Читать книгу Anthropology For Dummies - Cameron M. Smith - Страница 65

An etic perspective focuses on the observer being an objective scientist capable of seeing patterns that even a native of the culture at hand may be unaware of. Anyone who has had the experience of someone telling you how you’re behaving — even if you can’t see it yourself — recognizes the benefit of this perspective. Here, an analysis of the hunter’s movement across the landscape might focus on the map derived from a satellite image.

Keep in mind that, increasingly, the emic/etic boundaries are blurred in anthropological works authored by people of the culture they’re studying. They apply the “distance” of the scientific perspective to the culture they’re studying but add their own, internal perspectives as well. This leads to debate about just how “etic” one can be about one’s own culture!