Holism of Anthropology: Inquisitiveness About Human Beings (Essay Sample)

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Holism of Anthropology
Anthropology is a discipline of immeasurable inquisitiveness about human beings. Anthropologists are always interested establishing why and how the communities in the present and past have varied in their customary notions and practices. Also, anthropologist seeks to discover when, where and why humans came to earth, how and why they have changed since then, and how to present human populations differ in dissimilar features. The scope of the discipline of anthropology is broader than other disciplines such as sociology, psychology, political science e.t.c that are concerned with the humankind. The field is founded on explicit and direct relation with all kind of people throughout the world and not just to a limited area (Bubandt Ton pg. 3). Moreover, it is interested in all people from the immediate ancestors of a human being to the present human creation.
Anthropology employs a holistic viewpoint when it comes to understanding human characteristics which imply that anthropologist is anxious to know all the attributes of people and the relationships among these distinct facets. Even though anthropology is a multifaceted study of humankind, anthropologists study many aspects of human experiences besides exploring a variety of people (Bubandt Ton pg. 6). Notably, anthropologist tries to comprehend certain queries and problems, certainly, within their widest possible content. For instance, when defining a group of individuals, an anthropologist may choose to explain the history of an area where people live, an organization of family features, groups’ settlement among other things. Thus, the discipline of anthropology embraces holistic approach by ensuring that distinct specialties explain many aspects of human existence, both in the present and the past. This paper studies the human culture anthropology to describe the several ways in which the modern humans have evolved and vary cross-culturally regarding gender roles, subsistence patterns, marriage, economics and political organization.
The term culture is commonly used by the anthropologist to mean the customary ways of behaving and thinking of a particular population or community. The culture of social group encompasses things like languages, music, religious norms, and gender roles among other learned manners which have come to be widely shared or customary among the group (Saraswati pg. 27). The modern humankind has increasingly evolved in various ways over time. Foremost, it is very explicit that culture has distinct types of families. In the past, families were exuded keenly extended families formed by grandparents from both sides, their children, siblings, aunts, nieces and other kin of wife and husband.
In the wake of modernization, many of the rule and practices that were inexistent in the past concerning the families have changed. Different societies and nations have different family structures. For instance, In the Western countries and specifically America and Canada and the countries of northern Europe, nuclear families that constitute father, mother and children are in existence. In almost the rest parts of the globe, extended families made of grandparents, father, mother, grandparents, children, uncles, aunties and other kin are prevalent (Eller, 53). In the onset of the 20th century, the greatest history upheaval of family structure has resulted in significant increase in nuclear families and the decrease of extended families. Also, there has been an upsurge of unmarried families, homosexual families, divorced families and unwed mothers and fathers.
Historically, the practice of polygamy marriages was highly regarded as a measure of wealth and helped in increasing population and cases of polyandry were seldom. In the past and across traditional societies, women primary played logical roles like giving birth and breastfeeding. They were, in addition, tended on activities that neared their homes such as gardening plants, weaving, and pottery. With the modernization, women were integrated into roles that were previously regarded as men’s, and they are no longer perform logical roles (Eller, 87). Today, women are dominating their male counterparts from their integration into productive labor sectors.
Because of substantial economic changes coupled with advancement in technology, education, commerce and other fields, the traditional family structures that were in existence no longer rely on subsistence structures such as hunting and gathering or even agriculture. Most nuclear families are moving to urban centers to run business and in such of employment opportunities. Young families are securing independent home thousands of miles from their grandparents for privacy needs and avoiding farm works in search of white collar jobs (Saraswati, 98). Due to i...