From Giviaks to Geopolitics: Grabbing Students Who Don't Plan to Major in Anthropology, and Never Will

Authors

Burton L. Purrington, Southwest Missouri State University

Abstract

Most students in my introductory classes are having their first and only formal experience with anthropology, and this may be their only opportunity to examine in­depth beliefs and lifeways different from their own. Graphic examples of cultural practices quite outside the students' experience are analyzed in part to get their atten­tion and in part to dispel ethnocentric stereotypes by showing that seemingly weird practices make sense in the context of Lheir natural, historical, and sociocultural en­vironments. VigneLtes from the students' own society and contemporary sociopoliti­cal issues are similarly subjected to anthropological analysis to show the relevance of this view of life to themselves.

Relational Format

journal article

Recommended Citation

Purrington, Burton L. (1992) "From Giviaks to Geopolitics: Grabbing Students Who Don't Plan to Major in Anthropology, and Never Will," Southern Anthropologist: Vol. 19: No. 1, Article 5.
Available at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/southern_anthropologist/vol19/iss1/5