People can be bought together or separated by many different economic factors. Common groups such as the belief in the same God or by gender can relate to one another better than those with the opposite view. Elements in our life such as weather, natural resources and historical events shape the way our society runs. People adapt to the environment in which they are placed in. If you or I were from America and then later moved overseas to China, we would want to evolve ourselves and our ideas in order to fit in with their cultural.
By learning the ideas and shared behaviors between a group and subgroup of people we can start to see why what we think is funny or weird, is actually normal and comfortable to this group of people. Symbols, hand gestures and facial expressions all play very important roles in culture besides the main one, which is of course language. Something as simple as a smile could be strange to a person who was born into a culture completely different from what we know. Anthropologist today, study the reason and meaning behind the behavior different races, social class, genders and even age groups form.
Fieldwork is the term for what anthropologist call observing a culture through direct observation. This study is done anywhere that people and culture are found. The best way to really understand a person's cultural differences is it be a participant observer. Observation were one would actually live either with the person or within their community is the quickest way to see "through their eyes" and even learn their language. First source is ten times better than stories told through a secondhand perspective.
After observing and speaking directly to the person of the culture it is important to gather your data and begin to analysis your information. Data, such as what the people enjoyed eating, how many family members lived in one house, education etc. are categories that would be important to collect. Comparing the difference between how many people Americans feed in their homes with the number a sub culture house hold members may feed after compared, can come out to quite a shock or maybe findings of similarity as well.
Habitus, known as the cultural position that one occupies, is what I would call our comfort zone. Comfort Zones are like the wall we place around ourselves to protect the way we walk, talk and the everyday rituals we do in our personal lives. We like to keep our values and norms in check and those who try to knock down our walls be come off as rude and sometimes for one culture to another disrespect can happen. Respecting others culture is important, no matter how small or large scale the people in that group may be.
