hoping to work with other cultures to make diplomatic proceedings go smoothly.  They also research "lost cultures" and try to put together clues to figure out why contemporary culture is the way that it is.  Basically, they study why people act the way that they do.

Answer 2

Cultural anthropologists study the beliefs and customs living human societies, which we refer to as "cultures." Historically, cultural anthropologists traveled to "exotic" lands, such as Pacific islands or remote jungles, and concentrated their efforts on recording and trying to understand the ways of non-Western, tribal peoples. While many still do this, recent decades have witnessed the inclusion of "first world," industrialized populations (such as groups of American middle class Whites) as subjects of cultural anthropological study. While similar to sociology in this latter respect, cultural anthropology tends to take  non-judgmental, or relativistic, viewpoint towards its subjects' behavior. Sociology, on the other hand, strives to define "normal" behavior in a given cultural group and then identify, explain, and offer remedies for "aberrant" or "deviant" behavior relevant to this standard.

Cultural anthropology encompasses two types of research strategies: Ethnology, which compares selected traits (marriage customs, for example) across different cultures; and ethnography, which focuses on the analysis and understanding of the lifeways of a single culture.

Answer 3

Many cultural anthropologists do go to other countries and study cultures other than the one in which they were raised; however, many of them also stay at home in their native culture and study that one.

All in all, they do study how people behave and why.