Nacirema Culture

Anthropology studies humanity, from its beginnings millions of years ago to the present day. Anthropologists use Comparative Method to analyze data about cultures to learn and explain patterns of similarity and difference. Culture is a system of leaving which includes ideas, beliefs, practices, and places. Cultures are learned and dynamic. Every culture in the universal has their own beliefs and behaviors that assumed to be natural, normal, and the best. This is called Ethnocentrism. When Ethnocentrism is too much it prevents us to understand other cultures. Miner’s explained Ethnocentrism in his “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” article. According to him, Nacirema people’s beliefs are widely based on magic and lots of the practices are actually demeaning to their well-being. He actually unclearly detailed American cultural biases, and he used these biases against them. Generally as people we become critical about other people cultures when we see ritual there are foreign for us and we become against to it. Yet in Nacirema it shows that even in our own culture there is some rituals that we are not use to that strike us as strange. We don’t understand our culture fully.

In the article worldview refers someone’s beliefs and culture and the way you look at the world. When I read the chapter I learned that the worldview of these two groups is very different. He has comfortable background and financial and cultural capital resources but people in Ixtepeji was facing poverty. People who live in Ixtepeli believe witches, but he wasn’t until he became more involved in their culture. He was able to have better insight to their worldviews after he encounters a skin irritation on his arm similar to the one that was supposedly caused by witchcraft.