Practicum Exercise #5

Understanding Your Impact: The Social Change Exercise

Refer to appropriate Briller chapter and exercise for detailed instructions. Follow the template
to organize your response.

TYPE responses.
UPLOAD one copy to BBLearn; bring a hard or e-copy to class to workshop.
SAVE an e-copy. You will be turning in a revised copy as part of your Final
Project.

I. Define the following terms in your owns words.

Activism is: Actions done for the sake of making political or social changes.

Activism means to me: Putting in the effort to see the changes you believe in.

An example of activism would be: Protests, marches, boycotting, and legitimate and
practical attempts in making actual contact with ones government to enact change
through official channels.

Social justice is: The equal and fair distribution of privileges, rights, and resources
within a society.

Social justice means to me: Conditions and systems that should be commonplace
within a society, but due to varying circumstances, rarely are.

An example of social justice would be: An expansion of equity or diversity through

laws or social systems that open opportunities to all groups within a society, such as
dealing with economic disparity between classes within any given community.

II. Identify two issues that are highly meaningful to you as causes that need to be addressed.
Follow the prompts below to illustrate your thoughts on these issues.

Issue 1
Name of issue: The class and economic disparity in Mexico and other Central
and South American countries also.
Your current professional and/or personal involvement with this issue: None
currently.
Your ideal future professional and/or personal involvement with this issue: In hopes
of being a medical anthropologist, Im sure there would be some level of
medical/mental/social issue that could be studied as such in relation to this.
 Otherwise, any amount of activism to help combat the complete lack of a middle
class and then attempt to tighten the gaps between the Mexican lower and upper
classes would be a goal, acknowledging the risks.
Training you need to reach that level and kind of future involvement: A doctorate for
the professional half, and an abundance of time and resources for the personal
aspect.
How anthropology can contribute to resolving this issue: Much in the same way that
anthropological studies have brought to light the truths surrounding multiple
other instances of disparities throughout the world, the same could be done in
this instance as well to some notable degree.

Issue 2
Name of issue: National water crises (i.e., areas like Flint, Michigan and various
other areas in the country that have been denied access to clean water.
Your current professional and/or personal involvement with this issue: None
currently.
Your ideal future professional and/or personal involvement with this issue:
Considering the potential long-term effects that being without clean water will
no doubt have on the citizens affected, a medical anthropologist would seem like
a necessary addition to a group that is attempting to aid and research the
situation.
Training you need to reach that level and kind of future involvement: I would
imagine that work with an issue that large would require one to earn a doctorate
in their field at the very least.
How anthropology can contribute to resolving this issue: While a multitude of
factors could potentially come into play with an issue such as this, at its most
basic aspects, ethnographic research in order to better contextualize the issue for
other anthropologists and schools of study in general would no doubt be an aid
of major importance.