Topic 1.

 Anthropology as a Science
Introduction:
Surely mostly of us when we hear about the Anthropology, Culture and Social
Conscience course we ask ourselves: What is Anthropology? What does it study or what does
it do? How does it work for me? These are all common questions. That is why we need to start
with a strong base in order to accomplish a better understanding of Anthropology. For that, it’s
necessary to define two words that we will see during the course due to its importance,
Anthropology and Culture. If we look carefully into our environment, we’ll see that we’re
surrounded by endless cultural expressions; people who talk different, wear different clothes,
thinks different, have other religion, prefers one team instead of the other, certain fashion,
certain music, people who commit crimes and people who doesn’t. All of these are part of the
field of Anthropology.

Explanation:
1.1 What is Anthropology?
Marvin Harris says “Anthropology is the study of humanity, of the ancient and modern people
and their ways of life. To understand this concept it is necessary to contextualize its origin and
its evolution. In other words, we will focus in the important facts that helped to conform this
science. It’s hard to think in what was the exact origin of Anthropology, as since ancient times,
different groups of people have been questioning themselves about the different traditions of
other cultures, there are several tales where travelers described customs, garments, religions
and the structure of different social groups, even when the anthropology didn’t exist as a
science. Due to this, we can understand that it has been an important characteristic of human
beings the capacity to question and highlight the cultural, social, biological and physical
differences.  That’s why in this course you will acquire the tools to understand the practice of
anthropology as well as it field of action.
There are several definitions of anthropology, but can be defined as the science devoted to the
study of the (ancient and modern) human beings and their lifestyles (Harris, 2004). According
to Harris (2004): “Given the range and complexity of the subject, the different branches of
anthropology focus on different aspects or dimensions of human experience”.
Thus, anthropology —unlike other sciences that study particular aspects (the human mind
and psychology, the various languages spoken, and linguistics)— is enriched by contributions
from various disciplines and goes beyond them. This is where you can recognize the
characteristics of anthropology: by gathering all aspects of a human group (holistic
perspective) and comparing them with those of other groups (comparative perspective), it
seeks an explanation by contrasting both the characteristics they have in common and those
that make them different from each other.
1.2 Anthropology as a Science and Its Subdisciplines
According to the classification proposed by Harris (2004), we can recognize four main areas,
depending on the particular aspect from which we access the study of human beings. Each of
these four areas include, in turn, numerous branches, depending on the main subject of study
of the researchers and the university and sponsoring country, so the list presented here is
partial.
 Physical anthropology
It studies the physical characteristics of humans through the fossils found and the distinctive
features of contemporary groups. Here, you can recognize primatology, human paleontology,
forensic anthropology, and population genetics.
Archaeology
It is devoted to the study of material remains of past cultures. By reconstructing extinct forms of
life, it seeks to know the ecological environment and the causes that led to its demise. Among
the most widespread branches have historical and industrial archeology.

Anthropological linguistics
It studies the diversity of languages spoken by the existing human groups, attempts to
reconstruct the history of their origin, as well as the role of the relationship between language
and the development of the groups that speak it. The branches in which this aspect is divided
include historical linguistics, descriptive linguistics and sociolinguistics.
Cultural anthropology
Also known as social anthropology. It refers to the analysis and description of cultures, both
from the past and from human groups of today. This includes applied, medical, urban,
development, and religion anthropologies, as well as politics, anthropology and indigenous,
among other themes.

These sub-disciplines have emerged alongside the development of the stages in the history of
the society that sees their birth, and certainly new branches will emerge in response to the
challenges anthropologists will keep facing in their professional development.
Conclusion:
At the beginning, people were only interested in describing the exotic or different cultures and
their material remains; today, given the diversity and complexity of the lifestyles of ancient
peoples or the current time, it was decided to divide the anthropological study in several
branches or subdisciplines, each dedicated to one or more particular aspects .

In this sense, the anthropological endeavor has been organized around the four major areas
we have previously reviewed. We have to say this is one of the possible options, and there are
different proposals promoted by their authors. With no desire to create controversy, this one
has been chosen because it includes most of the subdisciplines that exist nowadays. Its
importance relies on the fact that this variety of disciplines allows you to reach a better
understanding of contemporary societies, by adopting new paradigms rescued from other
sciences and new information technologies, applying them to anthropology.
Topic 2. History, Theories and Precursors in Anthropology
Introduction:

As it was mentioned in the previous topic, for some researchers the beginnings of
anthropology are hard to locate, however most of the scientist agree in giving more
importance to the documentation of the conquest of new political and commercial
territories carried out by the Greeks and their successors, the Romans in classical
antiquity, and the trips made by the Spaniards in the mid-sixteenth century in the
Americas.

These wars of conquest, which made the Mexican or Aztec, Mayan and Inca cultures
disappear almost completely, also caused an extensive compilation of the way these
cultures lived. Specifically the case of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, whose works show
many related details, which constitute a valuable contribution to the study of the ancient
history of your country and laid, in turn, the basis for many anthropological studies.

According to the taxonomy proposed by Marzal (1998), three stages can be recognized in
the development of anthropology:

Description of other cultures
and reflection on the
transformation of their
practices
It took place in the second half of
the 16th century, boom period of
Search for scientific Search for scientific laws
laws of evolution of of the functioning of
societies and their societies, from divergent
institutions approaches
Begins in the last third Located in the last third of
of the 19  century and
th
the 20  century, the
th

the Spanish colonialist enterprise
in Mexico and Peru. It is known
through the stories and accounts
of representatives of religious
orders that came along with the
conquerors, such as Bernardino
de Sahagún, José de Acosta,
Bartolomé de las Casas and
Vasco de Quiroga. Contributions
of the original inhabitants of the
conquered places are also
important; among them are
Fernando de Alva Ixtlixochitl,
Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc,
and Juan Bautista Pomar.
its main representatives emphasis here is on the
are Edward B. Tylor and functioning of cultures. It
Lewis H. Morgan, coincides with the
authors that pose —as a professionalization of
scientific law— the anthropology at major
unilineal evolution of universities in the United
society and its States, England and France,
institutions (family, which developed schools of
state, property and thought and founder authors
religion). This stage is of each. Thus, we have
considered as the Franz Boas and cultural
emergence of anthropology in the United
anthropology as a States, and the social
formal science and anthropology of Radcliffe-
marks the point spread Brown and Bronislaw
and it is recognized by Malinowski in England.
most scholars of
anthropological theory.

Explanation:
2.1 Anthropological Theories through Time

In this section you will review the main theoretical perspectives that have characterized
anthropology, giving rise to schools or currents of thought, which principles, main
characteristics and authors are presented below. Even if we can see that those theories
have different points of view, we can unify them in a general criteria, they’re all interested
in studying the culture. In this way, we can use as a starting point that the anthropological
perspective of culture doesn’t refer on how many books we have read, how many
languages we speak, if we can play an instrument or not, the culture refers to the group of
values, rules, customs, ideas and beliefs of a society.

Evolutionist school argues that the societies shall pass through states of development, in
that way they could be able to place in some of them. The work of the social scientist is to
discover and present the stages that spanned all cultures to reach the highest level of
development, generally associated with the European societies of that time.

Nowadays, it’s kind of weird to think all societies evolved in the same way, however when
these theory was created all the sciences think about evolution and progress, supposedly
all the societies will have to evolved to the civilization, let’s keep in mind that Europe came
from the Industrial Revolution, Charles Darwin published his book “The origin of species”,
the big European cities were consolidates due to the country migration to the city, in that
way the social sciences took that notion of progress as a model to classified the cultures.
One of the most important authors of this current is the British Edward B. Tylor, author of
the first textbook of general anthropology. He proposed to explain the evolution of
human societies by passing through various stages to reach a developed or superior
stage. One of his contributions is the concept of survival of the culture or survivals,
understood as “processes or customs that —since they became habits— have remained at
different stages of the evolution of societies, which are themselves examples of previous
stages (Harris, 1996)." It was Tylor who establish the bases of the study of the
anthropology, when he proposed the first concept of culture, defining it in its broad, is
that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, an any
other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society (Tejera, 1999). For
its part, the proposal of the American Lewis H. Morgan is one of the most influential of the
evolutionist postulate. In his work Primitive Society (1877), based on the extensive
observation of a group of Iroquois near his home in New York, he proposes a classification
of the evolution of mankind from three stages (Harris 2004):

Savagery

Lower savagery
Characterized by the subsistence through the collection of wild food, promiscuity,
nomadic horde as a basic unit of this type of societies, and common property of
resources.

Higher savagery
They already had utensils for hunting (bow and arrows), banned marriage among siblings,
and family relationships were recognized exclusively through women.
Barbarism
Recognizable by the invention of agriculture and pottery, the prohibition of incest was
extended to all female offspring, and the clan and village formed the basic units of
organization.

Higher stage of barbarism

When metallurgy was being developed, family relationships were traced by the male line,
men married several women (which is known as polygyny) and private property appears.
Civilization
When writing developed, the civil government, and the monogamous couple as the basis
of the family.

Historical particularism

The next school emerges as a reaction to the prevailing evolutionary ideas, arguing that
they were based on insufficient empirical evidence. It is proposed, rather than to strive to
establish general stages, to emphasize particular aspects of the singular history of the
studied cultures. In other words, every culture or society, is the consequence of its own
particular process which result of the sum of the aspects who have been build it through
the pass of time.

The notion of cultural relativism arises, which disqualifies the existence of savage cultures
and higher cultures, categories that evidence the ethnocentrism of their authors, placing
their own as the model of society to be achieved. This proposal is led by the American
Franz Boas, and one of his main contributions is his demonstration that race, language
and culture are elements independent from the human condition and that it is possible to
find societies that shared the same racial features, behaviors and different languages
(Harris , 2004).

The idea of defined stages with distinctive biological and cultural features finds in this
proposal the demonstration that evolution was not a simple process.

Diffusionism

This current also emerges as a reaction to evolutionism, and proposes that cultures
adopted their elements by imitation. Independent creation is discarded and, in this sense,
the most ancient cultures are the centers of origin from which, over time, techniques and
knowledge have been transmitted or distributed. For example, the Egyptian culture is one
of the diffuser centers, and the Aztecs and Incas resumed their knowledge from it.

As the name says it, the cultural characteristics were diffused from one society to another
by the voluntary or involuntary contact, it causes that several societies share language,
ideology, ways of think, religion, economy, among other elements. That’s why we see a lot
of similar characteristics in different societies. And if we translate to our context we can
understand why there are cities, villages or countries that maybe in appearance look
different, however they share numerous elements who has been diffused among them.
Appearing a very important concept, acculturation, understanding it as the exchange of
cultural features, a result of continuous direct contact between two groups.
Functionalism

The emphasis of this British current is on function; the duty of the anthropologist is to
describe the functions of the customs and institutions for the society studied, means by
which we come to understand its origins.

This position is represented by British researcher Bronislaw Malinowski. Very close to this
proposal we have the structural functionalism of Radcliffe-Brown, who added to the
concept of function the place it occupied in the social structure, i.e., the way society was
organized as a whole. One of the contributions of this theory is the importance of
conducting field work for long periods, learning the language and local customs as the
only method that provides valid and reliable data in anthropology.

However the functionalism, has a strong influence in the social sciences, sociologist as
Émile Durkheim made important researches since this particular way of seeing the
culture. A very clear analogy that explains this system is the comparison between a
biological organism and a social system. This posture sustains how it is possible to study
an organism thru its physiology and morphology, also it is the same way with the
societies. Understanding it of the next way:

Biological Organism:

Morphology (shape): Physiology (function)

Heart Pump the blood all over the organism

Skeleton Sustain different parts of the body

Social System:

Morphology (social institutions) Physiology (function)

Religion Allows the harmony and provides values to the

society

Family Transmit norms and social values to the

members of the society

One of the most representative works of the functionalist school of thought is the
research made by Durkheim, about the way the society keeps integrated and allows its
appropriate function. In other words, analyze which are the functions of the social
institutions as the economy, kinship, religion and crime in society in order to maintain
the social cohesion, understanding the cohesion as the proper function of the society.

