Anthropological Fieldworks in Cities

It was not until after World War II that anthropology began to be noticed in the field of science. It’s not like other sciences with experiments, hypothesis and conclusions. Urban anthropology was fieldwork, which allowed researchers to gain a connection and a better understanding of culture and lives of the local people. The first person to introduce Anthropology to social science was Bronislaw Malinowski based on some findings in his trip to Trobriand Islands. He had brought other anthropologists like Margaret Mead to be in the field of a specific community. Anthropology did not get to be noticed until later in the nineteenth century and eventually began to grow in urban societies. Unfortunately there was a dispute to whether on how studies are going to be made.

Anthropology wasn’t as recognized in the social science field, it was mistake for the Sociology, but it was more than talking about society. Anthropology was getting involved with one specific part of the community and researching through interviews and understanding ones culture and beliefs. It wasn’t until the 1900 where one anthropologist by the name of Bronislaw Malinowski introduced the fieldwork of anthropology.  In the Anthropological Fieldwork in Cities Kemper explained, “Wherever they worked, field researchers were not foreigners; they were simply in parts of the Commonwealth where the societies were more exotic than at the home”(Kemper 8). With the fieldworks, anthropology began to be noticed and brought the attention of other anthropologists.

            Fieldwork was an important way of how anthropologists research a specific community. There was a problem to studying the people rural places; the people in the rural areas usually disperse.  Kemper said, “anthropologists face one insurmountable problem; defining a population in the holistic context taken for granted in rural fieldwork”(Kemper 12). There will always be residents moving and some could be living poorly in a cramped up apartment. There will also be some that live quite well in a house with their family.

            I thought it’s a good thing that anthropology was getting noticed because it is a big help for history, and help one understand the customs, ritual, traditions and values of a certain community. I believe there is more than what the eyes see, in our mind we already have a picture to how a community would look like. A specific group like the Samoa, we have a picture to what they would do and who they are but there is more to that.