Final answer:
Anthropologists avoid using the term "primitive" to refer to art as it suggests inferiority and fails to respect the comprehensive cultural context. They adopt a holistic approach to the anthropology of the arts, considering historical, economic, and aesthetic dimensions, and they focus on human experiences within specific cultural settings.
Step-by-step explanation:
Anthropologists do not use the term "primitive" to refer to art because it has connotations of inferiority. This term has historically been problematic, revealing a distorted colonial perspective on art from Native tribes and First Nations. The use of 'primitive' imparts a sense of indigenous art being backward or less developed than Western art forms, which is a view that modern anthropology seeks to correct.
In exploring the anthropology of the arts, anthropologists are aware that art is a representation of the human experience that is deeply embedded in a culture's language, environment, economy, religion, and governance. The term primitive undermines the complex sociohistorical context and the intricate web of human relationships that contribute to the creation of art objects within a society. Therefore, the field of anthropology pursues a holistic analysis of art, valuing the historical, economic, and aesthetic dimensions equally without depreciating any cultural expressions.
The term primitivism, once used to describe borrowing visual forms from non-Western or prehistoric peoples, is also considered outdated and colonialist. Therefore, anthropologists approach art with methods such as observation, interviews, and site assessments, analyzing art pieces within their cultural context to understand their symbolic meanings, production processes, and functions among humans across history.