Anthropology allows us to critically understand the cultures and complex social processes of the contemporary world.
Anthropology is a word derived from the combination of the Greek words «anthropos» (which means human being) and «logos» (which means science). Anthropology is a science dedicated to the comparative study of human beings and humanity in a totalizing way, that is, taking into account their multiple biological, cultural and social dimensions.
Anthropology was for a long time in its history centered on the study of unwritten or exotic societies. Currently, however, Anthropology produces knowledge about all societies, ancient and modern, simple and complex, including the societies of origin of the vast majority of researchers, specifically Western societies. In other words, in anthropology, researchers today study others and ourselves, becoming familiar with what is strange to them and vice versa.
Anthropology is divided into two major areas of investigation. Biological Anthropology studies the evolution, variations and adaptation of human beings to the environment, non-human primates and extinct hominids. This includes Primatology, Paleoanthropology, Anthropometry, Forensic Anthropology and Human Biology, among other subdisciplines.
Social and Cultural Anthropology, on the other hand, studies the behavioral aspects of human beings in society, social and political organization, kinship, relationships and social institutions, as well as cultural aspects, including language, religion and symbolic systems, seeking understand the connections between individuals, between individuals and culture, and between cultures and the environment. Included here are the Anthropologies of Education, Symbolic, Religion, Gender, Tourism, Migration, Borders, National Communities, Ethnicity, Violence, Security, Energy, Environment, Kinship and Family, among other areas of specialization.
Anthropology has the particularity of questioning what is usually called "common sense", it helps to understand the reasons why people do what they do and teaches us to relativize cultures, in time and space, through production of empirically supported knowledge.
Anthropological knowledge derives from the systematic and controlled application of duly validated research methods and techniques, and from the respect of deontological rules, which guide the collection, treatment and analysis of empirical data of a mainly qualitative nature.
The ethnographic method is the main research method of social and cultural anthropologists. This method is based on fieldwork with participant observation, which normally implies the permanence of the researcher within the study group for an extended period (one year or more), eventual language learning, participation in the day's activities daily (and extraordinary), conducting interviews, observing social interactions and identifying patterns of behavior. This often allows them to make comparisons between societies and to make general considerations about human life in society.
The origins of anthropological knowledge go back to Classical Antiquity. But there is a widespread view that anthropology developed as a discipline in the nineteenth century.
In Portugal, Anthropology has been developed significantly since the last quarter of the XNUMXth century, and is currently a consolidated disciplinary field, with an internationally recognized training offer at the level of higher education.
However, in our country, Anthropology has been very little valued in the training offer at the level of basic and secondary education. It exists only as an optional subject in the 12th year of schooling - and in a small number of schools -, a subject that anthropologists, strangely, continue to be not recognized by official bodies as having their own qualification to teach, so they are generally overtaken by people from other areas in the teacher placement competitions.
Furthermore, Anthropology is not represented on the new Scientific Council of the Foundation for Science and Technology for the Social Sciences and Humanities. This reflects a trend of devaluation of the discipline that, unfortunately, has been registered in Europe and not just for more than a decade.
Since the OECD and its member countries, including Portugal, produced and published the 2002 edition of the Frascati Manual for the FOS classification in the major disciplinary areas of research and technological development, where Anthropology does not constitute an autonomous domain of knowledge . Since 2007, this Manual has placed Anthropology within Sociology, along with Demography, Ethnology and other Social Topics.
Author Luís Silva (Research Network Center in Anthropology)
Science in the Regional Press – Ciência Viva
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