Anthropology is the study of, and everything within, human culture. When thinking of the anthropology of sound, it opens up questions around the problemetisation of anthropology, as well as questions around what is sound. Practices within the field of anthropology are known as ehtnography; ethnographic research entails the practice of “field work”. Field work involves direct contact with the environment and people involved with the cultures which are being researched over an extended period of time. Ethnography can be therefore seen as research based on personal accounts and experience. Where this can be seen as problematic, sensory ethnography seeks to recognise the researcher as part of the environment, as well as any political or ideological agendas that may be at play.

Anthroplogy is further problemetised when ackowledging its roots in eurocentrism. SOAS inversity, one of the largest research centres in the world for world cultural studies, was initially founded as a place of study for missionaries to become acquainted with the values ad lifestyle choices of the cultures they would subsequently come to infiltrate with eurocentric, Christian standards. This would therefore make many of the sources involving ethnographic research shrouded in outdated eurocentrism. This opens questions around the meaning of “truth”- it can be seen as a concept of male perspective. Sensory ethnography may seek to acknowledge that “truths” are gained from “situated” experiences. Timothy Morton offers the idea of nature as a concept of human construction in their book Ecology without Nature. “Truth” and “nature” are here likened as concepts that should be beyond human construction, however, have been dicated as such. Anthropology, where it concerns nature and the envoronment, is undebatably favoured to a eurocentric perspective.

The anthropology of sound is a highly autoethnographic practice; oral traditions are exactly that- oral traditions. Where anthroplogy is considered a writing practice, the idea of the anthropology of sound as autoethnographic is supported. Sound is percieved differently by different people, and can be hard to be captured by words. So therefore where sound is written into anthropological literature, it cannot capture the exact sameness of what that sound actually was.