Let's Shift Paradigms: Examining Cultural Transmission and Reflexivity amongst Cultural Anthropologists

This two-part paper focuses on the intersection of philosophy and cultural anthropology theory. The first part of this essay argues the importance of Foucault’s idea of reflexivity in sociology and ethnography. In this same section, it will be argued that it is time for a paradigm shift (outside of the gentle push first introduced in the mid-1950s) towards reflexivity and the ‘self gaze’ in ethnographic research. The second part of this essay will hone in more narrowly on this paradigm shift, and how anthropological knowledge is shared between cultural anthropologists, with respect to this new concept of reflexivity.