ANTHROPOLOGY 1 NOTES can learn any cultural

CHAPTER 2 tradition
I. What is Culture Culture is SYMBOLIC
II. Culture’s Evolutionary Basis ➔ Culture originated once we were able to
III. Universality , Generality, Particularity bestow meaning onto an event or object
IV. Culture and the Individual: Agency and ➔ Symbol: something verbal or nonverbal
Practice that stands for something else arbitrarily
V. Mechanisms of Cultural Change (with no real connections)
VI. Globalization ◆ Linguistic Symbols and nonverbal
symbols like flags and crosses
I. What is CULTURE? ➔ Humans have the ability to learn, think
A. Complex whole including symbolically, use language and
knowledge, belief, etc. and any manipulate cultural products as they see
other capabilities and habits fit
acquired by man as a member of ◆ Everyone can use symbols
society therefore everyone can create
B. Human’s attributes that they get and maintain culture
not through biological inheritance Culture is SHARED
but through enculturation ➔ Culture arises as being part of a group;
(learning culture) and the individual in a group
socialization (social cognition) ➔ Enculturation unifies people by providing
Culture is LEARNED: us with common experience
➔ Cultural learning depends on our ability ◆ When a group of people share
to use symbols (images or signs that memories, inside jokes, decorum,
have arbitrary or random connections to etc.
the things they mean) ➔ A culture always changes but there are
➔ Humans slowly internalize a system of certain parts (beliefs, or values) that
meaning and symbols withstand the test of time, and have
◆ Conscious and unconscious always been part of enculturation
learning ➔ Individualistic ideals may ensue but the
● When a parent teaches reality is that not much of our thoughts
you to say thank you are unique
(conscious) Culture and NATURE
● Observation and ➔ People have to eat/defecate, but culture
awareness of teaches us what, when and how
surroundings ➔ Technology along with culture helps us
(unconscious) surpass many natural boundaries
◆ All humans have culture ◆ Vaccines, modern medicine,
● All individuals have the telegraphs, engineering
same capacity for culture, Culture is ALL-ENCOMPASSING
but have different ➔ All people are cultured
emotional and intellectual ➔ Culture encompasses features that can
capacities tl dr; anyone be considered as trivial
 ◆ Normal things such as comic
books or television are counted
as a cultural manifestation
Culture is INTEGRATED
➔ Cultures are patterned systems
◆ Culture is integrated to other
aspects of society such as
economics and politics
◆ Cultures are integrated by
different sets of values, ideas,
symbols and judgments
◆ CORE VALUES are heavily
integrated in cultures, and these
cultures train their members to
uphold these
Culture can be ADAPTIVE and MALADAPTIVE
➔ There exists cultural adaptive kits;
human evolution forced us to be more
dependent on our cultural adaptation
rather than our biological one
➔ Some adaptive behavior can be
beneficial for individuals but can harm
the group or environment long term
◆ Littering, single-use plastic
➔ Maladaptive behavior can threat
humanity’s existence
◆ Carbon emissions from modern
vehicles
◆ Air Conditioning
➔ Several cultural patterns such as
overconsumption are maladaptive in the
long run
II. Culture’s Evolutionary Basis
➔ Hominid: member of the hominid family;
ay fossil or living human, chimp or
gorilla
➔ Hominins: all human species that have
ever existed
➔ Our humanistic traits originated from
our primate ancestors
III.
