Anthropology in ten words
A journey into the world of anthropology through ten words – being, living together, communicating, where and when, growing, reflecting, representing ourselves, giving, believing, nourishment – an approach to a discipline that can help us interpret the increasingly fast shuffling of the reality we see around us and to better understand what is happening in our cities, our streets and our lives.
Cultural anthropology, which started out as a study of the cultures of peoples far from the West, has expanded its field of action to deal with the here and now: the centre of its attention is the human being – a biological, behavioural, psychological, social and economic phenomenon, all at the same time – observed as the individual in the community.
Marco Aime gives us a brief outline of this multifarious science, because knowing the rules and mechanisms through which we become human and establish societies is as important as knowing that the earth revolves around the sun.