- Strangers in a Familiar World
Anthropologists use the term ''culture
Shock" to describe the impact of a totally new culture upon a newcomer.in an extreme
instance such shock will be experienced by the Western explorer who is told ,halfway through dinner,that he is eating the nice old lady he had been chatting with the previous day .Most explorers no longer encounter cannibalism in their travel to day. However,the first encounters with polygamy or with puberty rites or even with the way some nations drive their automobiles can be quite a shock to an American visitor.
With the shock may go not only disapproval or disgust but a sense of excitement that things can really be that different from what they are at home .To some extent,at least ,this is the excitement of any first travel abroad.
The experience of sociological discovery could be described as ''culture shock"minus geographical displacement .In other words,the sociologist travels at home - with shocking results
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