The Anthropologist Film Analysis Essay Example

After watching “The Anthropologist” and seeing how the anthropologist in this film prepare their work, I was quite surprised and learned so much of how they go about their jobs. One thing that I found interesting was the similarities between Margaret Mead and Susie Crate even after all the years that passed before Crate became an anthropologist. Both had very similar styles when it came to immersing themselves in whatever culture they were doing research for, which I found very interesting. While Mead and Crate both studied different things when it came to anthropology, the approach they took with asking the locals about their research and studying what was going on around them was a unique and similar approach they both took.  

I found the work that Susie Crate was doing very interesting because climate change is an even bigger topic today than when the film was first released. Crate goes about her work in a first-person view, she goes out into the field and wants to see the change firsthand. Susie crate going to countries and getting the locals views on how things have changed over the years instead of just reading charts, maps, or just looking at pictures is what makes her approach so unique. Crate wants to learn everything from the locals no matter how big or small, she wants to know every change and make sure their voice will be heard. I believe that Susie Crate going about her research this way is the most powerful and impactful way she can go about it. 

As the film goes on you start to notice a common theme among the different countries when it comes to climate change, they are all having to adapt their way of life. Susie and Katie learn after talking to all the locals from around the world that the common theme these people are going through is that their future is different from their past, not only in how their way of life has changed, but also how their land has started to change. I thought the two most eye-opening examples of this came from the people in Sakha and how their land is becoming one giant lake as the permafrost melts and how the Islands of Kiribati have started to retreat into the ocean. Each of these countries share many similarities, but some also experience differences and more hardships than others. 

After watching the film, I noticed that a lot of these countries are going through similarities when it comes to climate change. One of these similarities being crops that have been used on these countries for decades are no longer a viable option because of the flooding that climate change has caused. The best example of this is how the Sakha people in Northern Siberia can no longer grow hay because the permafrost melting has turned their fields into one giant lake, the same thing happened to the people on the Islands of Kiribati when their coconut farms were overrun from saltwater from the rising sea levels causing the coconut trees to die. Differences also exist among the different countries when it comes to climate change, and some of these differences are a matter of losing everything from your culture. The biggest difference to me that I saw from the film were how some of these countries might lose their land completely and this difference is shown among the people on the Islands of Kiribati as compared to the people of Huaraz, Peru. The people that live on the Islands of Kiribati are limited as to what they can change because there is only so much they can do about the rising sea water levels compared to the people of Huaraz, Peru who have learned to adapt from climate change, but they also don’t have to worry about their land being swept out to sea. The people of Huaraz, Peru are losing their glacier and temperatures have caused them to learn new ways to make crops grow and while a lot of the old crops they used to grow have changed, they have adapted new ways and new methods to overcome these challenges, something the People on the Kiribati Islands don’t have the luxury of doing.

This film had so many different cultures that covered many different regions, but the one that I found to be most interesting were the people of Huaraz, Peru. I found the people of Huaraz, Peru most interesting because of how they are adapting to the climate change even if it means changing their everyday life and culture. The climate change has caused the glacier to melt which is their primary source of water and the increase in temperatures within the region has caused them to start planting certain crops higher in elevation to combat against the climate change. The most interesting fact about them though is how they adapted and built a trout farm to replace proteins in their diets that they have lost from certain crops that can no longer be grown. I found this interesting because this is how cultures survive by doing something drastic like this and while it may not be how their culture looked fifty years ago, but by them doing this it makes sure that they still have a culture fifty years from now. The people of Huaraz are doing everything they can to adapt even if it was not in their culture previously, and by them doing this it will lead them to having new traditions to pass down and because they are changing their thinking, they are able to pass those traditions down to different generations instead of becoming a culture that once existed.