Spotlight on Students: Cultural Relativism vs. Ethnocentrism

 This post highlights the work required of my SA 202: Introduction to Anthropology students. Students were given the opportunity to explore a different culture through two lenses, cultural relativism and ethnocentrism, and through this exercise learn about themselves and the other culture. Several students were given the opportunity to have their exemplary work featured on the blog, and the students who provided permission have their work featured here in this and the following blog posts. Please show your appreciation for their work through the comments.

Scene from the Real Housewives of Orange County where the cast makes voodoo dolls.

By: Rhian Meredith 

Culture is made up of many different aspects. One of the aspects that contribute to a culture is religion and religious practices. Every culture deals with religion differently and practices in their own unique ways. An example of a culture’s religious practice is discussed in an episode of the television series, The Real Housewives of Orange County. In the episode titled “What Voodoo You Do?” the group of women the show follows go to New Orleans, exploring its culture. One of the women, Gina Kirschenheiter, takes the group to a “Voodoo bar,” where the women are going to make voodoo dolls (“What Voodoo You Do?”). When the owner of the shop tells the women that the creation and usage of the voodoo doll is not harmful, Gina believes the owner and is intrigued (“What Voodoo You Do?”). Other women of the group do not believe this and react negatively (“What Voodoo You Do?”). In this essay, the women’s reactions, whether ethnocentric or culturally relativistic, will be further evaluated as well as my personal thoughts and reactions.

People learn and become most familiar with their own cultures, and when confronted by another culture, particularly one that is different from their own, will experience a variety of feelings and emotions. These experiences can often be classified as ethnocentrism or cultural relativism. Ethnocentrism simply means “judging or understanding cultural beliefs from the perspective of your own” (Cherry). In other words, a person believing that only their way is right, ignorant to any other way, is ethnocentric. The opposite of that is cultural relativism. This concept proclaims that “all cultures have their own beliefs and that there is no universal or absolute standard to judge those cultural norms” (Cherry). In other words, a person acknowledging the reasons a different culture does something is culturally relativistic. The latter of the two is the preferred reaction for people to have. While cultural relativism is preferred, it is not always portrayed. In the episode with the women in New Orleans, both reactions occur from different women.

Ethnocentrism is portrayed by a few women in this episode. The shop owner tells the women that the practice of the voodoo doll is not evil, and some of the women disagree (“What Voodoo You Do?”). Tamara Judge expresses her strong concern by saying, “It’s like inviting the Devil in or something”. Shannon Beador, another castmate, agrees with Tamara. A different castmate, Gretchen Rossi, also does not approve of the situation when she says, “As far as I know voodoo is like woodoo. Like woo woo woo. I don’t like voodoo-woo". Those three in agreement leave the shop and do not partake in creating the voodoo dolls. Then, they all proceed to talk about the ladies who stay, expressing their negative thoughts. Tamara even mentions that the women still there would become “possessed”. These women have a negative reaction to this part of New Orleans culture. Instead of recognizing the nonevil practice of the voodoo doll, they let their assumptions obscure their judgment. They judge from their perspective without considering the other cultures’ reasoning, which is a prime example of ethnocentrism.

As evident as ethnocentrism is in this episode, so is cultural relativism. Some of the women in the shop react in a culturally relativistic way. For instance, Gina listens to the owner of the shop. She hears what they have to say and continues to pursue learning about their culture. Gina participates in the practice of the voodoo doll to experience a part of the New Orleans culture (“What Voodoo You Do?”). She expresses how she feels when she says, “Most people think that it is like, evil spirits and dark. But there is this whole other side to it that is powerful and about manifestation, and really positive”. The other women that stay in the shop with her feel the same way. They have an open mind, willing to listen and learn about the different practices of this new culture. They believe in the positive parts of the creation of the voodoo doll and continue to create them. They are a great example of cultural relativism.

While both ways of viewing cultures are present in this episode, I relate to each of them when viewing the practice of this culture. When I first read the scenario of the episode being evaluated, I had an ethnocentric reaction. I do not participate in any craft or practice that is not my religion, and I do not wish to dabble in any others. That being said, I was immediately skeptical of the creation and usage of the voodoo dolls. What Tamara said about the invitation to the Devil resonated with me, because I also do not want to invite the Devil into my life. Even so, that does not mean that the voodoo dolls will necessarily do that. For practitioners of vodou, the dolls are not harmful, nor are they evil. Despite my immediate reaction, once I read the entire scenario and considered the other culture, I changed my perspective to be culturally relativistic. They have their beliefs just as I do, and there is nothing wrong with them practicing those beliefs. The episode “What Voodoo You Do?” in the television series The Real Housewives of Orange County, touches on two of the aspects of culture, religion and people. The ethnocentrism and cultural relativism present in the episode and in my reactions have been thoroughly evaluated.

