Beneficiaries of Anthropological Research: Groups Funding The Research
by Anthropology is a discipline devoted to all aspects of the human interaction and human life. It is a quickly expanding field that involves a great amount of research and investigation into cultures other than our own; research is arguably the most important aspect of anthropology. In my mind, the purpose of anthropological research is to gain knowledge and understanding of other societies. This knowledge can then be used to build a more harmonious and understanding network of cultures. So why should the benefactors only be one or two groups of people? Anthropological research should be used to benefit everyone; the individual anthropologist conducting the research, the group funding or supporting the research, the society being investigated and the rest of the people throughout the world should benefit from the conduction of anthropological research.
The group funding the anthropologist’s research should benefit and gain knowledge from the research because they are contributing money. If you pay for car repairs, you expect the mechanic to fix the car and the car to work properly. If the mechanic does not use the money to repair the car well, he is essentially stealing your money. In this analogy, you are the group funding the research and the mechanic is the individual anthropologist that you are funding. You pay the anthropologist to conduct good research, just as you pay a mechanic to repair your vehicle. If the anthropologist harms the group that they are studying or they do not report truthful information, they are essentially stealing your money because they are not using your funds in a constructive way. If a group is supporting the research financially, this is sufficient reason for the group to benefit from the research; the group is essentially paying for knowledge, so the anthropologist should provide it.
Everyone involved in anthropological research should benefit from the research in some way, but so should everyone else in the world. The purpose of anthropological research is to study unfamiliar societies and cultures, and in a world full of judgment and prejudice, we need to spread this information. If information about foreign cultures is distributed to people throughout the world, everyone can take a step towards understanding and accepting other cultures. More understanding and less prejudice benefits every person in the world, and therefore, so does anthropological research.
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