The Application of Anthropological Knowledge and Methods !

Most anthropologists carry out research and teach about what they have learned.  They are employed by universities, colleges, and museums.  However, a third of all anthropologists use this knowledge and methodology of problem solving for practical purposes in corporations, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, medical institutions, and other non-academic settings.  They are applied anthropologists.  It is likely that there will be continued growth in the number of these non-academic jobs.

Some applied cultural anthropologists work as researchers, administrators, implementers, or mediators in major corporations.  They help the companies understand and deal more efficiently with employees and customers from diverse cultures and subcultures.  There have even been anthropologists working in the White House and U.S. Congress studying the overall operations and personal interactions.  In recent years, some cultural anthropologists have worked for the U.S. military and NATO in Afghanistan to help them better understand the cultural realities of the peoples of that region.  A few cultural anthropologists have been hired by Native American tribes and other indigenous groups to help them with community development and to advise them in their interactions with the outside world.

Many archaeologists in the United States and some other countries apply their skills in cultural resource management specialist jobs.  They are employed by the National Park and Forest Services, the U.S. military, and other government agencies as well as private companies to prevent or mitigate the destruction of archaeological sites and other important cultural resources.  They record the locations of unknown archaeological sites and carry out sample excavations to determine their cultural significance and to recommend measures for preservation or further study before they are destroyed by construction projects.


Forensic anthropologists are employed around the world principally by police, courts, and international organizations to identify murder and disaster victims.  They do this mostly from skeletal remains and DNA.  Forensic anthropologists also work for the U.S. military to recover and identify the remains of soldiers.
 

Medical anthropologists learn about cultural differences in explaining what causes illness and what people from different cultures believe is acceptable as treatment.  The germ theory and the idea that illness is not due to supernatural causes are widely accepted by educated people in the Western World and areas that have adopted our medical system.  However, much of the rest of the world has very different explanations.  Medical anthropologists can help doctors and nurses understand how to better communicate with and treat patients who hold these other explanations.  Medical anthropologists also are interested in the epidemiology of illnesses--that is their causes and how they can be cured or controlled.

Some cultural anthropologists work with indigenous peoples in out of the way parts of the globe, such as the Amazon Basin, in order to discover unknown plants and their uses.  These researchers are ethnobotanists.Some of them concentrate on finding new potential medicines from among the plants used by these peoples.