Roy Wagner in the Idea Term Paper

Total Length: 379 words ( 1 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 2

Wagner addresses the idea of objectivity and also of cultural relativity especially well. Anthropology, according to the author, is the most relational of the sciences. The study of another culture demands that the anthropologist create a relation between the self and the other.

The most striking feature of the Wagner essay is how he shows that "the anthropologist is forced to include himself and his own way of life in his subject matter, and study himself," (3). This self-reflective nature of anthropology is what draws so many students to it. As Wagner notes, anthropologists are actually studying themselves and may "may undergo a personality change" in the process (5). I also appreciated Wagner's explanation of how an anthropologist's job is ultimately to communicate his or her findings in terms that are meaningful to his own culture.
In a sense, the anthropologist becomes a part of the culture being studies and then returns back to his own for analysis. Finally, Wagner explains that culture is actually an invention: anthropologists invent the "notion of culture" and the language used to express it (5).

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