“We’re all curious about the ways other people live their lives,” one social anthropology student in this video says.
Anthropology provides a whole set of tools for thinking about the diversity of ways of living, in a rapidly changing world (as this professor discusses).
Ruth Benedict, 1937. Source: Library of Congress.
American anthropologist Ruth Benedict is often quoted as saying the purpose of anthropology is “making the world safe for human differences.”
This includes revealing trends of social inequality, discrimination, and ‘othering’, that are historical, and ongoing. As urban anthropologist Professor Diego Vigil describes in this 4 min video, anthropologists are well-equipped to help address real social issues.
We asked a bunch of our undergraduate social anthropology students at the University of Otago what they would take with them as core lessons from social anthropology, and overwhelmingly they responded with three things. These were: empathy, open-mindedness, and appreciation of difference. These are pretty powerful forces in the world. As one student summed it up:
“It allows for compassion and rich experiences of difference that are truly useful to everyday attempts to be better as a person. Not every discipline is as compelling or helpful with being part of a social world.”
In the graduate stories presented on the ASAA/NZ website, you can read a variety of postgrad students talking more about what drew them to social anthropology, and how the field fits with their wider goals and interests.
