What can we learn from this very moment? What about now? That moment has now passed, and you will never experience it in the present again. Forever now, we can only see it through the lens of the past.

 

One popular spot to learn about anthropology in Vancouver is the Museum of Anthropology (MOA), where all of the artifacts displayed in our final product are to be held. Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll see. Till now not.

What is anthropology, and why is it important to where I live – BC, Canada

In other words.

How might we use an anthropological perspective to better understand the history of British Columbia?

Anthropology helps uncover how and why societies evolve, not just what happened. It reveals the values and resilience of communities like the Haida, Coast Salish, and Nisga’a. But history is often told through a European lens—focusing on settlement, industry, and land use—while Indigenous cultures, their histories, and their perspectives are overlooked. This is called an ethnocentric perspective. An unbiased, anthropological eye is needed to challenge these biases and recognize that British Columbia’s unbiased history is deeply rooted in its Indigenous nations.

Let’s do some Analyzing 🧐

I did some analysis for this project. For my criteria, which was changing very much over time, analysis of my artifact, and most anthropologically, analysis of culture.

Since the final product was to be made as a class, online, all visible under the same view, they needed to be similar and coherent.

For both these criteria to be met, our teacher took some initiative to make certain criteria points, and to change them as a project went on. The reason a teacher had so much control over a senior project, was because it was to be shared with the Museum of Anthropology, therefore it was to look as stunning as possible.

My analysis of the criteria was shown in my responsibility to always know what was expected of me. This has been a weak point of mine in many past projects, and I have been learning how to stay on top of it. One thing I find important to remember is, ‘no matter how stunning the a mountain is, if I am to paint a tree, the tree will be lost’.

In essence, this quote means no matter how hard I work, if I have the wrong goals and ideas in mind, I’m missing the point, and making a bad product.

That being said, I think I hit the criteria well and spot on. The learning tactic used most prominently for this was my teacher interaction. I was not afraid to clarify that I was on the right path. I made use of my ability to ask questions and take agency in my learning. 

The analysis of my artifact, as I will go deeper in my conclusion reflection, was not very hard. Finding resources and articles was a peice of cake, and finding relevant information was just as easy. Happy and easy.

Analysis of culture is an idea that we have been building on all of BCFP, and will continue to study for the rest of the course. It is such a broad idea, that covers so much of human behaviour and life as a whole that it won’t be summed into one short paragraph here.

In the context of this project, I analyzed much of Bill Reid’s life. How he grew up, lived and how his surroundings and past affected him. I go over more of Mr Reid’s life in my exhibit for the final product, but put simply, his maternal lineage is Haida, and as he grew up and transitioned his career into that of an artist, he connected back to his heritage, creating the portfolio of Indigenous art that he is now famous for.

Graphic by Kira B

The 4 main branches of anthropology include:

Biological Anthropology 🧬
  • The study of the evolution of human beings and their living and fossil relatives – Biological anthropologists look at physical developments in skeletal and genetic makeup and how they are interconnected with social and cultural behaviours over time – Ex. by studying primates and comparing them to humans now we can understand how humans have evolved.
Cultural Anthropology
  • Cultural anthropology is the study of learnt behaviour including language, belief systems, social structures and material goods – Cultural anthropologists base their work in ethnography which utilizes fieldwork, participation and observation to understand how different customs develop
Linguistic Anthropology
  • The study of how language influences social life and how it shapes societies, cultural beliefs and understanding of themselves – Linguistic anthropologists look at what people say as they engage in their daily life – Relies on participation and interviews with participants – Some anthropologists help document native languages that are on the brink of extinction
Archaeology
  • This is the study of the human past using material remains of objects of what people created, modified or used – Archaeologists examine objects and interpret the experiences, uses, and activities of others throughout history – This gives us a way to look into the past

What did we do in this project?

The goal for our end project was to create a resource, via a virtual museum, where visitors could learn about specific Indigenous groups within B.C. through the analysis of artifacts. Thus, we each selected an artifact from the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) and conducted an in-depth anthropological analysis.

I got lucky with my pick, as I chose an artifact with much to read about it. This was a result of past projects such as the ‘Me in Every Frame’ podcast, and ‘The Cold War in Retrograde’ project. I was not going to make the mistake of choosing a bad topic, and making my life harder than it needs to be this time round.

I chose ‘The Raven and the First Men‘ as my artifact. It is the opening piece of the MOA, as it would have much to easily read about, giving me plenty of information to make my final exhibit on.

Final product

Looking in the rearview mirror – Reflection

In the beginning of this project, I heard ‘anthropology’ and only thought about my future. I know I don’t want to study that, why should I care. Naive of me.

I think being a kid, now very focused on my future, I forgot to look in the present and embrace the moment. Even if right now I don’t want to study anthropology, I might from this very project fall in love with it, or at least enjoy it as a project in high school.

I think that having this let go of the future was necessary to learn. An open mind lets knowledge flow, not a closed one.

This is an important lesson I learned, especially from grades 9 and 10. In the frankenstuffies project, I learned the lesson to learn with an open mind, not for the teacher’s sake, as I had previously thought, but for my own sake. Criticizing what I’m learning may be important, but if that sacrifices my learning to begin with, I think that is the larger problem.

I had to work my butt off for that project, simply because of my laziness judgemental approach, and inability to allow myself to be taught.

This time around I am proud to have worked not only hard, but also smart.

I had a cogent level of understanding of the expectations on me, and what I wanted to do.

First attempts in learning

Missed learning and accountability

I missed 4 days of this project, meaning 2 classes, when I went to Outdoor School. Although that means only around 2 and a half hours of BCFP class time, it also contains 24 hours of non-BCFP school time and the related homework.

This was my second time going to outdoor school, and my second chance to show up and prove how good of a student I am by catching up on all my work. Again, same as last time I came up short on that.

This time, in BCFP‘s case, I got lucky, because I understood the task, and had ample time to make up what I‘d missed, what I missed during class didn‘t involve anything I wasn’t aware of, and no major concepts were added.

I had already made a small-scale version of the final product during an in-class activity, and I asked friends and the teacher to fill me in briefly on what we were doing and what missed.

 

In short,

I was well prepared to work on the final product, and I didn‘t miss anything major.

The reason I put this as a failure is that I didn’t go into tutorial at all, and wasn‘t sure of my security in the workload after I got back. I could‘ve had some confusing hand-in assignments that I wasn‘t aware of because I didn‘t take the time to know.

I was just lucky that there wasn‘t anything, and next time I may not be so lucky.

Another not-so-massive failure was my interactive element

I had procrastinated on this part for too long, and my plan for it would’ve taken more time than I had available. Similarly, I was spared by chance and was able to hand in what I thought to be a good interactive exhibit, but very low effort. I didn’t make anything, I simply copy and pasted someone else’s video, and wrote some description to it.

Had my teacher found this not good enough I would’ve been in even more of a pickle than I already was.

 

To conclude,

I practiced my analysis skills, learning about an example of a significant figure in modern indigenous representation. I learned about how anthropology is important, especially to the lands on which one lives. I’m glad, now as a Canadian, that I learned about how and why I care about the anthropological history.

Thank you