Chapter Overview

Is anthropology useful? Should it play a public service role? Anthropology can indeed be "applied"--used to identify and solve social problems. Applied anthropologists work for governments, agencies, and businesses. One applied anthropology goal is to identify needs for change that local people perceive. A second is to work with such people to design culturally appropriate change. A third is to protect local people from harmful policies, including destructive development schemes.

Among the domains of applied anthropology are educational, urban, medical, and business anthropology. These domains have theoretical as well as applied dimensions. Educational anthropologists work in classrooms, homes, neighborhoods, and other settings relevant to education. Urban anthropologists study problems and policies involving city life and urbanization. Medical anthropologists study disease and health-care systems cross-culturally. Although modern Western medicine has a scientific basis, it is also a cultural system, with many elements based on arbitrary custom rather than science.

For business, key aspects of anthropology include ethnography and observation as ways of gathering data, cross-cultural expertise, and a focus on cultural diversity. Anthropology's comparative outlook, long-standing Third World focus, and cultural relativism offer background for overseas work. A focus on culture and diversity is also valuable for work in North America.