◆ Grabbing, manual dexterity, color
vision, depth perception
◆ This kind of dexterity is what
allowed humans to create tools
◆ Apes and humans also share the
capacity for learning brought by
their large brain to body ratio
◆ Single offspring allows for more
attention to be directed towards
an individual, and more learning
opportunities
➔ The social animal tendency of humans
originated from apes where they seeked
support through social groups
➔ The difference between primate society
and human culture is the human’s ability
for symbolic thought, but the following
are more similarities
◆ Learn from experience and
change behavior
◆ Production of stone tools
◆ Apes use of sticky sticks to
collect termites from termite hills
➔ Another difference between primates
and humans are that humans are more
likely to share and cooperate
◆ This behavior was developed
when humans were in their
hunting and gathering stage,
where they would hunt in groups
called BANDS
◆ The amount of information stored
in a band is more than any
primate group
➔ Mating is another difference between
humans and primates
◆ Kinship and exogamy promoted
diplomatic ties and mutual
recognition from several groups
rather than if someone had no
ties outside of his own
Universality, Generality, and Particularity
➔ Universal: serves or is an attribute of all
humans
◆ These traits distinguish humans
from other species
● Ex.infant dependency, year
round sexuality, ability to
use symbols, languages
and tools
◆ Most universals are biological
◆ Organization of social life and
social interaction also bring
about universals
● Family living and food
sharing
● Exogamy and incest taboo
➔ General: pattern or trait of most but not
all
◆ Generalities can come as a result
of colonial rule or cultural
diffusion
● Speaking of english
◆ It can also arise through inventing
the same pattern in different
cultures (rose from coincidence
and circumstance)
◆ ◆ An individual internalizes and
➔ Particular: applies to certain cultures
only
◆ Confined to a single culture or
place
◆ Former particulars could now
grow to be general because of
transporation
◆ Cultural traits can be borrowed
and modified to fit the culture
that borrowed them
◆ Several phenomena can be
universal, but their interpretations
in different cultures can be
different
● Birthdays, passage of rites
➔ Anthropology studies cultural practices,
differences and patterns
IV. Culture and The Individual: Agency and
Practice
➔ Anthropology studies the relationship
between the “system” and the individual
◆ The system denotes social
structure, relations, culture, etc.
➔ Individuals both compose and are
guided by the system
◆ Individuals are not mere
recipients of the system’s control,
but also learn, interpret, modify
and manipulate cultural rules
◆ People often contest what should
and shouldn’t be the meaning of
things in the face of other
cultures
➔ Ideal VS Real cultures
◆ Ideal: what people ought to do,
what they say they do
◆ Real: actual observed behavior
➔ Culture is public and individual
◆ How an individual thinks is a
topic of study for anthropologists
because of its (how a person
thinks) relation to culture
interprets the meaning of public
(outside their own) messages
◆ Individuals convert their
understanding into their own
expressions for the world to
consume or critique
➔ Culture is social glue
◆ Shared/collective memory binds
people of the same culture
together
◆ Ie. culture needs less of a
conscious effort to maintain
◆ Agency: the actions a person
takes (both on their own and in
groups) in the
formation/changing of cultural
identities
 ◆ Practice theory: the notion that die out because of contemporary
each individual in a society has a international activism
different set of motives and has a ➔ Cultural Relativism: full understanding of
respective degree of power a different culture is required to explain
● How can individuals its members motives and beliefs; tldr:
exercise influence to don’t judge if you don’t understand
change their ◆ People within the same culture
environment/surroundings can also disagree; gender
● Culture shapes an dispute, generational gaps
individual and in turn the ◆ Consider who is
individual is given the advantaged/disadvantaged by a
opportunity to custom
change/partake ◆ A methodological position
in/influence culture ➔ Human rights creates boundaries as to
➔ Levels of Culture what is culturally appropriate; providing
◆ National: beliefs and behaviors a sense of morality and justice
shared by a group of people from ◆ These are inalienable rights
the same country ◆ Some human rights
● Nations can contain ● Freedom of speech
several culturally defined ● Right to religion
groups ● Right to autonomy
◆ International: traditions, beliefs ● Right to trial
and behaviors crossing over ➔ Cultural Rights: rights vested in religious
national boundaries through and ethnic minorities and indigenous
diffusion societies
● Roman Catholicism, ◆ Rights include:
standard education, the ● To raise their children in
olympics the ways of their ancestors
◆ Subcultural: beliefs and behaviors ● To continue using its
shared by people smaller than the language
national level, only in particular ● Not to be deprived of an
groups economic base in its home
● Usually formed in families, nation
peer groups, workplaces, ● Right to practice religion
communities and culture
V. Ethnocentrism, Cultural Relativism, and ➔ Intellectual Property Rights
Human Rights ◆ Tries to preserve cultural base
➔ Ethnocentrism: the tendency to view (principles)
one’s own culture as superior to others ◆ Allows indigenous grps to control
◆ More moral, more justified, who makes use of their IK
sensible, etc. ◆ IPR allows indigenous groups to
◆ Human rights violations in some decide where and how products
cultures force some traditions to
 of IK are distributed, and how
much benefits they receive
VI. Mechanisms of Cultural Change
➔ Diffusion: borrowing of traits between
cultures
◆ Direct Diffusion: two cultures
trade, marry or declare war on
each other
◆ Forced Diffusion: enforcement of
culture on another cultural group
(domination)
◆ Indirect Diffusion: group 1 to 2 to
3 but no direct interaction
between cultural groups 1 and 3
➔ Acculturation: exchange of cultural
features from continuous contact and
trade
◆ Parts of culture change but the
groups themselves remain the
same
◆ Combination of practices, foods,
songs, etc.