Culture and personality, the influence of Freud in anthropology

This theoretical current resumes aspects of the work of noted German psychologist
Sigmund Freud, linking cultural practices and beliefs of the individual with his personality
and vice versa. Topics such as childhood and sex education bring a significant influence on
the development of the adult personality and allow us, through their study, access the
knowledge of society. This proposal, which main representatives are Margaret Mead and
Ruth Benedict, does not explain why this influence can be seen in some societies but is
absent in others.

Neoevolutionism

After World War II, Leslie White re-examines the evolutionist paradigm. The works of
Morgan are re-examined and his contributions to the science of culture are redeemed: the
existence of a cultural evolution determined by the amount of energy that could be
captured and put into execution by person.

Almost simultaneously, Julian Steward and his cultural ecology propose to include the

influence of the natural environment (climate and natural conditions of the land) with
cultural factors, such as technology and the economy. This interaction would allow you to
learn both the differences and similarities of ancient and contemporary civilizations.

French structuralism

This school —represented by Levi-Strauss, from France— uses an analogy to explain the
origin of the differences and similarities among cultures: the crux lies in the existence of a
general structure (symphony), an underlying pattern common to all cultures. And what
marks the difference among them is the melody, understood as the particular
arrangement or interpretation that each society makes of them, where the main interest
is to understand said structure. Another contribution of this current is the tendency of the
human mind to think in binary terms; an example of this is the nature versus culture
opposition, present in numerous myths collected along the anthropological endeavor.

It is not the main interest of this account to include all the schools and authors that have
contributed to the development of anthropological theory through its history, but —as a
corollary of this summarized presentation— it highlights the absence in them of the role
of power relationships in the societies to be studied. The scholar of societies, like many
other professionals, is immersed in a thought where the economic and political power of
the nations that promote the study of societies are characteristics that determined the
standards of civilization and barbarism.

It is worth noting that, under the guise of promoting the anthropological study, soldiers
were sent to work as explorers in search of natural resources whose possession offered
increased economic advantage over other nations.

The distribution of parts of the American continent between the Spanish and English
conquerors is a reflection of this situation. The British Crown took over vast regions of
Asia, America, and Africa; the Spanish crown dominated for centuries vast regions of
North and South America, including archipelagos. Finally, there are the possessions
earned by French expeditions.
Each of these expeditions sponsored extensive studies, where the need to meet humans
who lived in other parts of the world, the languages they spoke and their forms of
organization, are issues that became important to facilitate the possession of the new
territories.

Since World War II, anthropologists are gradually moving away from remote societies and
increasingly starting to study contemporary societies in which colonialism has
considerable influence and which are immersed in the world system, understood as the
network of economic and political relations that make up society, from that time to the
present. Finally, some of the key concepts of anthropological theories through history are
presented below.

2.2 Key Concepts through History, Theories and Sub-disciplines

With no intention to be repetitive, this section gathers some of the key concepts in
anthropology and their definitions (Campo, 2008), as well as the elements that contribute
to the understanding of anthropological theory. This is a partial list and forth here are only
those concepts that have not been addressed in other sections, and that are considered
relevant to get an overview.

Being endowed with intelligence and articulate speech, ranked among

the primate mammals, whose main features include the possession of a
Man large brain, an upright posture and opposable thumbs in the upper limbs
that allow them to take things. The adult individual of the human
species.

Group of people who live according to certain forms of behavior,

gathered to fulfill, through mutual cooperation, all or some of the
Society purposes of life. Society is also understood the gathering of people,
peoples or nations that coexist and are related by common laws.

Political unit with an independent government and a centralized

organization; it is composed of all the political and administrative
State institutions that control a defined territory. A characteristic of the state is
the exclusive right to use force as a method to control the society it
governs.

Otherness Relationship with beings that suggest the notion of other as interpersonal
phenomenon. The world is inhabited by a multitude of others, whose
differences also help find matches among some human organizations
and allow us to create our own identity. In other words, perceiving the
other puts us in the construction of the identity of the social being;
identity is discovered by observing the diversity of others.
It is an essential condition for the existence of the other, the identity of
the same. This other may cause contradictory reactions: first, fascination
because the other is so different, and then, a rejection for the unknown
and incomprehensible. This is the case of many migrants who, being in a
 different place, rediscover their roots and value what they left behind.

Acculturation Exchange of cultural features, a result of continuous direct contact

between two groups. This contact can alter the cultural patterns of each
group or both, with no group losing their differences. Acculturation may
also occur asymmetrically, since usually one culture is more capable of
imposing their patterns on the other. An example of this concept is the
work of evangelization carried out by Christian missionaries with
Native American cultures, an outcome that completely changed their
cultural values by those of the Catholic religious system, and even
replaced their language by Spanish. In some cases, when elements from
two or more cultures merge, we are talking about syncretism.
Enculturation Learning process of the culture to which all human beings are exposed.
It is through this process, developed within society, that the individual
acquires and becomes the bearer of the elements of the society that
gives rise to them.
Affinity Set of relationships that link two groups through marriage, and help
maintain relationships and social solidarity in groups larger than the
nuclear family. Thus, a related person is what is known as an in-law
relative, because there are no blood relations. In all systems of kinship,
affinity relationships take up a prominent place.
Polygyny Practice where a male person lives and has sexual relations with several
women simultaneously. In some societies it is a common practice, and a
man can have as many women or wives as he can hold.
Ethnocentrism Ethnocentrism refers to judging other cultures using own cultural
standards.
Ego Individual who is the central and starting point in kinship studies, that
allows marking the origin of a specific genealogy and set the name of
the remaining relatives.
Empathy Understand the other person perspective.

Conclusion:

There is a controversy about where the exact origins of anthropology should be

recognized as a science, and it is widely assumed that they took place in the period of the
Enlightenment, a time during which the exact sciences reach their highest point of
development and their methodology is extrapolated, applying them for the first time to
the study of social phenomena.  In this topic you were able to identify many
anthropological theories through time which all have great impact in the study of our
social evolution.
Topic 3. Culture and Society
Introduction:

The relationship between the concepts of culture and society is essential to anthropology
and it is as close as complex. It can be said that culture is, in general terms, everything that
man creates, contains, and perpetuates, all the elements and mechanisms that allow man
to live in society. To understand this relationship, a definition that allows you to approach
its nature is presented, its main characteristics and the role it plays in the creation of
identity and in the preservation of human societies.

Explanation:

3.1 Nature and Characteristics of Culture

Let’s resume the definition made by Harris (2004) — American author who has made an
extensive study of cultural anthropology— who proposes to understand it as:

“The learned set of traditions and lifestyles, socially acquired, of the members of a society,
including their patterned, repetitive ways of thinking, feeling and acting (i.e., their
behavior)”.

There are several aspects in anthropology devoted to the study of culture; one of them
restricts the meaning of culture to the mental rules to act and speak, shared by the
members of a specific society. These rules are conceived as a kind of grammar of human
behavior, and the actions of individuals are phenomena arising in the social sphere rather
than in the cultural one. This distinction aims to differentiate the field of study of social
anthropology from cultural anthropology.

Without entering this debate, Harris’ definition of culture includes social groups and their
mutual relationships as aspects of culture. An example is the family, social group that fits
the cultural norms of the domestic life of a particular society, at a time that it reflects it.

Understanding society as a group of people sharing a common habitat, who depend on

each other for survival and welfare, Harris proposes to recognize, within large societies,
the existence of classes (understood, in a broad sense, as those common features whose
possession links them either economically or politically: by income level or political ideals),
ethnic groups (culturally different groups in an organization or region) and other
significant subgroups, as subcultures (it refers to different cultural traditions associated to
groups in the same country) it is necessary to study. Some examples are the subculture of
African American groups in North America and the peasants in Brazil, to name a few.

3.2 Cultural Identity and Society

To understand the behavior of cultures within societies, it is possible to recognize several

processes; culture tends to be similar from one generation to another. This continuity in
lifestyles is possible due to enculturation (a learning process where the older generation
transmits and induces new generations to adopt ways of thinking and behaving in a
socially acceptable way).
Enculturation allows entering and perpetuating the expected behavior in the members of
a society, while allowing them to form value judgments about other cultures that do not
share them.

It is the so called ethnocentrism, which only recognizes as good and natural the patterns
of our own behavior, and those who act differently are considered wild or inhuman.

Anthropologists are tolerant about cultural differences, and cultural relativism is the
extreme case. According to this view, every cultural pattern is as respectable as any other,
but this flexibility should be taken with care, as the professionals of anthropology are also
likely to take a stand on the society they observe. The only limitation in this regard comes
from not taking sides and not letting this choice reflect in the results of the investigation.

It is also necessary to mention some limitations of the enculturation process, which

assumes that the transmission of culture is a linear process between generations of
individuals as passive recipients; in practice, it has been found that recipients make a
selection and reproduction of the contents received, and this is called the generation gap.

Another option is diffusionism, which extends the scope of the transmission of cultural
features, not only between generations, but from one society to another. Early last
century, diffusion was considered as the explanation of cultural differences and
similarities. We’re in an era in which we can access to the internet within a second, get to
social networks, travel around the world and talk to people in another countries, to see
some viral video, listen to music, to buy clothes or simply to get some information. How
does this affect to your daily life? Do you consider that we copy some habits from
another parts of the world, region or country? Why? How would it be to live without
Internet?.

In short, if we wanted to explain the determination of life in human societies through

enculturation and diffusionism, the logical result would be to expect that all cultures were
and remained identical, but this is not so. This is when the question of how we can
compare cultures arises. Harris (2004) proposes to use what he calls the universal
pattern of cultures, a method that allows collecting and organizing data from them with
respect to the sociocultural whole present in all cultures.

This universal pattern is composed of three main divisions: infrastructure, structure and
superstructure.

Infrastructure
Composed of activities from an external and behavioral point of view, by which society
meets its minimum requirements for subsistence and regulates demographic growth. In
this aspect it refers to family, groups of friends and in-law relationship, e.g.
Structure
It consists of activities from an external and behavioral point of view, through which
society is organized into groups that distribute and regulate goods and labor. Here we are
talking about companies, their employees and workers.
 Superstructure
Composed of behavior devoted to artistic, recreational, intellectual and religious activities,
such as attending worship practices, the temple or church and carry out in practice the
behaviors promoted by religion. It includes all activities from the internal point of view of
structure and infrastructure.
In short, infrastructure is a cause of structure and superstructure, basics of the theoretical
current known as cultural materialism.

To conclude this topic, the contribution of Gilberto Giménez, whose proposal is part of the
new contemporary currents and studies about culture, is included. Giménez places,
between the first definition of culture of Tylor (1871) and the one coined by Franz Boas
(1920-1930), the main proposals that represent the foundation period of cultural
anthropology.

The definition of culture of Tylor was conceived as an evolving and holistic process; i.e. by
observing all the customs of primitive cultures it was possible to rebuild and establish the
different stages they experienced to reach its highest stage of development, represented
by the European societies of the late 19th century.

Boas, from a perspective that separates itself from evolutionism, seeks to recover the
importance of the role of history. Instead of following a linear evolution, culture is defined
from the particular differences of each and the multiplicity of existing cultures, current
referred to as cultural relativism. From here, it is possible for Giménez to recognize three
phases in the concept of culture: the particular phase (whose key concept are customs),
the abstract phase (models) and the symbolic phase (meanings).
The abstract phase is the one represented by Tylor. In the abstract phase, the emphasis
on customs and culture is left behind; it is now defined in terms of models or patterns of
behavior. It is called abstract because it considers that culture goes beyond the way of
acting in society, and becomes a system of values and standards that regulate the
behavior of people belonging to a specific social group. Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict
and Ralph Linton are considered as the main representatives of this phase.

The symbolic phase starts in the early seventies of the last century, with the proposal of
Clifford Geertz, author who caused a lot of controversy for reducing the concept of culture
to the realm of the symbolic. For Geertz, culture is defined as a web of meanings that is, as
a complex set of socially established meanings, created to give meaning to the life of the
social group that originates them.