Works Cited

Cherry, Kendra. "Understanding Cultural Relativism and Its Importance." Verywell Mind, edited by Akeem Marsh, People Inc, 24 Oct. 2025, www.verywellmind.com/understanding-cultural-relativism-7549709. Accessed 26 Jan. 2026.

“What Voodoo You Do?” Real Housewives of Orange County, Bravo, 14 Aug. 2025.

The Lady and The Goose: World’s Earliest Human-Animal Interaction Figurine

 

Figure 1: Late Natufian figurine of a woman and a goose (Source: Davin et al., 2025)

 

Archaeological work is often likened to a treasure hunt.  Archaeologists methodically locate sites of human occupation or interaction, but they do not necessarily know what they will discover upon taking trowel to the ground and carefully peeling away the layers of soil.  While every artifact tells a story sometimes an artifact is discovered that shakes the bedrock of what we currently know or do not yet know about the group under study.  Today’s blog post will address one such discovery in Israel.

 

Scholars at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem announced in November 2025 the discovery of the 1.5 inch figurine that depicts a naked woman with a living goose draped over her shoulders (Figure 1).  This figurine is the earliest depiction of a human-animal interaction, and it also holds the title of the earliest realistic illustration of a woman ever found within southwest Asian contexts. 

 

These in and of themselves are pretty remarkable, but this tiny figurine also provides additional insights into early life in southwest Asia.  First, the figurine is 12,000 years old, having been found at a Late Natufian village site.  This period is characterized as one of transition from nomadic foraging to sedentary, early agriculture lifeways, wherein various other social, economic, and political changes were underway.  The complexity of this figurine, made from local clays and fired at high temperatures, also demonstrates that the maker had extensive knowledge of how to successfully create ceramics.  A fingerprint on the figurine also gives insights into who this maker was: they were either a adolescent or young adult female. 

 

The figurine was discovered in a semi-circular structure wherein burials and ritual objects were present.  It is known from other aspects of the site that geese were consumed for their meat, but their feathers and bones were used for decoration.  The illustration of a woman and a goose found within these specific contexts suggests that the purpose of this drawing may have been either ritual or mythological.  While the specific meaning of the illustration is unknown it is clear that this shows that the Late Natufian people were very creative and understood and created symbolic art, allowing scholars to better understand the transition from foraging to sedentary lifeways in the region.

 

References

Archaeology Magazine. (2025, November 18). 12,000-Year-Old Figurine Uncovered in Northern Israel. Archaeology Magazine.

Davin, L., Munro, N. D., & Grosman, L. (2025). A 12,000-year-old clay figurine of a woman and a goose marks symbolic innovations in Southwest Asia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122(47), e2517509122.

Steinmeyer, N. (2025, November 24). The Woman and the Goose. Retrieved from Bibliocal Archaeological Society: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-israel/the-woman-and-the-goose/

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. (2025, November 17). The woman and the goose: a 12,000-year-old glimpse into prehistoric belief. Retrieved from Eureka Alert! AAAS: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1105939

Reclaiming Their Power: The Role of the Kaya Basa (Sad Songs) Among Wanano/Kotiria Women of the Amazon

In patriarchal societies women are set up to have less power and control of their lives compared to men.  This often leaves women powerless in various ways, particularly when it comes to making individual decisions for themselves and their children.  This is problematic if and when women have no recourse in regaining control, no matter how small that control is.  Today’s blog post will explore these situations among the Wanano/Kotira of the Northwestern Amazon and how women have been able to regain some power.

 

The Wanano/Kotira of the Northwestern Amazon are made up of 15,000 individuals who speak languages within the Tukanoan language family.  These groups are linguistically exogamous, which means men and women marry spouses who do not speak their same language.  They are also patrilocal, meaning women leave their natal (birth) home/village and move into their husband’s home/village.  This produces a situation wherein men are interrelated and know each other, whereas women do not know others and are considered outsiders.

 

Among the Wanano/Kotira groups men maintain political and creative power and control, but women have reproductive and food production power and control.  Women are valued by the number of children they birth and raise, and their value also comes in the form of the manioc they produce.  Women grow, harvest, and handle the manioc, which is important because mishandling manioc can lead to poisoning others (due to poor handling).  These defining masculine and feminine roles can be viewed either as complimentary or competitively.  In either case there is stress felt by both men and women as they maintain their specific family and community roles.

 

Adding to the tension is the fact that while women are responsible for raising their children the children are expected to learn and speak their father’s language, not their mother’s.  Ultimately, children will often learn both their father’s and mother’s languages, but the children must speak their father’s language in public.  It is forbidden to speak their mother’s language.  This fosters isolation among women, who are outsiders and often cannot and do not speak their husband’s language (even if they do know it). 

