Social & Cultural Anthropology

The book I read to research this post was Social & Cultural Anthropology A Very Short Introduction by John Monaghan which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book looks at various cultures and contrasts them and looks at what they have in common. In particular they try to look at a culture for what it is and not pass judgement on whether it's better or worse than another. In a lot of cultures we have seen a kind of westernisation as they have often converted to either islam or christianity and members have tried to get jobs and get modern luxuries. In many places we have seen the laying on of electricity and water supplies etc. One group in particular they study is a group in Indonesia who are quite close knit and have refused to be inducted into this westernisation mostly. They don't have utilities like electricity and stick with their religion and laws. They live in teak houses on stilts in a remote part of Bali & view our culture with great suspicion. Some members have converted to christianity and islam and got jobs but are seen as outcasts. They have their own laws and traditions and their own kind of medicine. The witch doctors sort a lot of their problems out. There was one case where one man threatened a lady because she was betrothed to someone else and she falsely accused him of hitting her and although everyone knew he hadn't he was fined and forced to beg her forgiveness to keep with tradition. He had broken their etiquette in a very serious way. In many cultures there has also been problems with western diseases and even enslavement as they have been integrated with the west as well.