Through this assignment I learned a lot not just about beauty pageants but also about anthropology. We talked in the beginning of the year about how it is important to use your “cultural lenses” when researching a culture that is different from your own.
In the beginning of the assignment I thought that by trying to see beauty pageants from a nonbiased standpoint that I would be able to learn and understand the culture. After the first set of blogs were due I still didn’t understand the culture or why anyone would want to portake in it. After talking with someone who actually is part of this world I changed my feelings about it completely.
In order to understand the way a culture works you have to get a glimpse of it fist-hand. In our book discussion about Silence on the Mountain I talked about how Wilkinson’s ideas about the Guatamalan culture changes dramatically after he visits the home of the family living in poverty. After actually seeing people who live like this he is able to put a face to the culture and sees the people he is researching as actual people and not subjects for one of the first times.
Although it was not on nearly as large of a scale, this is kind of what happened when I talked to my friend. Up until then I had looked at beauty pageant contestants as the same made-up faces after another but after talking to an actual person instead of adhearing to the stereotype I was able to see pageants from a different perspective and realized that they are more connected to my life then I thought.
I am really glad that we were given this assignment because it helped me learn what a true anthropologist has to do in order to learn about the world around them.