To conclude, it can be said that despite the many criticisms it received, this stand was well
received by many social disciplines, which adopted the importance of meaning in the
study of a wide range of aspects of human evolution.

Conclusion:

Revisiting Kottak (2011), it can be concluded that culture is a distinctive feature of

humanity and it refers to the usual behavior and beliefs that are transmitted through the
process of enculturation. This includes learned rules of behavior, dependent on abstract
symbols; said cultural learning shapes human behavior in society, and even though the
rules that dictate it are not rigid, they are open to interpretation and adaptation, as well as
exchange.

In this sense, diffusion, migration and colonialism have led cultural features and patterns
to different areas of the world, and at the present time, we can even speak of
globalization, which refers to a series of processes that promote change in a world in
which nations and people are intertwined and mutually dependent.

Topic 4. Family, Kinship and Lineage

Introduction:

We can define family as the basic unit of human societies. The existence of this group is a
constant in most of them and the relations among its members come from both blood
ties and from ties arising from the union of members outside the family and that join it
through socially created institutions such as marriage. Family types are presented below.

Explanation:

4.1 Family Types: Nuclear and Extended

 
Two family types are recognized: nuclear and extended family. The first is the one
consisting of father, mother and children, as a result of the union of the said couple,
regardless of the quality and duration of the bond between them. Murdock (1949, cited in
Harris, 2004) studied 250 societies in 1949, and the nuclear family was present in all of
them, which is why he concluded it was a universal trait.

According to Murdock, the nuclear family has four vital functions to the functioning of
society:

 Sexual relations (satisfies the sexual needs of its members).

 Reproduction (to ensure the protection of women during pregnancy and
lactation).
 Education (allows the transmission and persistence of culture in families).
 Subsistence (through a division, by sex, of the activities needed for subsistence,
it ensures the economic welfare of the family).

This family bond establishes several types of relationships:

Monogamy: Exclusive couple, compromising one man one woman.

Polygamy: Relationships are stablished with a variable number of spouses or parents.

Polygyny: one man is shared by several wives.

Polyandry: the woman has several husbands.

Polygamy is widely practiced in 90 percent of all cultures.

The extended family includes, besides the father, mother and children, the parents and
siblings of each of the parents, as well as the children of the latter. It is, in this sense, the
sum of all nuclear families linked by blood ties.

Nuclear families can also be polygynous, where the children the man had with his various
wives and the relatives of each one of them are included. A trait that may explain the
popularity of extended families has to do with the contribution of more labor for the
distribution and implementation of subsistence activities. 4.2 Symbology, Genealogy and
Lineage through Kinship

Different symbologies have been developed to trace the relationships among members of
nuclear and extended families. A widely spread way to do this is through marriage.
Without entering into the discussion and typology found, it is considered as the
instrument that gives legitimacy to the offspring, giving the children born in it a position
and rights different from children born out of it.

Value judgments unassigned, we must add that in contemporary societies there are
already mechanisms that provide rights to both legitimate children and those born
outside of legal marriage. It is also worth noting incest (the prohibition of marriage with
members of the nuclear family, but including the extended family), a practice that has
been documented in some cultures, like Egypt, to keep political power in members united
by blood ties.

The practice of marrying outside the individuals with which one is directly related (by
blood) is called exogamous marriage, and it is the most widespread practice, probably
due to the competitive advantages it offers by providing a way to extend both the size and
the scope of extended families, and the benefits at a biological level, which produces more
resistant individuals due to the mixture of genetic information of the spouses.

This leads to the definition of how such relationships are established, besides marriage:
domestic life is organized around filiation.

“The sum of the links established by affinity (marriage) and filiation result in kinship,
understood as the field of ideas constituted by the beliefs and expectations that family
members share with each other (Harris, 2004).”

The research and documentation of these relationships among individuals of each family
are conducted by genealogy; nowadays there is even software that allows us to create
family relationships through the so-called kinship diagrams, more commonly known as
family trees.

Symbology includes a triangle to represent men, a circle for women, a dash that
symbolizes the bond of marriage, a vertical line to indicate the offspring, a horizontal line
that denotes a relationship of brotherhood, and finally, a circle with a small triangle inside
that serves to highlight the ego, as we call the person on which we are trying to establish
the genealogy.
4.3 Magic, Myth and Religion throughout Society

These three concepts include a set of beliefs and practices that, somehow, establish
guidelines in order to penalize some aspects of human behavior to explain the meaning of
human life.

Myths
These are stories that —by recreating places and people of unproven existence— fulfill
the aim of recreating the origins of human cultures. Picking up elements of real events,
they express the ideas of the group that creates them and allow them to locate in time
and space of their current reality.

For example, in our country there are several myths that have persisted over time until
today, such as the legend of the volcanoes in central Mexico. The tragic love story of
princess Iztaccíhuatl, who dies awaiting the return of warrior Popocatépetl, who
accompanies her into her eternal rest, plays an important role in the beliefs of Mexicans
and provides an explanation for natural phenomena beyond human control but taken
through the myth by making them part of their culture.

Religion
One of the first authors to address this issue is Tylor, who —trying to define religion—
proposes the idea of God as the essence of this religious belief, and develops a concept of
soul: that intangible and invisible being that coexists inside the human body. His doctrine
of souls or animism is present in all societies.

From this invention of the soul, a range of supernatural beings could be explained,
including the souls of animals, plants and material objects, as well as the gods, demons,
saints, fairies, elves, etc. Subsequent studies showed that this explanation of religion fails
to include aspects such as the various political, economic and even psychological roles
that religion plays for human societies.

Another way to approach the religious subject proposes to distinguish between:

 Sacred: beliefs and rituals that create a relationship with the divine
 Profane: those ordinary events of everyday life

Emile Durkheim uses this distinction to demonstrate the scope of the sacred with the
control culture and society apply through the consciousness of the individual. This control
is applied through religious cults, which are grouped into 4 main types:

Cults

Individualist
Applied by any individual only following socially established instructions.
Shamanist
Specialized character who carries out their activity from time to time and who one resorts
to at difficult times.
 Community
Are held by individuals grouped by age or family of origin, and carry out activities to
ensure the common good.
Ecclesiastical
Involve a full-time commitment and professionalization of the activity. It is performed by
the clergy, usually associated with the ruling class of society and, therefore, with economic
and political interests included.
Conclusion:

Finally, the study of the relationship between family, kinship relationships, and lineage,
gives you the knowledge of the social framework that originates them, and helps you
understand the behavior of the society where you live.

In Mexican society (in most societies), the role of the family has been prominent in areas
that deal even with the economy and politics. It is a common practice to find a job that has
been suggested to us by a friend or relative, and employers inherit and spread their
business among their biological children and politicians. In this regard, there is a wide
range of possibilities for study of such practices over time.

As in the book written by Sara Sefchovich, entitled La suerte de la consorte (which includes

information on the life of the wives of the rulers of our country, from the colonial era to
Margarita Zavala, in her edition of 2013), there are studies on the influence of the wives of
political leaders in your country, where you can observe that for the political class (as for
ordinary citizens), when some gets married, they do not marry just a person, but their
whole family.

In summary, the knowledge these topics provide you allows you to approach a deeper
understanding of the society that originates them, such as transmitting the means to
ensure an organized coexistence among its members and perpetuating their ideas, with
purposes that can be of various kinds and include both economic and political interests.

Topic 5. Areas and Applications of Anthropology in Research

Introduction:

Applied anthropology, unlike academic anthropology, takes anthropological methods and

uses them to solve contemporary problems that deal with human behavior and the social
context as its environment. Nowadays, it has become more and more common to hire
anthropologists in working areas outside the academy, a situation that has motivated the
creation or expansion of applied anthropology programs in universities.
“These programs have included in their curriculum a preparation in statistics, specialized
software management and other knowledge and tools that allow anthropologists solving
practical problems in human relationships under a wide range of natural and cultural
conditions (Harris, 2004).”

To discuss the applications and contributions that anthropology can make to modern
society, we must highlight the main feature shared by all companies, projects and
organizations; the human factor and the fact that any activity is performed within a
company that influences it. In this sense, the information that an anthropological
approach can provide is of great help and can determine the failure or success of the
research or project in question. According to the influence that anthropology has on the
societies, anthropologist debates about to take action or stay out of applied anthropology.

Explanation:

5.1 Anthropology in Education and Medicine: Values and Systems of Beliefs

The knowledge that anthropology can provide in this aspect is closely related to the beliefs
of the human group in question. The vicissitudes —faced by rural teachers in Mexico in
the past and present— are a good example in this regard.

The first attempts to bring education to the largest possible number of towns and villages
distant from the big cities are a high-risk enterprise for that who runs it. Despite repeated
government attempts to reduce the level of illiteracy, this remains as a difficult problem in
the country. The reasons include the contradiction between the locally accepted set of
beliefs in a group and the contents provided in textbooks.

Example:
There is the belief (both in the countryside and in the big cities of today) that girls do not
need to go to school, unlike boys, who will have the responsibility of providing the
monetary resources to maintain the house where they will live with their family.

This assumption has several implications: the first is that girls must get married, otherwise
they will not have anyone to take care of their expenses and will not be able to afford
them by themselves. This trend is particularly observable in private schools, where a
greater number of male students is perceptible. In short, anthropology and education
focus their study on the relationship between students and family, cultural and social
context surrounding them.

As for medical anthropology, it is the study of social perceptions of disease, and the

influence of culture in the diagnosis, treatment and attention to health problems. In this
regard, it must be said that the work of the rural doctor is equally risky, because they have
to deal with issues that have to do with the doctor-patient relationship; in small
communities it is common that —when interns or doctors arrive to do their jobs— they
face the refusal of female patients to be seen by a doctor if her husband or a male relative
is not present. Similarly, it is common that women prefer a female doctor to treat them
and vice versa, a practice that extends to large cities, where the doctor’s gender should
not be relevant to conduct medical consultation.

Example:
Another important case that deserves to be mentioned in this section, refers to the
distrust with which vaccination campaigns are perceived in rural areas, because they
believe that women will become infertile and, given the importance of children as labor
work to support their families, either farm work or in charge of the family farm,
vaccination is considered a risk to the role of women and their offspring.

5.2 Urban and Business Anthropology: Cultural Marketing

The role of the knowledge provided by the anthropologist in the study of human behavior
in large cities is a study area of recent development. The lifestyle in big cities, the way
individuals from various extractions live and solve their conflicts, the permanence of the
sense of rootedness and particular identity of populations who proclaim their existence
since the pre-Hispanic era, the existence of different levels of identity that arise from the
ownership of the local territory (the neighborhood, the town) and that are manifested in
the preservation of ties between those who are considered equal, as well as the contrasts
between rural and urban life, are just some of the many aspects in the study of cities from
an anthropological point of view.

It is worth mentioning the introduction of ethnographic techniques to study business

scenarios, and to improve and diagnose faults in the production process of factories.

Example:
In the nineties, a company devoted to the production of glue renewed its machinery with
equipment imported from abroad, and considered it would be sufficient to train the
employees so they would know how to handle the new equipment.

After a considerable period of time, and after repeated failures and delays, the company
was recommended to hire an anthropologist to find out where the problem was. One
hypothesis postulates that, in dismissing a considerable number of older employees, they
left younger employees without coworkers to turn to in case of doubt.

In addition, the change was made in January, when the lack of staff is perceived due to the
resignation of female workforce in December to get married. These variables were not
considered by the different areas in charge of personnel in the mentioned company, and
ethnography provides data that allows you to design proposals for improving both the
processes and the relations between workers employed in companies and even the ways
consumers use the products.

On the other hand, ethnographic techniques are starting to be used recently for market
research. Anthropologists are increasingly incorporating in the development of
questionnaires, training of personnel to conduct house to house interviews to specific
sectors of the population, either to identify market niches or to measure the scope of
advertising. Also for creating databases of consumers, indicators calculation, etc.

5.3 Anthropology in Development and Innovation: Equity, Equality and Inequality

The contribution of anthropology in the study of economic development is to examine

the social conflicts and cultural dimension of that development. Some of the main topics
discussed include the cultures in resistance, the inequitable distribution of wealth and the
consequent search for equity, as well as the improvement and attention to vulnerable
groups, either by age groups, for belonging to an indigenous group, as well as minority
groups in society (according to sexual or religious preferences).

