something I wish I understood in high school / college when studying world cultures / history (or playing Civilization for that matter) is that
approaching the "content" of another culture/group from a relativist perspective isn't enough — you're still projecting your own cultural *structure* onto everyone else. it's no good to say "everyone's scriptures are valid in their own context" if you're still assuming scripture everywhere is basically the same *kind* of thing, filling similar roles in similar ways to generic protestant christianity (that doesn't even work for catholics!)
@pastelbat it's not a field I'm super invested in / aware of; I'm pretty sure this is something mainstream anthropology is addressing to some hopefully some degree of success?
advice like "listen to people explaining their own culture!" helps but isn't enough if you aren't aware of the kinds of assumptions you're making. What I've found helpful for me is listening to (& ideally being in actual dialogue with) people who not only are from that culture/context/framework, but who also have been through — academia isn't quite right, but who can also talk in terms of queer theory or poststructuralism or the other heavy-duty, ultra-precise ways of talking about subtle ideas in ways that I'm familiar with? and understand what I/we are likely to *mis*understand