Cultural Relativism.Cultural Anthropology gives three distinct meanings of cultural relativism: a moral stance that requires anthropologists to suspend moral and ethical judgments when interacting with a culture different from their own, a methodological strategy that allows the anthropologist to pay specific attention to the uniqueness of a culture, and an epistemological position that cultures are unique and therefore knowledge about different cultures is almost inherently not comparable. (Sec. 1.3).
In your forum contribution:
a. Discuss what you see as the strengths and weaknesses of each of these three kinds of relativism.
b. Identify one belief or practice in another culture that you find puzzling, strange, or troubling, and then discuss the extent that cultural relativism is a useful approach to understanding and interacting with the people who hold it.
c. Discuss the extent that cultural relativism would be a useful approach to understanding and interacting with people in your own society that did (or do) the same.
d. Explore the extent to which whether one is studying in one’s own country or in another makes a difference in the applicability of cultural relativism to one’s research.
Your initial response should be at least 150 words in length. Build on the ideas and terminology in the text and your own ideas to support your answers. Please support your claims with examples from the text, required and recommended material, and/or scholarly articles. Respond to at least two of your classmates’ posts by Day 7.
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