Southern New Hampshire University
ATH-101 Introduction to Anthropology
Module 7 Overview
Learning Objectives
Illustrate the connection of utilizing an anthropological perspective for problem solving in
the context of forensics, the environment, health, and business
Analyze how anthropology can be useful in a crisis situation
APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY
Can anthropology be useful for looking at social problems or even natural disasters?
Anthropologist would answer yes and contend that an anthropological perspective is crucial
for looking at natural disasters such as floods, droughts, or famines because anthropology
considers the environmental, cultural, and biological aspects. Disaster anthropologist
Susanna Hoffman (2013) argues that “disasters are the result of long, complex processes;
they do not drop upon communities like bombshells. Their cultural, historical, and social
phylogenies are manifold” (p. 143). Hoffman (2013) further states that because disasters are
usually local, their solutions must also be local. Anthropologists can offer suggestions as to
how disaster-stricken communities should be best served through their expertise and
ethnographic fieldwork. Module Seven further investigates how anthropologists deal with
natural disasters in more detail and also discusses how an anthropological perspective is
useful for varies global social problems such as violence, crime, abuse, and terrorism.
The subfield or branch of anthropology that is used to solve real-world problems is
called4applied anthropology4or4practicing anthropology. Gezon and Kottak (2012) state
that applied anthropology is “the use of anthropological data, perspectives, theory, and
methods to identify, assess, and solve contemporary problems” (p. 240). Applied
anthropology makes anthropology relevant and useful beyond the discipline of anthropology
(Gezon & Kottak, 2012). Professional applied anthropologists come from all the subfields of
anthropology. Some anthropologists work in an educational setting (such as a university) and
then consult in their spare time for an organization. Others work full time in an applied
setting. Applied settings include prisons, crime labs, business organizations (e.g., Xerox,
IBM), legal situations (e.g., working as a cultural expert in a courtroom), governmental
organizations, nongovernmental organizations, schools, or even community gardens. Applied
anthropologists work as “planners, managers, policy-makers, project and program directors,
advocates, and designers” (Nolan, 2013, p. 2). Module Seven explains applied work in
environmental, business, cultural resource management, museum, forensic, and medical
settings.
Medical anthropology studies the health and illnesses of societies.4Medical
anthropologists4study the health patterns of not only indigenous societies but also of
industrial societies such as the United States and Europe. Some medical anthropologists also
incorporate aspects of biology into their research; this is called biocultural anthropology or
medical ecology. For example, biocultural anthropologists use “an integrated biocultural
perspective to explore how patterns of breastfeeding and social interactions [shape] economic
constraints, cultural values, and children’s development” among the Aka and Bofi foragers
and Ngandu and Bofi farmers in central Africa (Fouts, Hewlett, & Lamb, 2012).
Medical anthropology can also be applied to various situations. For example, Rebecca Henry
(1999) was hired to investigate the practices and understanding of measles among Laotian
Hmong immigrants and healers when three Hmong children died in a measles epidemic in St.
Paul, Minnesota, in 1990. Henry was able to make suggestions for how the St. Paul Division
of Public Health could explain immunization to the Hmong immigrants in a way that would
be understandable and culturally significant to prevent any future mortality from measles.
REFERENCES
Fouts, H. N., Hewlett, B. S., & Lamb, M. E. (2012). A biocultural approach to breastfeeding
interactions in central Africa.4American Anthropologist, 114(1), 123–136.
Gezon, L., & Kottak, C. (2012).4Culture. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Henry, R. R. (1999). Measles, Hmong, and metaphor: Culture change and illness
management under conditions of immigration.4Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 13,
32–50.
Hoffman, S. M. (2013). Becoming a practicing disaster anthropologist. In R. Nolan
(Ed.),4Handbook of practicing anthropology4(pp. 114–124). Somerset, NJ: John
Wiley & Sons.
Nolan, R. (2013). Introduction. In R. Nolan (Ed.),4Handbook of practicing anthropology4(pp.
1–8). Somerset, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
