Final answer:
Cultural relativism is the concept of understanding another culture based on its own values and standards, not one's own, which is essential for ethnographic studies to avoid ethnocentrism.
Step-by-step explanation:
The concept of trying to understand what people in another culture do and why they do it from their perspective, as opposed to one's own, is known as cultural relativism. It is a principle that encourages an individual to understand another culture based on its own values and beliefs rather than judging it by the standards of their own culture. This idea is central to fields like anthropology and sociology where researchers engage in ethnography, a method that involves deeply immersing oneself into a cultural community to observe and participate, thus gaining a more accurate insight into that culture's perspectives and practices.
Examples of this can be seen in the works of various anthropologists such as Bettina Shell-Duncan, who studied Female Genital Cutting (FGC) by setting aside her own values to understand the practice from an insider's viewpoint. Avoiding ethnocentrism, a term for evaluating another culture according to one's own cultural standards, is crucial for anthropologists and sociologists in order to not impose their own cultural biases when conducting studies and representing cultures.