Meg's Anthropology Portfolio

  https://megsbaaportfolio.blogspot.com Natural History Museum Portfolio Project  The Blue Morpho- Morpho menelaus (Ecuador) - Authors own picture sourced from Natural History Museum, Oxford .  These butterflies typically are found within South America and in the Amazon rainforest. These beautiful creatures are at threat from factors such as deforestation and habitat fragmentation, which can come from roads being implemented which breaks up the natural areas.  (Lewis. R, 2016) Is this butterfly really the blue colour we can see?  To our eyes, we can see a beautiful shade of aquamarine blue but is this really the case? The answer is no, this butterfly is actually producing something known as structural colour. What this means is that it the colour we are seeing is not actually the colour of the butterfly but rather a structure that reflects wavelengths of light, which allows us to see the blue wings. This is because in nature, blue is a very rare colour to come...

 https://megsbaaportfolio.blogspot.com  Critical Feedback for Essay C: " What are the advantages of the concept of 'relatedness' over that of 'kinship'?" Essay C on the whole was a well-written essay with many references to different approaches to the advantages of the concept of ‘relatedness’ over that of ‘kinship’. However, the essay does lack the detail of critical judgement which could have been achieved. For example, in the main body paragraph 1, line starting “Many anthropologists…”, this paragraph has good ideas but the lacked the depth it could have gone into. This paragraph could have had more detail about why David Schneider (1984) thought that fictive kin carried these negative connotations. In addition, in paragraph 2, there could have been an example given which supports the judgement that conducting fieldwork through the lens of traditional kinship studies lacks certain acknowledgments, as by giving this example it creates a stronger and more con...

 https://megsbaaportfolio.blogspot.com The argument presented within Alice Streets article, ‘Failed Recipients: Extracting Blood in a Papa New Guinean Hospital’ and the types of data produced by the methods they use: Within the article ‘Failed Recipients: Extracting Blood in a Papa New Guinean Hospital’ written by Alice Street, it explores how kinship plays a crucial role in their access to healthcare and how it’s a necessity. The argument that arises from this article is how important kinship actually is as it’s within the healthcare system as the hospital rules states that it is expected for a patient to bring a ‘ wasman’  which is a member of the kin to help/ assist the patient for their duration in hospital. As well as this, the patient will have their kin travel to visit them as they believe they are more likely to survive with their support in person rather than doing it alone. The blood they receive will often try to come from someone in their ‘ wantok’ , which is someo...

 https://megsbaaportfolio.blogspot.com Introduction to Essay C : "What are the advantages of the concept of 'relatedness' over that of 'kinship'?" This essay will explore the differences within the concepts of relatedness and kinship and whether relatedness holds advantages over that of kinship. The concept of relatedness can be said to have more advantages than that of kinship. This is because the idea of kinship, under traditional American kinship, is rather assumptious that all societies view kinship in the same way as Western countries do, which means that when exploring the different societies, this can create a narrowmindedness. On the other hand, the idea of relatedness (Carsten J, 1995) developed on the criticisms of Schneider (Schneider, 1984) who also believed that Radcliffe-Brown’s (Radcliffe- Brown A.R, 1952) idea of traditional kinship was narrowing his findings, allowed for the idea that kinships can be complex, and this is then when the idea of ...

 https://megsbaaportfolio.blogspot.com How can we define the discipline of Anthropology?   🌍 The discipline of Anthropology can be defined as the study of humankind and what it truly means to be a part of this group known as homo sapiens (Smith E. et al. 2023) and how we evolved to get to this point in existence. More deeply, what the discipline of anthropology means is not only to explore what it means for us to be humans , but to explore these traits and how we can use this knowledge from investigations to make the world a more inclusive and connected society  for us to live and evolve in.  Amongst my travels in the city of Dubrovnik, there was an abandoned room on the side of the street and in  this room was a painting of a set of hands holding a bunch of daffodils .  For me, this symbolised hope and  showed how amongst something chaotic or challenging, there is always the hope of a new beginning and evolvement .  This can be compared to t...