 

To deal with these tensions men and women participate in po’oa rituals, which are drinking parties and exchange rituals.  Men and women come together to share beer as well as food (game, fish, and manioc).  During the po’oa ritual women will sing “sad songs” known as kaya basa.  It is during these performances that women are able to reclaim some control and power.  Singing in their native language these women will lament their loneliness, describing how it feels to be an outsider in the village.  The women will often describe themselves in demeaning ways by stating they are ugly, small, or similar to insects.  All of these evoke images and feelings concerning their isolation and outsider status.  Women who speak the same language will be drawn to each other and connect on these shared emotional states. 

 

These events are not just about expressing sadness, however.  They also enable the women to vent their frustrations about political matters that they observe and have strong opinions about.  The men cannot acknowledge they understand the women’s words (assuming they learned the language the women are speaking), but they can hear them.  As men are not allowed to voice their concerns about political matters they can use the women’s words to understand the complexities of the issues from different perspectives.  They can then choose to act based on those concerns or not.

 

On the outside it appears that these women have no power, and ultimately while they have no political power they can yield what they do have to express their feelings and frustrations.  The po’oa ceremonies allow the women to vent their frustrations, and if the men are understanding and listening to their words then some changes may be made, providing them some subversive control in an otherwise powerless situation.

 

Works Cited 

Chernela, Janet M. "Language ideology and women's speech: Talking community in the Northwest Amazon." American Anthropologist 105.4 (2003): 794-806.

Hosemann, Aimee J. "Women’s song exchanges in the Northwest Amazon: Contacts between groups, languages, and individuals." Upper Rio Negro: Cultural and Linguistic Interaction in Northwestern Amazonia (2013): 245-270. 

Hosemann, Aimee J. "Wanano/Kotiria women’s kaya basa ‘sad songs’ as borders between sexes and discourse genres." Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Symposium about Language and Society-Austin. 2015.

 

Tracing the Origins of the Venus of Willendorf

 

Figure 1: Venus of Willendorf (Source: Weber et al. 2022)

 

Throughout Europe, between modern day France and Russia, there have been a series of unique female idol figurines discovered.  Known as the Venus figurines these artifacts depict women in various forms, with some being thin, others obese, and most with exaggerated sexual characteristics. Most of these figurines were created out of bone or ivory, while a few were manufactured from stone.  There is only one, however, created from oolite, a porous stone: the Venus of Willendorf (Figure 1). 

 

Discovered in 1908 in Austria the Venus of Willendorf has always confused scholars for various reasons.  One of the questions raised by scholars was where the oolite stone used in her manufacture came from.  Oolite stone is not local to the Austrian area where she was discovered.  Today’s blog post will discuss the study that discovered the answer to this question, as well as address the additional questions that have come about from answering this question.

 

The Venus of Willendorf is a 30,000 year old artifact associated with the Gravettian cultural groups.   While the Venus of Willendorf represents one of many Venus figurines this particular 11-centimeter artifact is unique in and of itself.  It depicts an adult female with various exaggerated features, including enlarged genitalia, thighs, and breasts; bulging stomach; and an elaborate headdress or hairdo.  She is also faceless, which is typical of many Venus figurines.  She is also the only Venus figurine created from oolite stone.  When one considers that this type of stone is not local to the area where she was discovered it adds additional mystery to her origins.

 

At least that was the case until scholars out of the University of Vienna employed high-resolution tomographic imagery to examine the internal structure of the oolilte stone.  They were able to examine in great detail  this particular stone and compare it to other oolite stones across Europe.  They graded the porosity and sedimentary elements of this oolite stone, and they found a near perfect match.  Or at least strong evidence for them to claim with near absolute certainty that the oolite stone used in the creation of the Venus of Willendorf came from northern Italy.

 

This is the first evidence of contact between Gravettian people who were located in contemporary Italy and Austria, demonstrating there was a link between the Southern and Northern Alpine groups.  It is unclear how the groups were in contact with each other or what motivated that contact.  It is also unknown if the Venus of Willendorf was carved in Italy and traveled to Austria, or if the raw stone traveled to Austria where she was ultimately carved.

 

While this study answered one question it opened up several new ones, particularly concerning contact, trade, and migration patterns among Gravettian populations.  This will hopefully initiate greater study into these groups, leading to answers to these new questions as well additional insights into what life was like for Paleolithic groups.

 

Bibliography

University of Vienna. (2022, February 28). Origin of the 30,000-year-old Venus of Willendorf discovered. Phys.org.

Weber, G.W., Lukeneder, A., Harzhauser, M. et al. The microstructure and the origin of the Venus from Willendorf. Sci Rep 12, 2926 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06799-z