Anthropology in SIL

Anthropology in SIL focuses on providing resources for cooperative community participation, ethnographic investigation, and promotion of cultural awareness.

As we have sought to foster cooperative community participation and to promote cultural awareness, anthropology in SIL has developed three areas of specialization: ethnology, community development, and ethnomusicology. Our aim throughout is to ensure that the organization's output, its policies, and its personnel are as culturally sensitive as ongoing research permits.

Our ethnology focus aims at developing cultural awareness by providing training, investigating worldview diversity, and producing tools to assist research and data collection. Training is designed to encourage intra- and inter-cultural awareness and to develop practical field research skills. Our research in the field results in numerous publications. The LinguaLinks Anthropology Bookshelf is an example of a tool we have developed to assist field research. The International Museum of Cultures is one vehicle for promoting cultural awareness in the community where our headquarters are located.

Community development is the process of helping a community strengthen itself and develop towards its full potential. As facilitators, we work in partnership with local people and organizations to meet identified needs. We believe that literacy is a key component of sustainable development.

In ethnomusicology, SIL is concerned with research and documentation of musics around the world. We also seek to encourage musical creativity and to promote the use of indigenous music to meet contemporary needs within the society.