Applying Anthropology: Who Identifies the Needs of Locals?

Applied Anthropology is distinct from the academic or theoretical side of the discipline. Through the use of anthropological data, theory, and methods to identify, assess, and solve contemporary problems involving HUMAN BEHAVIOR and social and cultural forces, conditions and contexts. The ethnographic method is an invaluable tools for learning and studying the local firsthand. So who should identify the needs of the local people? Is it the ethnographer, the scientist, who returns home after fieldwork? Or the cultural consultants, the insiders, the locals themselves?

Here's an example of a local from the South Bronx determining development needs for her community. Applied anthropology empowers local people to fulfill their own needs.

Talks Majora Carter: Greening the ghetto