By Maria Abbasi

A few days ago, someone said to me sarcastically: “So anthropologists just put  anthropology into everything now? Anthropology of law, religion, medicine…  what’s next?” And honestly, I smiled because that statement unintentionally  explains exactly why anthropology is so important. Anthropology appears  everywhere because humans exist everywhere. Hospitals are not made only of medicine. Courts are not made only of laws. Religions are not made only of scriptures. All of these spaces are filled with human emotions, beliefs, fears, power relations, identities, inequalities, and cultural meanings. And that is precisely what anthropology studies. A doctor can diagnose a disease. But a medical anthropologist asks: Why do some patients trust traditional healers more than hospitals? Why are women’s pain and mental health often ignored in many societies? Why does poverty decide who survives and who does not? Because illness is never only biological. It is also social, cultural, economic, and political. Similarly, a lawyer studies constitutions, procedures, and legal systems. But a legal anthropologist studies how justice is actually lived and experienced by people. Does everyone receive justice equally? How do class, gender, tribe, language, or social status affect legal outcomes? Why do some people fear courts instead of feeling protected by them? The law may appear equal on paper, but anthropology studies the unequal realities beneath it. This is the difference people often miss: Most disciplines study systems. Anthropology studies humans inside those systems. And humans are complicated. You cannot fully understand healthcare without understanding culture. You cannot understand education without understanding inequality. You cannot understand religion without understanding identity, history, and power. You cannot understand conflict without understanding human narratives and lived experiences. Anthropology enters every field because human life cannot be separated into neat boxes. In many ways, anthropology asks the questions other disciplines sometimes overlook: How does this system feel to the people living within it? Who benefits from it? Who suffers silently inside it? What has society normalized so deeply that nobody questions it anymore? That is why anthropology matters. Not because anthropologists “fit themselves everywhere,” but because human experience exists everywhere. And no system can truly function if it forgets the humans at its center.