Have anthropologists written about this? Can they give you any insight into what you’ve seen? How can you relate this practice/belief to the larger culture? What does it tell you about your culture in general terms?

Familiar strange

One of the ways to describe anthropology is a discipline that, “makes the strange familiar and makes the familiar strange”. That is, it encourages you to look at practices you don’t know about and might think are a little odd in such a way that you begin to understand, and sometimes relate to, them (“make the strange familiar”). It also encourages you to look at things you or people in your culture do and believe as if they are alien to you, so you can work out why you do and believe those things; you are encouraged to use anthropological thinking and tools to understand your own culture (“make the familiar strange”). This second aspect of anthropology is what this assignment will focus on.

You are going to find an aspect of your culture to focus on. Just as Horace Miner did in his Nacirema article, you are going to describe a ritual/belief/practice/all of these common in your culture, describe it, explain why it is done/believed in the minds of the people who believe/do it, what conclusions you as an anthropologist can draw about the practice based on what you have found out, and what anthropological work you have read relating to the belief/practice.
Here are some guidelines to help you:
1. Think carefully about the practices you see around you every day, and/or about beliefs that people express regularly.
2. Can you focus on a belief/practice/ritual etc that you have identified?
3. How would you describe it? Depending on what you have chosen, you might need to observe it. You might need to simply talk to people about it if it’s a belief.
4. What do people say about it: how do they describe it, why do they do/believe it?
5. Can you sum up what you’ve found with about 4 or 5 statements?
6. Can you take photographs that will help understand the phenomenon and/or illustrate those 4 or 5 statements you’ve made?
7. Have anthropologists written about this? Can they give you any insight into what you’ve seen?
8. How can you relate this practice/belief to the larger culture? What does it tell you about your culture in general terms?