The participation of anthropologists is included in projects sponsored by international

agencies (FAO, UNESCO, etc.), either to organize palliative attention to groups affected by
the construction of infrastructure (hydroelectric dams, oil rigs, etc.), or to prevent risk
situations for people living in areas of conflict. Take the case of the relocation of entire
villages that were flooded to build a dam and had to change their way of life, from being
people devoted to farming, they were forced to learn lake activities (fishing and fish
farms).

It is worth mentioning the studies sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO),
trying to stop the spread of venereal diseases such as the human immunodeficiency virus
(HIV) in people with a migrant tradition to the United States.

Conclusion:

The contribution of research techniques from anthropology is a valuable instrument in

characterizing, identifying needs and proposing solutions to demands recognized by
population groups at risk, affected by natural disasters, among many other issues.

Topic 6. Cultural Research in Social Anthropology

Introduction

Currently, there is a widespread tendency to compare the work of the cultural

anthropologist with archeological excavations or the study of primates in remote regions
of the African continent. Besides the existence of TV shows and programs that have
helped spread the adventures of fictional and real characters devoted to these areas, we
must highlight the importance of cultural research in current societies. It’s extremely
important for you to comprehend the field work, because it’s there where the researcher
obtains the information for the research.

While, at first, as you have seen in previous topics, anthropologists began studying small
groups living in remote locations, now anthropologists can include in their studies both
the inhabitants of a remote village in the Brazilian Amazon and the migrants of Chinatown
in downtown Mexico City.

In this sense, according to Kottak (2011), the techniques developed for the study of such
small populations, known as ethnographic techniques, has not lost its relevance and
importance to learn how people from the past or the present live.

These methods and techniques were developed by the first anthropologists coexisting for
long periods while studying host populations. The result were extensive books that sought
to describe the customs, ways of life, and peculiarities of these societies, so different from
the Western societies.

These encyclopedias of the “exotic” or monographs of specific groups, laid the

foundations of ethnography, understood as “(...) a research strategy to study societies
with greater cultural uniformity and less social differentiation than those prevailing in
modern, large and industrialized nations (Kottak, 2011)." And the field work as its main
tool and the mean to get to know that particular society, as you will see below.

Explanation

6.1 Requirements and Characteristics of the Fieldwork

According to Harris (2004), fieldwork is a research method based on direct personal

observation that, for extended periods of time, may be of a social group of animal or
vegetable population, or of recognition of specific geographic areas. Early anthropologists
were sponsored as part of expansionist military expeditions, and lived with people in
groups characterized by primary ways of subsistence and production (hunting, fishing,
harvesting, planting and breeding, among others).

In their eagerness to learn all aspects of the studied group, they discovered to their
surprise that some of these populations, even though they had simple economies in
opposition to the economic system of Western societies, also had a complex culture
replete of kinship structures, alliance, education, and relationship forms with neighbors,
to mention some aspects.

The only way was to move to the areas where these groups lived, though initially, due to
the absence of a specific methodology designed for this purpose, the first anthropologists
faced a number of difficulties: first, they did not speak the language of the studied group,
and to get to know the life of its inhabitants, they had to experience it by themselves.

There is an anecdote that speaks about the ignorance of the language, which occurred
when the first English explorers arrive at the Australian continent. In Australia no one
spoke English, and the British did not know the local language, so during their first
contact, the British saw some kangaroos, unknown to them, passing by, and they pointed
their index fingers at them, astonished. The local people did not understand what the
British were trying to ask them, but it was clear they were pointing with their fingers, to
which they responded Kanga-ru (meaning finger, in their language). The English heard the
word and believed that was the name of the animal they were so amazed about. That is
why they were called kangaroos in English and canguros in Spanish.

And this is only regarding the language, but we must also mention that the fieldwork is
complicated at first. In the first experiences in this regard, which are not very different to
those of British anthropologists, when you arrive to the place you chose to conduct your
study, you find that the reality is very different from the idea you had before arriving.

It is not easy to find people to talk to and the surrounding context has a huge influence, as
well as the availability of people. For example, in a study conducted in 2005 on migrants
from the State of Mexico in the American city of Los Angeles, even though there was not a
language barrier (as they both spoke Spanish), the efforts of researchers to mingle and
live with them highlighted the difficulties of life in the United States.

To survive, the migrants (legal or not) must have more than one job to live without
luxuries, as the cost of living is very expensive there. Consequently, there was no time to
talk to them and get their impressions, much less to respond to questionnaires previously
designed from Mexico for this purpose.

This type of difficulties faced by anthropologists is a constant since the first fieldworks,
and at the present time, strategies have been developed to adapt to the others and obtain
the information. In the case mentioned, the solution was to identify when they had some
free time, which turned out to be the time when they washed their clothes. Whether in the
buildings they lived, or in shopping malls, it was the laundry where eventually it was
possible to interview these groups of migrants who came weekly to perform this activity.
Due to the importance of make a good research, anthropologist make special emphasis
on field work, some concepts will be seen further in the course, however, there’s a big deal
in the research, we must keep as objective as we can, that is to say we need to put in the
others place, in other words, try to comprehend why they act the way they act. Though, it
can be really hard to do, that’s the case of Bronilslaw Malinowski called the father of the
ethnography, who during his field work in Melanesia, made a personal daily besides his
field daily, it was published after his death in 1942, in it he wrote about his desperation of
not comprehend the way of think of the Trobriands, his stereotypes, and the frustration in
the process of adaptation to the native people. Even with all the polemic raised by the
personal daily, it doesn’t discredit all the contributions that Malinowski made to the
anthropology.

6.2 The Monograph as Product

A monograph is a document whose production is a basic step at the beginning of the

study of any human group in particular. Its purpose is to gather as much information as
possible about the specific topic that was chosen. In anthropology, it can be about a
specific village (a ranch, a municipality, a city, a state, etc.), a particular activity you want to
study (traditional dancing in festivities, classic ballet, dancing among the elderly), or the
relation between one or more topics (the spreading of AIDS among the migrating
population that comes back home at the end of the year).
One of its characteristics is that it should be as complete as possible, and for this it seeks
to include all aspects of the life of the group or activity studied. The sources from where it
nourishes can be stories, legends, personal or indirect observation. It is important to
choose the period of time of the monograph, it can be diachronic (from previous times
until today) or synchronic (from the present time).

Finally, according to a guide that was designed by Universidad de las Americas (2013), we
have the steps to follow in the making of a monograph:

Selection and delimitation of the topic Development of a tentative structure of the

work Search and recollection of information Debug of information to the tentative
structure Reorganization of the structure if a new focus was acquired in the previous
step development of a partial draft Revision of the draft (order the parts make sure no
part is missing, citations and spelling)

Conclusion

The fieldwork and the monograph or final report are valuable stages in the
anthropological endeavor; they provide the information and experience needed for such
task but are not exclusive of the anthropologist.

Topic 7. Qualitative Research

Introduction

You can find the beginnings of the qualitative research in the first ethnographies,
understood as those extensive descriptions made in the past during the colonial period,
the ones made about the original residents of America and the ones of the travelers and
migrants. One of the most famous is the one made by Marco Polo (Burgos, 2011) during
his travels over the Asian continent. You have to differentiate these first works that set the
bases for the methods and techniques proper of the qualitative research, whose origin,
definition, and characteristics will be presented next.

Explanation

7.1 Origin, Definition and Characteristics

Nowadays, when you chose any subject over which you want to deepen your
understanding, it is inevitable to think how you are going to do it. You have to choose how
you are going to approach the subject. This dilemma is as old as human curiosity and,
going back to Bautista (2011), you can find an example of the Greek philosophers. Plato
and his disciple Aristotle had a long discussion where the first one represents the abstract
and systematic way to analyze things and formalize mathematical relations as a result (the
basis of the quantitative method in research). Aristotle, on the other hand, proposed an
approach with the study aimed in a direct way, taking into account the totality of the
aspects and respecting his particular dynamics (the basis of the qualitative method).

The approach that had most developments throughout human history was the
quantitative method and the model of the exact sciences was perfected and instituted in
most of the areas of knowledge.

It was until the end of the XIX century that an important discussion was started about the
predominance of the natural sciences model and other types of sciences were proposed:
the so called spirit sciences by Wilhelm Dilthey, German philosopher that was the first to
propose this division. Among others, one of his main contributions was to incorporate
the historical perspective, including the study of the man, the medium in which he is
inserted, and how he relates to it. In this way, the model of the exact sciences does not
comprehend the social reality of the individual or the processes of construction and
transmission of the meaning of it; it is here where you can find the birth of the qualitative
focus in a formal way, without looking for generalizations. The techniques and methods
should adapt to the objective of the study, and not the other way around. Also, because of
the complexity of the studied topic, several proposals and ways to gather information
emerged, from which we will detail later.

At the beginning of the XX century, the disclosure of qualitative methods took place in the
United States, through participant observation, several studies were conducted between
1910 and 1940. Stories were made about the life of immigrants, juvenile criminals, having
as scenario the life in the city of Chicago at that time. These studies revealed the
advantages offered by this type of approach in the study of human societies.

All these experiences laid the foundation for the definition of the qualitative research.
Going back to Bautista (2011) can be defined as: “a methodology that seeks to present
elements that drive us to give answers and explanations about the events and
happenings surrounding mankind”. The same way, a more complete panorama is
offered to us, by including “the language, the belief systems of several villages, including
ways of categorizing facts, ideologies, education patterns, information needs, among
other aspects (Bautista, 2011)”.

We have to mention the role that the researcher plays as main characteristic in the
qualitative research; it is through culture that you look into someone else. We have to
observe and interact with others; include all the aspects of their everyday life immersed in
the place where the studied group lives. Another characteristic of qualitative research is
the creativity that is required by the researcher. Upon his arrival to the place where the
fieldwork will be conducted, the first difficulty is to introduce himself and relate to people.
It is a general rule to receive any strangers with mistrust, and if he asks questions, takes
notes and/or pictures, the mistrust increases. Here, a relevant role is played by the ability
of the anthropologist to identify people or institutions that allow him to approach to the
local people and start to interact with them.
The priest of the town church, a teacher, and the local authorities are usually valuable
allies to start any research of this kind.

Another characteristic is that it is possible to use several techniques of gathering

information chosen according to the contribution they make for the research altogether.
There is no established order or a limit in the number. Through the contributions of the
accumulation of works that have been done, the qualitative research has developed a
broad specter of methods and techniques for addressing social groups, which are
presented next.

7.2 Methods and Techniques

According to the taxonomy proposed by Burgos (2011), among the methods (ways to

approach the objective of study), are included the ethnography, the study of the case, oral
history, the participant action research, and the qualitative evaluation. And, as for
the techniques (ways to gather information), we have the history of life, testimony, the
semi-structured interview, focus groups, participant observation, the field diary, the
written documents, photography, and video tapings.

Description of the Methods:

The ethnography, according to Kottak (2011) can be understood as the field word in a

particular cultural scenario, is distinguished from the rest of the methods as the distinctive
strategy of the anthropological research, reason why it is presented in a single section
later.

Study of the case:

It is used to present an integral portrait through the study of a particular case. It can
include people, homes, etc., i.e. we can access to the study of Mexico City through the
study of the relocated colonies in the outskirts of the Federal District, for example. This
approach is done in a detailed way, through time and the background and the relevant
events should be taken into account both from the physical environment where it is
located as from the neighboring colonies.
 

Oral history:
It consists of a group of interviews, tapings and their transcripts, which are edited,
analyzed and interpreted and the result is a final report. This method allows you to gather
the personal memories of past and present events, and the causes or effects of the
people who lived them. This way you can recover and transmit data about specific social
groups, which are preserved from generation to generation, and this transmitted data
offer the researcher a source of unique information.
 Participative action investigation:
It seeks to include the people being investigated in the research, and they go from being
the object of the study to be participants of the research, controlling and interacting
throughout the process of the study. This participation of the group in the analysis of their
own reality has as an objective to promote the active participation and the benefits
according to the activities that are carried out. The constant interaction and feedback
between the group and the researcher is necessary. An example of this method is the
analysis of the local or federal elections in some electoral district in México, through the
participation of the actual citizens committees.

