The Struggle of Past Identity in Modern Lebanon Essay

The Struggle of Past Identity in Modern Lebanon - Essay Example Using methods from both the sciences and the humanities, anthropology helps us to understand the world around us. Anthropologists work in a wide variety of settings around the globe, including rain forests, high-altitude environments, rural villages, and large cities. (Headrick 2007) Anthropology studies all facets of society and culture is it tools, techniques, traditions, language, beliefs, kinships, values, social institutions, economic mechanisms, cravings for beauty and art, struggles for prestige. This includes, by way of example, but is not limited to Linguistics is the study of human languages, their synchronic structure,and their diachronic evolution, and linguists dedicate themselves to the description and documentation of live and extinct languages. Linguistic Anthropology is the study of the interrelation of language, culture, and human cognition. It describes the impact of humans on other humans. It basically studies human characteristics generated and propagated by humans themselves. Cultural Anthropology: for anthropologists and other behavioral scientists, culture is the full range of learned human behavior patterns. The term was first used in this way by the pioneer English Anthropologist Edward B. Tylor in his book, Primitive Culture, published in 1871. Tylor said that culture is "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." Of course, it is not limited to men. Women possess and create it as well. Since Tylor's time, the concept of culture has become the central focus of anthropology. Culture is a powerful human tool for survival, but it is a fragile phenomenon. It is constantly changing and easily lost because it exists only in our minds. Our written languages, governments, buildings, and other man-made things are merely the products of culture. They are not culture in themselves. For this reason, archaeologists can not dig up culture directly in their excavations. The broken pots and other artifacts of ancient people that they uncover are only material remains that reflect cultural patterns--they are things that were made and used through cultural knowledge and skills. It provides in depth studies of and comparisons between living cultures and traditions. It also studies the social organization of people by studying and analyzing the language, economic and political organization, law and conflict resolution, patterns of consumption an exchange, gender relations, kinship and family structure, individuals and their relationship with the past. Different subfields under this category include