The Traditions of Anthro
This semester we've talked about many different kinds of societies and practices. But, many of these are almost unheard of in the current world.
People who live by foraging or traditional forms of gardening alone are virtually extinct, pushed into areas to marginal or environmentally hostile to be of interest to others. Many remain that depend partially on these practices also have cell phones, and spend their spare time on TikToc.
So, what do we, as anthropologists do... and have you all just wasted a semester studying things that don't really exist?
Next: Anthropology today
There are a small number of groups in the world who live in total or almost total isolation from the outside. The people we call the Sentinelese are an example. They live on North Sentinel Island in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. They have made it clear that they want no contact with the outside and the Indian Government (which controls the islands) forbids outsiders from visiting. Other groups in isolated parts of the Amazon and some other places flee from contact with outsiders and we know little of them. But these are truly the exceptions, representing, in total, perhaps 10,000 individuals out of the 8,000,000,000 on the planet today.