Qualitative Evaluation:
It gathers the previous methods, applying them to the evaluation of the social policies,
projects, or service programs. This method is used when the official information in not
enough and a deeper description that allows improving such policy or social program is
needed and the results belong to them. An example of the application of this method
is Oportunidades (opportunities) from SEDESOL (Mexican Social Secretary Development)
that is applied in rural and urban communities across the country.
 
Description of the techniques:

Life History

It is an interview made to an individual who is asked to tell, from his birth until the present
time, all the outstanding experiences that he has gone through and the importance of
these experiences. By telling his life story, the anthropologist can know the perception of
the world in the own words of the person being interviewed. Similarly, the choice of the
facts and the relevant dates, allow us to know the group he belongs to from the
perspective of one of its members.

Testimony

It refers to the expression of minority groups such as the terminally ill, the poor
neighborhoods, etc., that have no other way to communicate their experiences. Through
the realization of interviews, etc., they gather first hand data that is possible to confront
with previous theoretic elaborations to the fieldwork.

Semi-structured interview

It is a technique that consists in elaborating a general script where you include the topics
and questions from which you require the information. The order of the questions is
variable, as is the treatment of the topics. In this type of interview, you seek to adapt to
the situation of the people being interviewed and is more like a conversation between one
or more people. The interviewer directs it, but the people being interviewed determine the
extension and the order of the topics in a flexible way.
Focus group

Between 6 and 12 people are chosen by the researcher to gather information about a
determined topic. A moderator is needed to organize the turns to speak and its principal
interest is to capture the way of thinking and feeling of the participants as well as the way
they influence each other and the way they solve agreements and disagreements. A script
is needed and the moderator should have previous knowledge about the topic being
treated as well as knowledge of group management. Finally, a report is made where you
summarize the discussion and the obtained agreements.

Participant observation

It is the most used method by anthropologists. Through the total immersion in the studied
society, they seek to capture and describe all the aspects of the human activities and the
scenarios in which they occur, in real time. The observations should be written down
immediately after they are made, without trying to analyze them and in a systematic way,
trying to capture the events in the order that they happened. Finally, we need to mention
that by inserting in people’s daily routine, the researcher experiments the world of the
observed people, however, you have to be careful and try not to influence the
environment with the presence of the observer.

Field diary

It gathers the notes taken during the fieldwork, seeking to include the largest amount of
people, activities, details, and even conversations to describe scenarios and events during
the fieldwork.

Documents

They are the official texts, personal texts, newspapers, magazines, etc. that allow you to
gather information about any aspect of the subject or studied group. Personal letters,
diaries and other written or graphic material that allow you to know events and personal
postures of the studied subject are included.

Pictures and videos

Allow you to register the styles and conditions of life of the group or topic being
investigated. They can be old as current and their usefulness allow you to access
moments, activities, and/or situations that already happened or that you are not allowed
to witness.

7.3 Differences between Qualitative and Quantitative Research

Beyond deepening in the controversy between both research methods, it should be noted
that the selection of one or the other method depends on the topic to investigate and of
which are the results you seek to find. There is no one better way to make science, but
you must choose the method that allows you to obtain the best results according to the
purpose of your research.

Once this clarification has been done, you have two fundamental methods: quantitative
research and qualitative research (narrative records of phenomena, analyzes the verbal
and non-verbal communication through specialized techniques such as participant
observation and unstructured interviews). In the next graph you can see a comparison
between these two research methods.

Abstract of reality IDEAL:

1. Gathering and analysis of quantifiable variables.

2. Seeks exact answers. able to be measured mathematically.
3. Seeks the establishment of universal laws (deductive method). 

Knowledge of reality through experience MATERIAL:

1) Deep knowledge of human behavior.
2) Observation of determined groups of people.
3) Considers historical perspective (inductive method).

Starting from the characteristics mentioned in the previous graph, we can say that actually
these types of studies do not compete, but each of them provides different and
complementary aspects among them. There are notable differences when we refer to
them in the role of the researcher according to the selected method. It is enough to
mention that in qualitative research, he is an integrating part of the process and his
interaction is important in this approach.

Conclusion

To conclude this topic, qualitative research has provided since its beginnings a meaningful
contribution in the later development of the social sciences as formal sciences. The
creation of the diverse methods and techniques has allowed broadening the scientific
panorama in general and the actual ways of “doing” science.

A constant criticism that the qualitative method has received is that it lacks reliability and
objectivity. But, as Burgos (2011) says, the fundamental question that must be asked lies
in up to which point is it possible to process information (do science) without some level
of subjective interpretation, given that the choice itself of a topic depends on the personal
interest of each researcher. As you have seen, both approaches have advantages and
limitation, as you can observe in the next diagram, taken from Bautista (2011), as a
summary.

Comparison table of advantages and limitations of quantitative methods vs.

qualitative methods.
 Quantitative methods Qualitative methods

It “uses” the subjects of the study, It “communicates” with the subjects of the
prioritizing the value of science. study, giving more importance to people.

Seeks verifiable answers. Asks questions indefinitely.

Vertical communication between the Horizontal communication between the

researcher and the person being researcher and the person being
investigated. investigated.

Its strength lies in the external validity, so Strength in internal validity generates
that the results are generalizable. substantive theories.

Its weakness is found in the internal Its weakness is the external validity; its
validity, therefore limiting to prove theories results are not generalizable to the
and hypotheses. population.

On the contrary, the main criticism of

Its main criticism to qualitative studies lies
quantitative studies is, whether the results
in whether the results are generalizable.
are complete.

Topic 8. Ethnographic Research

Introduction

According to Burgos (2011), we can locate the beginnings of ethnographic research, in a

general way, in the early XX century mainly with the publications of Bronislaw Malinowski,
Alfred Radcliffe Brown y Edward Evans- Pritchar. According to Kottak (2011), ethnography
emerges at that time as a strategy “to study societies with mayor cultural uniformity and
less social differentiation than the ones that prevail in modern, big and industrialized
societies”.

Explanation

8.1 Ethnography: History and Characteristics

The ethnography or the depth study characterized by an extensive description of all

those aspects of the everyday life of a particular culture, nowadays has adopted a more
integral vision incorporating as Bautista says (2011) “the existing functional
interrelationships between the social institutions of each human group, as well as the
relations with the basic human universal needs”. 

In other words, it goes from being a discipline dedicated to the observation and the
description of the composition of its population, the customs, the symbolism, the
subsistence and production means, to consolidate as an integral study, incorporating the
existing functional interrelationships between the social institutions and the relationships
of these institutions with the basic human needs.

In this sense, the ethnographic research allows a deep constant reflection about the
perceived reality, as well as proposing a hypothesis in a constant redefinition, having as
objective the reconstruction and interpretation of such reality. It’s attributed to Bronislaw
Malinowski the development of the ethnography, due to the transcendence of his work in
the Trobriand Island in Melanesia.

8.2 Methodology of Ethnographic Research

According to Bautista (2011), we can identify seven steps in ethnographic research, which
are presented in the following graph.

Steps in ethnographic research

Marking the field Where?  Subject field What  preparation and documentation 
Design How?  Field investigation  Gathering of information  Conclusion  

The first four are made before starting the research, and are considered desktop activities,
i.e.; it is not necessary to do fieldwork in the chosen place.

1. Marking the field, implies the selection of a community, which can be in a

rural or urban zone and the making of a work plan where we define the
objectives we pretend to find, the resources (human, economic, technical) that
are available, and the time the research will last.

1. In subject field, a topic that is of interest to the researcher and the context in
which it will be studied is chosen. This selection is influenced by the
researcher’s personal characteristics and it is common, for example, to choose
a place with which they have a relation of any type, the community where they
were born, for instance.

1. Then, there is the preparation and documentation, where the first path of

the existing information, both in files and libraries, is performed on the chosen
topic. A revision of the information is made and this allows limiting the topic
more specifically. It’s a common practice to define the topic in relation to the
existing information, seeking to compliment it and update it.

1. Once the existing information was reviewed, you go on to design. Once the
scope and the context of the topic is redefined, basic questions that will direct
the research are asked, the justification or motives that originated them, the
way in which the field work will be done, and the techniques to be used to
gather the data.

1. Once the previous stages are done, it is possible to go to the fieldwork. This

stage is crucial during the ethnographic research and depends on its success
 that it comes to a good end. It is not an easy endeavor, introducing to
someone else’s perspective implies finding the way to gain people’s trust and
finding key characters that facilitate the obtaining of searched information,
process that can result exhausting. The key informants, are individuals that
have occupations and work schedules, and the researcher has to adapt to
them. It is common to change the agenda of the meetings previously
established, for some or all to be canceled, and there are even people who
accept the interview and then change their opinion, or that during the course
of it, they talk about every subject, except those for the ones they were asked
their opinions.

1. Gathering of information, in this stage, more than any other, skills and
personal charisma of the researcher comes in place. You must seek to
approach people and gain their trust, trying not to break any social protocol
established in the study area. For example, in a season of fieldwork made in
2000 in a community around the Distrito Federal, the attempts to establish
contact with people failed, until a presentation was done for the local priest,
who got the first interviews. The locals accepted to participate only after the
intercession of the priest.

2. Once the gathering of information is finished, the researcher goes back to the
desk with all the notes, field diaries, images, etc. gathered, prepares them for
their transfer outside the fieldwork area and starts to work on the gathered
material for the elaboration of the final report or conclusion.

The ethnography can use all the techniques of gathering data mentioned in the previous
topic and there are formats to register them, whether it is printed on the paper to be
completed manually, or through software programs designed for such purpose. The most
widespread among anthropology students is a software program called Ethnography,
although there are computer programs to transcribe recorded interviews for their later
analysis.

Conclusion

To finish this topic, in the presentation of the results, you can recognize two moments:
one descriptive and another one interpretive. The first includes a description of the
community studied in terms of itself, it tells what has been found and the particular
nomenclature used in the terms of the studied community. The greatest difficulty lies in
the interpretive moment, where you have to confront the data obtained in the description
with the theory chosen by the researcher-observer to be explained.

Topic 9. Ethnographic Techniques

Introduction

According to Kottak (2011), among the field techniques most used in ethnography, we can
enumerate nine:

Direct observation Participant observation Conversation

Genealogical method Key informants Life stories

Investigation oriented to several types of problems

Longitudinal investigation Teem investigation

Explanation

9.1 The Importance of Observing and Registering What Was Observed

The use of these techniques requires a great capacity of concentration from the
ethnographer. During the fieldwork he should pay much attention to the small details of
everyday life, as the events that occur year after year and unusual events take place where
the research is being carried out.

As a result of the total immersion, it is frequent that the researcher experiences a cultural
shock. According to the definition of Kottak (2001), the more different the culture in which
you are working is, the anthropologist feels unprotected in a place where nothing is as his
place of origin. The names of things and their ways of behaving are so different that it is
hard to adapt and begin to interact with people or interact with it. As time goes on, he
adapts to the peculiarities of the place of study and needs to stay there at least one year
to experience all the events.

The systematization of what is observed is carried out in a field diary where you can
record in detail all the impressions of what is observed (including odors or mental or
graphic images). It is recommended to empty the journal in set periods of time (weekly or
monthly) in registers that are more formal, from which a final report will be prepared
when the field work is concluded.

It is convenient to establish a good working relationship with the people who interact with
the ethnographer or rapport, a term by which the relationship established with the hosts-
observed is known, and that, generally, survives the field work (Kottak, 2011). By living
together for a long period of time, friendship bonds are established, and they continue to
exist at the end of the formal research period. It is frequent that the anthropologists make
periodical visits when years go by to visit friends originated during the course of their
research.

