Cultural anthropology is a subfield of biological anthropology. It is distinguished by the research methods used to study human culture. A few research methods they use are comparative method, participant observation, observational methods, ethnographic method and intersubjectivity . But there are many more methods cultural anthropologist use in their field to study how people’s beliefs and practices affect their lives. One method is “participant observation,” a practice of living and participating within a community and gaining a deep understanding of the cultural system by active first- hand experience and participation in daily life.” Through my research I learned a typical day of a cultural anthropologist is not always the same and they can change very often. They can either spend their days teaching, doing research , writing their findings into a journal or book or lastly examine or analyzing new research. Even though there are many definitions of culture, cultural anthropologist use the simple definition of “The knowledge people use to live their lives and the way in which they do so”. This includes studying how cultures and how people’s lives have changed over time as well.  One of the themes that cultural anthropology relates to the broader theme of anthropology is diversity. Cultural anthropology does not just focus on one culture it focus on each culture and what makes each of them unique.In the article I read it said “Cultural anthropologists study how people who share a common cultural system organize and shape the physical and social world around them, and are in turn shaped by those ideas, behaviors and physical environments” This also connects to the broader theme of environments and how they affect a person’s upbringing in Anthropology. It focuses on an individual’s upbringing and how culture and the person’s surroundings make them different from another individual’s upbringing. Next, another broader theme of anthropology is change. Cultural anthropologist don’t just look at a person’s daily life they want to know all the history and how a person’s culture and history of their life make a person himself. They are interested in dissecting the parts of your life like holidays and how you spend them when you were a child versus how you decide to spend them now. Cultural anthropologists want to know how your practices , views and beliefs are changing over the years.  They also want to know why they have changed if they do , was there a big event that made you look at your beliefs and say this is all wrong and that I don’t want to practice these beliefs anymore. Also a broad theme of anthropology is language. Cultural anthropologists study language and when I think of language I thought of the different types. But while reading my article I learned that cultural anthropologist don’t just study verbal language but they also study non-verbal language and call systems. They also study how language changes over time and how the evolving language system is. Words are constantly being made and changed over the years and they want to know how they can affect a person’s beliefs as well. 

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Websites I used 

https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1209/what-is-cultural-anthropology.htm