Ashley Meredith
National Cultural Anthropologist

Ashley is the FSM’s anthropologist and social scientist who designs and conducts cultural anthropological research to document and describe Kosraean culture. Throughout the country, she employs culturally appropriate methods including participant observation, site visits, interviews for oral history collection on a particular topic, and ethnographic walk-throughs by walking through a site to aid in remember the history of an area to learn about the local culture. Culture refers to the attitudes, behaviors, responses, and adaptations shared by a group of people. A cultural anthropologist builds rapport with the communities in which she lives and conducts research to answers the question: “why do humans do what they do?” Cultural anthropology is one of four disciplines in the field of anthropology (the other three are archaeology, physical anthropology, and linguistic anthropology). Anthropology is a holistic discipline in that it takes into account all of the interconnections between different aspects to human life and experience.