Whether as a mere observer or taking active participation in the community life while you
are studying it (participant observation), we must say that most times you cannot avoid
getting involved with the community being studied. Depending on the place, bonds of
solidarity between the researcher and the community that hosts him, are established,
where people come to him for advice whether to carry out activities towards the exterior
of the community or even as an active participant in the solution of internal problems
(Kottak, 2011).

9.2 How to Obtain Information for an Interview

By participating in local life, one seeks to talk with as many people as possible, since you
cannot control the availability of people and should not dismiss the importance of the
information that may be possible to obtain. Sometimes, a small and informal conversation
can take you in an unexpected way towards the information you need.

When the local language is not spoken, as one advances in the knowledge of it, it is
possible to access to a greater understanding of the cultural environment. One goes
through several stages while learning the local language: one starts by knowing the names
of things and some simple sentences, like saying hello. Then, it is possible to make simple
questions and understanding the answer, until you get an almost complete handling of
the language, that is perfected as time goes by, and it allows comprehending the public
group discussions and conversations.

In addition to the conversations, the semi-structured interview (whose features have

already been explained) or interview guide, either to part or to the entire houses, is used
if the community is small. Through it, it is possible to collect basic statistical data per home
or family, which include the names, ages and gender of their inhabitants, types of family,
professed religion, past and present occupation, income and expenses, etc. After
establishing the data collected in the script, the ethnographer personally makes each
interview and writes down the obtained answers.

It is advisable to conduct the interviews when you already have a considerable amount of
time living in the place being studied to prevent resistance to share personal information
with strangers and if it is done right, the same people being interviewed can contact you
with other people who have not been interviewed and it is likely that everyone will want to
be included. Conducting these types of surveys in small isolated communities has become
the only source of information that exists and it is even used by authorities and official
institutions.

With respect to ethnography oriented to problems, is a technique used today by

anthropologists to be introduced to field work to investigate a particular issue. Unlike
ethnography that seeks to cover all aspects of daily life of the group being studied, by
selecting a specific aspect you should consider, in addition to the testimony given by the
inhabitants, other factors that affect (climate, food etc..), even if they have not been
mentioned during the fieldwork.

Finally, we must mention the longitudinal research and team research. The first works

made in ethnography in distant geographical places (the African and Asian continents)
complicated the access and the return to the place of study. It was common, because of
this, that early ethnographers did not have the opportunity to go back and write their
reports only with the information obtained in a single visit. Today, with the improved
communications and if the necessary funds are obtained, it is possible to return several
times. This long-term study facilitates the development of successive stages in the
fieldwork and allows the verification of issues that have not been sufficiently treated in the
first visit or the changes that occurred between each phase.

This research is usually done as a team. Subsequent visits may be made either by the
same team or by a researcher with members that vary with time. The participation of new
generations of scholars allows you to gather a greater amount of information from several
perspectives, as well as to accompany the area of study in its change process through
time.

Conclusion

The use of this universe of ethnographic techniques allows the social sciences obtaining
firsthand information, valuable for planning and application of public policies in the areas
of health and development, among many others. Similarly, the approach that allows these
techniques provides the user a privileged perspective that can be used as a strategy in
anthropology or in any other area of social life (economic or political).

Topic 10. Emic - Etic

Introduction

The interest of the anthropologist for introducing himself into the daily life of a culture
different from their own is not an easy endeavor, in addition to culture shock mentioned
above; it is necessary to take a stand on what is observed. Whether from a local
perspective or confronting it with one's own culture, there are two strategies for
ethnographic research exposed next.

Explanation

10.1 The Local Perception or Native Tale

During the ethnographic labor, the primary interest in discovering the local views, beliefs
and perspectives, characterizes the strategy called by Harris (2004) as Emic. One
approach of this type is based on the explanations and local meanings, seeking to answer
how the local culture perceives and categorizes the world, what the rules of behavior are,
and the things that have meaning or that are important from their perspective.
 

In Harris’ words (2004): "When carrying out research in the Emic way, anthropologists try
to gain an understanding of the necessary categories and rules to think and act like a
native”.

We want to explain everything from the perspective of the local or native people, in this
sense; we must go to the so called key informants, people who are selected during the
fieldwork for their contribution to gather relevant information.

10.2 The Perspective from Outside, the Ethnographer

In contrast to the previous strategy, the etic approach emphasizes explanations and

categories of the observer or ethnographer. It is an approach oriented to the
interpretation of the cultures seen from outside, from the point of view of the observer.

This strategy is characterized by attempting to bring out the meaning of the observed
behaviors and activities, because local residents are all too familiar with them to perceive
them.

As Kottak (2011) expresses, when this perspective is used, you should try to use an
objective and comprehensive point of view in the study of cultures. Although it is not
possible to completely eliminate the influence of personal prejudice or the subjectivity of
the observer, the universe of information gathering techniques and proper training helps
to minimize its impact during the course of the fieldwork and the writing of the results.

Conclusion

To finish, we have to say that both strategies are used simultaneously during the
fieldworks. In the anthropological labor, it is as important to know the sense that the local
inhabitants give to the diverse aspects included in their culture, as the search of an
objective and general sense in them, seen from the outside.
 The addition of both approaches allows the anthropologist to obtain an integral vision of
the observed culture, fundamental characteristic that defines it.

Topic 11. Local Ethnography

Introduction

It is important to have a general idea of the society in which you live in; however, having a
deep knowledge of the characteristics of Mexican people makes you understand your own
identity and, from that, generate a global vision of the social and cultural process of each
region.

It is true that each person is different because everybody process the information in their
own way. The knowledge will be accomplished depending the interest; just like you get
good grades when you really have the objective of learning, that is why within this topic
you will get to know, but also understand, how is that Mexico has such dimensions in the
evolutional development of its society.

You know that the strengths of people help the continuous growth and that recognizing
weaknesses is an opportunity to obtain an improvement. Now, consider that the same
way this can be accomplished on an individual level; it can be done as a society, working in
teams, regions or communities.

Explanation:

11.1 Region Concepts and Subdivisions

The concept of region is very important in anthropology; through it, you can analyze the
roles and lifestyle characteristics of the inhabitants of different geographic zones. In order
to avoid conceptual conflicts, because this is a discussion topic between theorists, you will
see only a general definition. A geographic region refers to a space that is studied
beginning from the natural and social elements. Natural elements involve the usage of soil
and its habitats, while social elements refer to the context in which the relationships
between human beings are stablished (Vargas, 2012).

Mexico is divided into the following five regions:

 1. Central 2. Northeastern 4. Northwestern 5. Southeastern
3. West Mexico
Mexico Mexico Mexico Mexico

Distrito Federal Coahuila Aguascalientes Baja California Campeche

Estado de Durango Colima Baja California Chiapas
México Nuevo Leon Guanajuato Sur Oaxaca
Guerrero San Luis Potosi Jalisco Chihuahua Quintana Roo
Hidalgo Tamaulipas Michoacan Sinaloa Tabasco
Morelos Nayarit Sonora Veracruz
Puebla Queretaro Yucatán
Tlaxcala Zacatecas

11.2 Mexican Identity

How is a Mexican?

Mexico is a nation with a great archeological and historical heritage due to the arrival of a
diversity of cultures from all the cardinal points: east from Asia, west from Europe and
southeast from Africa. Wealth continued growing after the encounter with the European
community.

Mexicans, even though they born in a determined city or belong to a different ethnic
culture, we share the same culture and identity.

Three significant elements define Mexican people:

The soil: formed by different landscapes, including beaches, forests, deserts, mountains

and jungle. There are also different types of architecture, from cobblestone streets and
colonial mansions to large modern buildings. 

History: every place and tradition that reminds the historic facts that have been part of
your essence; such as pre-Hispanic era, the Conquest, the Independence, the Revolution
and the Oil Expropriation.  

Living together: all the different festivities that take place throughout a country
distinguished by their joy and hospitality to foreigners and countrymen.

What Mexicans share the most is culture, because it makes visible, tangible and intangible
their memories, wishes, and searches for future (Bejar, 1999). Now that technological
communication is changing so quickly, it has to be asked: how Mexican culture and
identity are going to be recreated, reinvented and spread through the cellphone
messages, the endless social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and the entire world to
discover with this accelerated advance of technology? How does this new techno-virtual
generations will keep living with the classic world of books, long conversations, colorful
parties and hugs from friends and family?    

11.3 Strengths of Mexican Society

Clearly, you are characterized by a cultural wealth, and as an individual you have some
weaknesses to confront. The society in which you currently live is going through the same
situation, because in addition to these strengths it has some weaknesses being improved.
Mexico is facing a difficult economic context due to inequality, many people leaves the
country searching for a job, looking for an economic break, or trying to fulfill their artistic
dreams. It is a fact that Mexican immigrants do not reject their national identity or culture;
they are still connected to their towns and families in Mexico, because from other country
they grieve for their customs and traditions that includes family unity.

However, nobody should omit the different situations that Mexican society is undergoing
nowadays. Social life, peaceful and harmonious coexistence seems farther every day due
to the growth in corruption and violence, depicted in robberies, assaults, kidnappings, and
murders that destroy lives and fills families with pain. Other weaknesses are social
inequality, lack of well-paid jobs, unconformity with the government and the poor
performance in education.

Strengths of Mexican society could achieve the resolution of its great weaknesses,
however unity and conscience of each individual is required in order to make the changes
that may lead to the strategic improvement of the most sensitive issues.

Today Mexican society is more aware of the available growth opportunities, is concerned,
and working to improve education and health sector; focusing on improving job
opportunities and decrease crime rates with specialized programs carried out by highly
qualified professionals.
An important aspect to be mentioned on the strengths of Mexico is a culture of
prevention, is with this practice that setbacks can be avoided to continue improving social
harmony.

Conclusion:

As you can see, dividing the country into regions is useful to group together similar
characteristics between territories and life styles; it is a manner of visualizing in a broad
way what we want to analyze from each territory. Even though, if you consider the
differences between the regions of Mexico, you can notice that Mexican identity is just
one, with some variations but the same in essence. The attachment for customs and
traditions, the importance given to family and looking back to the culture when going
away from the country are characteristics that identify Mexicans in every country they go.
Weaknesses and strengths of society are reasons to keep fighting to obtain the harmony
that every Mexican wants. In addition, you can analyze that the first step for different
problem resolutions is to observe and accept opportunity areas to start improving.

Topic 12. Northwestern Region

Introduction

Northwestern region is formed by the states of Baja California, Baja California Sur,
Chihuahua, Sonora and Sinaloa. The main activities that help these states to maintain
their economy affect the living style and occupation of their members and model the way
they perform their roles in society. In this part of the module, you will learn about the
customs and traditions that are still being carried out in this region as part of the legacy to
preserve their culture.

Explanation:

12.1 Main Economic Activities

The northwest region is composed by a strip of well-articulated areas with an efficient

transport system. It is a functional economic zone of the country, because the economic
activities tend to be centered on its geography: the natural and artificial advantages that
lead to the economic development of this area.

A Strong industrial activity, with a relative boosting of the tertiary sector activities
characterizes this zone. All without leaving aside that, through history, it has been
distinguished by its agricultural vocation with development trends in agribusiness. On the
other hand, serves as a corridor between domestic and U.S. markets.

The most important cities are Mexicali, known because of cotton production and Tijuana,
for tourism. Other important locations are Hermosillo, Obregon, Culiacan and Mazatlan.

There are several economic activities; this is one of the most important agricultural areas
of the country thanks to mild weather, flat and fertile lands, rivers and irrigation systems.

Economic activities

 Agriculture: wheat, cotton, tomato, rice, tobacco, grapes and oranges.

 Animal breeding: cattle, pigs and goats.
 Fishing: tuna, sardines, oysters, shrimp and abalone, among other species.
 Mining: gold, lead, zinc, iron, phosphorus and magnesium. Salt is exploited at the
south of the peninsula; one of the largest natural salt pans of America is there.
  Industry: mainly focused on freezing and packing sea products; dehydration and
packing of fruits and vegetables; brewery, cotton and manufacturing operation.

12.2 Customs and Traditions

Consider how many things you do because you are used to. Maybe turn on the TV while
you eat even if you do not pay attention to it, or wearing specific accessory before leaving
home, but, do you know which things you do because is a tradition? For example,
celebration in your parents’ house due to a festivity that takes place since you were a
child, say a prayer before sleeping o taking flowers to the graveyard in a specific day.

