ABSTRACT
Anthropologists, the scientists who study human similarities and differences, call these differences in belief and behavior culture. As economic, political, and environmental processes bring into contact people who operate according to different common senses, cultural misunderstandings occur. Culture, then, is this learned system of meanings through which people orient themselves in the world so that they can act in it. Culture can therefore be said to be symbolic, shared, learned, and adaptive. Cultural practices refers to the everyday actions through which people in a particular community get through their day. The easiest way to imagine culture is to imagine a people living within a geographically defined area and sharing a common language, a common worldview, and a common repertoire of cultural logics and practices. Perhaps the most controversial—and misunderstood—aspect of the anthropological perspective is the notion of relativism.