Tradition is a set of cultural possessions that are transmitted from one generation to
another in a community. It includes those customs and expressions that every society
considers of great value and keeps them to be learned by the new generations, as a part
of their cultural legacy.

Next, there are some traditions of the northwestern region states.

Baja California

The main popular festivities are the cotton and wheat fairs celebrated in different villages
and neighborhoods of Mexicali. In September and October, the Sun Holidays are
celebrated, where a popular party is organized during the evening. The traditional sport is
baseball and the representative team are the Mexicali Eagles. On the other hand, the main
gastronomy is seafood based; bread and eggnog prepared by the Brigidinas Mothers are
also part of the cuisine. Some original recipes of this state are Cesar Salad, prepared clam-
tomato juice, and the internationally known Margaritas.

Baja California Sur

Festivities in this state are held in every location’s Saint Day; baptisms are celebrated with
great feasts of gastronomic tastings including empanadas, tamales and mesquite-roasted
fish.

Chihuahua

Main traditions of Chihuahua are based in religion. Some of the most important
celebrations are Santa Rita, San Isidro Labrador, Virgin of Guadalupe, Santo Cristo de
Burgos, Virgin of Remedies and Santa Barbara. The common denominator of the
celebrations are the colorful dressing, music, and traditional dances like the Archer and
the Matachines. The typical food consists of meat, molten chili, dry meat, burritos and
tamales.

Sonora
Celebrations held in Sonora become fairs on the streets with mariachis and bands, native
dances, selling of various craft products, artistic performances, and thematic decorated
cars.

The most representative parties are the Copper Fair, Puerto Guaymas Carnival, San
Francisco Javier Celebration, Virgin of Guadalupe Day, Day of the Dead and Holy Week.

Sinaloa

From all the traditions that distinguish this state, the most important is the ball game
known as Ulama, one of the oldest sports in Mexico, which goes back to pre-Hispanic
times. In the main festivities friendly games are held, which are great attraction to local
and foreign visitors. Sinaloa’s’ cuisine is mainly distinguished by dishes based on seafood,
but also have chilorio, white menudo, the michi broth and pozole.

12.3 Cultural Ecology

Gonzalez (1997) defines cultural ecology as a set of principles, methodologies and

concepts applied, in different time and space conditions, to the study of human being, its
society and culture. Its main objective is the study of the processes that a society adapts
socially and culturally to its environment. In other words, it explains how a society and its
several institutions should be analyzed, in order to be studied and understood as
sociocultural adaptations to specific environments. Behavior patterns of adaptation are
accomplished by studying relationships between human beings and their physical
environment, through integration levels that go from local to regional, national and
international.

There are levels of relationship between society and environment held in cultural ecology
researches and studies:

 Relations between the settlement and several components of its inorganic

environment, such as latitude, elevation, topography, climate, water, and soil.

 Relations between community and plants, as well as wild and domesticated

animals.
  Interactions between the human beings that form a community. Relations
relationships have labor, business, family, religious and social purposes and are
expressed through institutions of mutual aid, which allows the existence of
commercial agriculture and livelihood of families.

Cultural Ecology, being an empirical and theoretical tool (Gonzalez, 1997), allows you to
understand how the human being have capabilities to interact with their environment
through their cultural heritage, which is increasingly improved from one generation to
another and transmitted through observation, practice and experience (empirical
knowledge). For example, farmers have empirical knowledge acquired from their parents
and grandparents; like the use of wild plants to treat diseases and building houses.

Conclusion:

The main activities carried out in the northwest region are agriculture, fishing, farming,
mining and manufacturing; all of them represent the economy of this zone. People in this
area have their own customs and traditions deeply rooted, which are known throughout
Mexico. Society members have a sense of cultural ecology, because the favorable
conditions of their landscapes are highly linked to their cultural heritage. The
environment, in combination with the good relationship of the society, will bring
education for next generations focused in preserving the land.

Topic 13. Northeastern Region

Introduction

Mexico is continuously improving as a society; technological resources are an important

support to such development. However, the country is going through difficult situations,
the northeastern region, formed by the states of Coahuila, Durango, Nuevo Leon, San Luis
Potosi and Tamaulipas, is an example of the insecurity that Mexico is facing. Nevertheless,
in spite of the long journey of limitations, people make an effort every day to improve
their living conditions and preserve their remarkable landscapes. In this topic, you will see
some of the main touristic and unique attractions of the northeastern region of Mexico.

Explanation:

13.1 Technological Resources to Improve Regional Development

In this era, technology has had great advances in a small period, compared with other
moments in history. For you, the use of cell phones, computers, access to the internet and
different domestic and medical appliances is a common practice, is part of your life, your
everyday; however, just a few decades ago, Mexico’s technological resources were scarce.
The northeastern region includes one of the three main cities of the country, Monterrey;
that has a high rate of businesspersons that handles the industrial sector and allow the
national development to go on with the help of technological resources.

In different countries that have accomplished economic growth during this century, the
main factors considered as promoters are science and technology. The northeastern
region generates science and technology professionals; it also has the higher economic
development in the country.

13.2 Tourist Attractions in the Northeast

Surely, you have traveled on vacations, probably you know other countries, sometimes
you can know more about other places than your hometown; in this part of the course
you will get to know and recognize places that are meeting points for tourists and part of
Mexico’s landscapes richness.

Coahuila

In this state, four places standout for offering entertainment and learning:

Mexican Birds Museum

Mexican Birds Museum is a beautiful architectural jewel of mid XIX century. Its mission
is to recognize, valuate, and preserve natural resources of Mexico and the world through
studying birds. It has samples that represent 75% of the species of the country. Is the
biggest museum dedicates exclusively to birds in Mexico.

Desert Museum

The Desert Museum offers different sections where you can find expositions like The
Desert and its Past, The Man and the Desert, Evolution and Biodiversity, and Life
Laboratory. Besides, a representation of the environment present in Coahuila more that 70
million years ago is in the Biodome (Coahuila Government, 2014).
Parras de la Fuente
Parras de la Fuente, located at 149 km from of the state capital, is famous because of its
rural atmosphere, mild climate and natural landscapes. Founded in 1597, it proudly shows
the title of Magic Village since 2004. The town also has an important Wine Museum;
these products have won national and international awards thanks to their high quality
(Coahuila Government, 2014).
Cuatro Ciénegas

Cuatro Cienegas is a place where you can find incredible natural landscapes and rich
historic anecdotes of Venustiano Carranza, a famous character of the Mexican Revolution
born in this town.
In November 2012, Cuatrocienegas obtained the designation of Magic Village by the
UNESCO. In is considered a Natural Protected Area due to its huge biodiversity; it
shelters more than 1 200 endemic species.

Durango

The main touristic attractions of this state are Devil’s Backbone (Espinazo del Diablo),
Fernandez Canyon and the Basis Ravine (Quebrada de Basis).

Devil’s Backbone (Espinazo del Diablo)

The Durango-Mazatlan highway was well known for having only a lane for each way,
surrounded in both sides by canyons. Due to its dangerousness it was called the Devil’s
Backbone. Nowadays you can go through the Baluarte Bridge that in a moment was
considered the highest cabled-stayed bridge of the world.

Fernández Canyon

In this place, you can find a variety of forest plants and trees, as well as many local
species.
One of its natural attractions is the Nazas River, which has more than 20 different fish
species. In the region you can also find El Rosario Mountain and Francisco Zarco Dam.

Basis Ravine (Quebrada de Basís)

This place is nearly 2 000 feet deep within the Sierra Madre in Durango.
The village of San José Basís, which is several hundred years old, is among the main
attractions.

Nuevo Leon
In this state, there are a great number of places that can be visited by tourist from all over
the world. Some points of interest are the Marco museum, steel museum Oven 3, and
Santiago, a magic village.

Contemporary Art Museum (MARCO)

At the south side of the Macroplaza you can find the Contemporary Art Museum, founded
in 1991. It is mainly devoted to promote international contemporary art. The building is
also used for conferences, cultural events, and theater festivals.

Steel Museum Horno 3

This museum is located within the Fundidora Park, in one of the most significant places in
the history of the steel industry in Nuevo Leon.
The museum is divided into four galleries: History, Steel, Incinerator Show and the Top;
you can learn the history of steel industry in the country through interactive exhibits
designed for all ages.
Santiago, Nuevo Leon. Categorized as a Magic Village by UNESCO

This place is considered the perfect retreat from the city. Here you can visit the downtown,
eat at different local restaurants and buy handcrafts made in the region among other
activities.
The Cola de Caballo (Horse Tail) waterfall and Presa de la Boca (Mouth Dam) are two
places visited daily by both domestic and foreign tourists.

San Luis Potosí

This state has a variety of attractive features, from desert places full of historical richness,
to landscapes with a great diversity of flora and fauna.

Real de Catorce

To access this town you have to go through a tunnel, which is 2 300 feet long. It is located
in the heart of the mountain chain called Sierra de Catorce.
It was founded in 1779; its main economic activity was the silver exploitation. Currently,
it receives tourists from all over the world to visit the main church and the bullring; also,
they can camp on its surroundings.

Xilitla

Xilitla is a village in the Sierra Madre Oriental mountain range, which is one of the highest
parts of the Huasteca area. Coffee beans and citrus fruits are part of the growing
production.

Among the most interesting attractions are the surrealist garden of Edward James, Los
Comales Waterfall, Saltpeter Cave, the former Convent of the Augustinians (now
remodeled) and the Museum of Edward James, located next to what was Plutarco
Gastelums’ house in the village, now an inn called The Castle. This museum has many of
James’ personal items as well as his photographs.

The word Xilitla comes from the Nahuatl, and means “place of snails”; the highest
geographical point is La Silleta, a hill shaped like a saddle (Government of San Luis
Potosi, 2014).
The cave of Swallows (Sótano de las Golondrinas)

The cave is 60 feet in diameter and its trimmed walls go down to 375 meters to the
bottom. Its name comes from the numerous quantity of birds, mainly swallows and
parrots, living within this great natural hole, the best time to enjoy the show is around 6
am or at dusk.

Tamaulipas

The state of Tamaulipas has many interesting places to visit, especially beautiful beaches,
attractive for tourists from different parts of the country and the world.

Miramar Beach

A few minutes from Tampico port, Miramar Beach is one of the most important tourist
attractions in the state of Tamaulipas. Thousands of tourists go each year to enjoy the
waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

From March to July, the kemp’s ridley sea turtle makes its way to the coast to spawn; there
are events to release the newborn turtles.

La Pesca Beach

La Pesca is located in the municipality of Soto la Marina; it is a 230 kilometers length

beach at the Gulf of Mexico. It is a protected area because is home for a variety of
waterbirds.

13.3 Regionalisms of Northeastern Society

Have you considered that some of the words in your vocabulary are used differently in
other states of your own nation? Some words may have no meaning for other people, but
are very common for you. A regionalism is a figure of speech in different places, so that a
word can mean something in a given region and have a different meaning in another.
Regionalisms are the different ways of naming things according to the region (Muro,
1998).

Different ways of naming the same things arise because many persons are speaking the
same language; so new words emerge, or a different word may be used to name
something. This process enriches the language. These changes are called variants of the
language, in this case, Spanish. Variations may appear due to geographical reasons, which
are the differences between those who live in different regions. For example, in Mexico,
some people say lana  (wool) to mean “money”, in other countries they say plata  (silver)
or pasta (dough).

There are also differences between people from the same country or the same city. For
example, in addition to calling the money lana, some people call it marmaja  (similar to
“dough”), or use varos  (bucks) to mean “pesos”.

Notheastern Regionalism Meaning

Ajúa Excitement, “yahoo!”

Apá Dad

Barra Excuse for not doing something

Burrito Flour tortilla taco, largest than normal

 Tenderete, changarro Small selling stand

Huercos, chamacos Children

Carrancear To steal

Bicla Bicycle

Conclusion:

Regionalisms are a peculiarity of a region; you may be so familiar with some words that
when you visit another region within the same country, you can have problems
transmitting your message or being understood. In summary, each region of Mexico have
specific and distinctive characteristics; it is important to explore the diversity in social,
cultural, and political contexts in order to acquire the individual heritage and be
participative for the continuous improvement of the country.

Topic 14. Central and Western Region

Introduction

Urban planning in Mexico is a variable hard to handle, however progress in this field is
clear. In addition, Mexicans do not forget their roots and keep their legacy. Traditional
popular culture is of great importance for forming, developing, and conserving identity
values. Preserving customs, habits and lifestyles could be achieved through the
consciousness in the community regarding culture as a development factor. Teaching,
promoting, and implementing actions is essential to educate a community in a culture of
love for their traditions.

On the other hand, Mexico is famous for its cuisine. But beyond tacos and guacamole,
which are internationally renowned, there are rich and varied culinary traditions
throughout the country, which is why this country maintain an outstanding image of the
variants in dishes.

Now you will study about the central and western regions.

Explanation:

14.1 Evolution of Urbanism

Can you imagine how your city looked 50 years ago? How was the transportation,
education, and social life? What was the difference between the rural and urban area?
How many people studied high school or college? How many educational options were
available? What distance separated one county from another within residential areas?
Maybe you have the answer for each of these questions, which reference to urban
development of the regions within Mexico. The Central Region is the most populated in
Mexico and it is where the megalopolis of Mexico City is located.

The high degree of urbanization in Mexico, insufficient growth in per capita income,
poverty, and circumstantial urban deprivation is not consistent with a considerable
number of other “highly competitive” cities.

Population growth in a city depends on the biological population growth (natural growth),
that is, the balance of births and deaths, and net migration balance (social growth). The
first component is relatively easy to get, since urban demographic variables have
differences even between small cities (Garza and Schteingart, 2010). Social growth, on the
other hand, depends primarily on the dynamics of economic growth in the cities, whose
determinants are much more difficult to quantify because they obey to complex factors
ranging from national macroeconomic policies, characteristics of productive factors and
efficiency of local governance, to social and geographical variables.

Total country population is forecast at 122 million in 2020, of which 104.5 million would be
urban, implying an urbanization rate of 85.9%, reaching this figure would be possible only
by a drastic reduction in absolute rural population (Garza and Schteingart, 2010).

The main national challenge will be to productively employ this growing labor force in the
cities and provide services to cover the requirements of these new urbanites, as well as
reduce existing deficits.

Unfortunately, the high level of urbanization does not means that the nation has left
underdevelopment behind: more than one-third of the labor force in the cities is
dissatisfied, living in irregular areas with significant gaps in urban services and
infrastructure; this is, in poverty situation.
Mexico is now a highly urbanized nation with economic, social and environmental
problems, so the future of the country depends on the ability of the Mexican government
to plan the system of the cities dynamics rationally, especially those of metropolitan
character, in such way that they can become competitive in a global economy.

14.2 World-famous Traditional Gastronomy

Flavors, scents and textures of traditional Mexican cuisine are a pleasant surprise for the
senses, especially the exotic products such as maguey worms, ants and fried
grasshoppers. The unique blend of flavors in dishes such as mole and other traditional
sauces is a delight for the most discriminating palates (Ayala, 2007).

Mexico's cuisine appeals fragrant and fresh ingredients that can be admired in any
market: very red tomatoes, chili peppers dark green or as red as a brick, bunches of fresh
herbs and a great selection of fruits and vegetables; as well as fresh seafood, poultry,
pork, goat and beef. Besides, the unmistakable smell of the food being grilled, one of the
favorite methods of cooking over the country.

The central region is the core of the most refined and elaborate meals because it was
there where the finest ingredients and cooks arrived to adapt recipes and incorporate
them into the ruling class gastronomy (Ayala, 2007).
Central and western regions cuisine
Mole
Mole is a paste made from different chili peppers, chocolate, peanuts, pumpkin seeds and
some spices, such as cloves and cinnamon. It is one of the most representative foods of
Mexico and there are different varieties, being one of the best known the one from Puebla.

Chiles en nogada
This traditional dish is a poblano chili stuffed with seasoned ground beef or pork meat. It
is bathed in a sauce made from walnuts and garnished with pomegranate seeds. This dish
is seasonal, because during the months of September and October is when you can get the
pomegranate.

Barbacoa
Hidalgo’s typical barbecue is one of the most famous in the central region. For its
elaboration, a hole in the ground is made, then, it is filled with hot coals. Beef and lamb
are wrapped in maguey leaves and let simmering a full night. The next day, it is taken out
of the hole and served with freshly made tortillas and hot salsa.

Tamales
Like mole, the preparation and ingredients vary according to the customs of each
community. This pre-Hispanic dish consists of a preparation of corn dough and lard
stuffed with meat, vegetables or fruit, wrapped in corn or banana leaves and put to steam.
The best-known varieties are pork, green sauce, chicken mole, and sweet, with raisins.

Pozole
This dish is prepared with hominy kernels with pork and chicken, seasoned with herbs and
other species. Once served, it is accompanied with lettuce, radishes, onions, oregano and
chili powder.

Michoacán style Carnitas

Carnitas are prepared with pork meat fried in lard, seasoned with cola or orange flavor
soda. Its presentation is in tacos accompanied with red onion, coriander and hot sauce.

Tortas ahogadas
The preparation of this dish consists of filling a white bread with shredded pork and then
introduce it into a container with hot spicy sauce. It is served on a plate and accompanied
with onion.

Tacos al pastor
Tacos al pastor are made with marinated pork roasted on coals in the form of giant
whipping top. The person preparing the tacos cuts thin slices of the roasted meat and puts
them on the tortilla. Depending on the region it can be accompanied with chopped onions,
coriander, lemon, hot sauce and chunks of grilled pineapple.

14.3 Folklore as Way of Cultural Preservation

The culture of a nation is passed from one generation to another, and each of them
enriches it, contributing their experiences, traditions, customs and values. Forging this
way the historical memory of a region.
Folklore consists of the cultural assets that accumulate in a social group regardless of their
economic status. It is spread through observation, imitation and continuity, as well as
some traditions, such as culinary or musical.

Mexican folklore is a mixture resulted from mestizo music and the influence of the
Spanish conquerors. The most common genres are dances, jarabes, polkas, sones and
huapangos. The music generated by many instruments is accompanied by stylized dance
steps that emphasize the masculinity of men and women coquetry, appropriately adorned
with suits and dresses full of color.

Mariachi

Mariachi has become one of the main symbols that distinguishes Mexico internationally.
Its main elements at this time are the Charro suit and the trumpet. It has now spread
throughout the continent as well as Europe and Asia, being one of the few musical genres
that perform songs in Spanish in many abroad areas (Jauregui, 2012).

The musical genre of mariachi was constituted during the 1930s, when it started
incorporating the sound of the trumpet and singing rancheras, its spread was due to the
so-called Golden Age of the Mexican cinema. It was there that the image of a mariachi
accompanying a Charro singer was created (Jauregui, 2012). The modern mariachi
impresses due to the visual aspect consisting of tight jeans, jacket, boots and wide-
brimmed hat.

Conclusion:

As you can see, Mexico has many aspects to analyze, the prosperity of its people,
geography, cuisine, and culture. It is up to every Mexican to participate in the improving of
the country, because Mexican society is full of virtues, but it also has a long way to
minimize the problems rooted on its different regions. Is time for younger generations,
like you, to concentrate on generating widespread knowledge, because in a few years you
will be the engine that moves the country in all its productive areas.

Topic 15. Southeastern region

Introduction

Has it ever happen to you that people from other states or countries know more places of
Mexico than you do? Why do you think this happens?

With so many natural richnesses that exist in this country, you can create a long
description of life in Mexico. Archeology, art and natives are an essential part of the
culture; from the ancestors people have tried to keep the history line, furthermore, keep
alive the present, so that the future continues with an optimal development of Mexican
society. Those who have been lucky enough as to know Mexico deeply would know that it
has many secrets that only time and interest will reveal. Art as a mean of preservation is
very representative, thanks to it Mexican chronology is shaped and its original culture is
known.
Explanation:

15.1 Archaeological Sites

Mexico’s southeastern region is formed by the states of Campeche, Chiapas, Guerrero,

Oaxaca, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Veracruz and Yucatan. The common thing between all
this places is that they has important archeological sites. The following chart includes the
most important.

State Main archeological sites

Campeche Culucbalon
Xpuhil
Hochob
Xculhoc
Chiapas Palenque
Bonampak
Yaxchilán
Guerrero Huamuxtitlan
La Sabana
Tehuacalco
Oaxaca Mitla
Monte Alban
Yagul
Zaachila
Quintana Roo Coba
Tulum
Xelha
Xcaret
Tabasco Comacalco
La Venta
Malpasito
Veracruz Cempoala
Tajín
Papantla
Yucatán Chacmultun
Chichén Itza
Kabah
Uxmal

15.2 Art and Expressions

History and identity of a country is commonly expressed through artistic work. For
example, Mexican popular art show includes the one produced by indigenous
communities. This type of expressions combines creativity, innovation, customs, materials
 and lifestyle, which provides a distinctive sign to each product (Fundación por la
Socialdemocracia de las Américas, 2011).

In Mexico four artesian production forms have survived from ancient times (Fundación por
la Socialdemocracia de las Américas, 2011):

Individual Workshops with blue

Family workshops Manufacturing
workshops collar

Profession is The owner of the The owner of the Production chains

transmitted from workshop is in workshop is in charge of where artisan make
one generation to charge of all the the process, but has some a product within a
another. Labor is elaboration helpers. Much time he process from the
divided by age and process, frequently teaches the crafting beginning until the
gender. Use of  supported by a process so they can final product is
simple tools. helper. elaborate the product done.
completely.
 

Principal crafts in Mexico:

Pottery Embroidery Ironworks Cleaning products Straw work

Basketry Glass Carpentry Fabric Copper work
Fireworks Leatherwork Paint Ceramics Sandals and typical footwear
Silverware Saddlery Stonework Carving Tannery

The most representative handcrafts of Mexico’s southeastern region are:

Oaxaca
 Pottery
 Textiles

Campeche
 Hammocks
 Textiles

Veracruz
 Blanket clothing
  Woven clothing

Guerrero
 Silver jewelry

Quintana Roo
 Basketry
 Woven and embroidered products

15.3 Indigenous Groups and Languages

The word indigenous means “native from a country”, this people are considered as a

minority, that is why some individuals see them as “different”, because they talk other
language, have other type of customs, dress differently and do not follow the standards
established by the majority (Navarrete, 2008).

Racism is a barrier that blocks the understanding about indigenous people. Knowing
about their lifestyle and culture will fight this behavior, in order to treat them as members
of the society, sharing the same country and nationality.

According to INEGI (2004), the majority of the indigenous population is located in the
southeast of the country, as you can see in the following image:

Figure 1: Southeastern states ranked by indigenous population. Adapted from

INEGI (2004) La Población Indígena en México.
The main indigenous groups in the southeastern region are the following (CONACULTA,
2014):

State Main indigenous groups

Campeche Quiche, Kanjobal, Ixil y Kekchi.

Chiapas Chol, Tsotsil, Zoque, Tzetzal, Lancandon, Motozintleco,

Cakchiquel, Chuj, Tojolabal, Mame y Jacalteco.

Guerrero Amuzgo, Mixteco y Tlapaneco.

Oaxaca Triqui, Tacuate, Mixe, Ixcateco, Zapoteco, Chontal, Huave,

Mazateco, Chocho, Chatino, Chinanteco y Cuicateco.

Tabasco Chontal

Veracruz Totonaca y Popoluca.

Yucatán Maya

Conclusion:

Southeastern region is characterized by its history, expressed in the remains of ancient

cultures. In the states of this region, there are indigenous groups that besides the time
passed, and the changes in the Mexican society, are still keeping their traditions and
customs. In the same way, traditions and customs are preserved from one generation to
another, as you may note in gastronomy, cultural expressions and handcrafts, made the
same way than in ancient times.