➔ Independent Invention: people of the
same societies with the same culture
innovate in similar ways
◆ Ex. both the middle east and
mexico discovered agriculture
and economic systems
VII. Globalization
➔ Globalization: acculturation and
diffusion reinforced by international
commerce, travel, media, and
information systems
◆ Mass media encourages
consumption and commerce
● Media also influences
lifestyle, ideologies,
products, etc.
● People live multi-locally
ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORIES
1. Evolutionism - Tylor, Darwin, Morgan
● Human development in societies are
expected to follow a unilineal framework
of development
● Religion, civilization are a few of the
aspects of a society that can follow a
unilineal framework
BARBARISM > SAVAGERY >
CIVILIZATION
● CRITICISMS:
○ based on secondary evidence,
○ ethnocentric view
○ became a basis for race theory
Ex. Ethnic tribe, Amish
2. Diffusionism
● The spread of certain ideas and
customs between cultures
● “People are inherently uninventive and
would rather borrow inventions”
○ They thought that majority of
inventions were borrowed from
the Egyptians
● Egyptian diffusionism was ethnocentric
● German diffusionism believed that
cultures can be borrowed from any
culture; several origins of culture
○ Kulturkeise
● Kroebe: borrowed culture creates
change in the culture that receives it
● CRITICISMS: ethnocentric ideology
(since some cultures are borrowed from,
it makes it seem that they’re better);
could not explain why some cultures
had no external origin
3. Historical Particularism: Boas
● Boas: cultures cannot be categorized as
backward or civilized
● Idiographic approach: to deal with
specific cases; relativist
 ● Nomothetic approach: consider several
cases at a time
● Introduced cultural relativism
● Each culture in a society has its own
distinct and unique path of development
School of Thought in Anthropology
1. Functionalist
● Brown-Radcliffe: institutions ensure
solidarity and social integration as a
whole
● They said that society was a
self-maintaining system of relationships
made of institutions, where institutions
are an ordered set of relationships that
work for the maintenance of society
● Norms and customs asserted by
institutions and socialization are
necessary for order and stability
○ Cultural traits are there to fulfill
an individual’s needs
2. Culture and Personality
● Personality patterns were based on
different socialization practices
● PLAIN VS PUEBLO ETHNOGRAPHY (ruth
benedict)
○ Plain: represented violence, war,
use of vices
○ Pueblo: represented cooperation,
harmony, etc.
● The configuration of a society is
reflected by those who are in it/its
constituents
● Mead: development on the individual is
more dependent on cultural
expectations than physical biology
○ Gender-associated traits
3. Structuralism
● Things cannot be understood in
isolation, and must be understood in the
context as part of a larger structure
○ Kinship
○ Myths
● Levi-Strauss: human mind
fundamentally thinks of things in binary
oppositions
○ He also said that the savage
mind was similar to the civilized
mind
4. Cultural Ecology and Neo-Evolutionism
Anthropological theories & Schools of Thought
(cont.)
● Cultural Ecology and Neo-Evolutionism
(Leslie White; Steward)
○ Neo-evolutionism: attempts to
explain cultural transformation as
a result of improvements in
harnessing energy
■ Hunter-gatherer societies
use less energy to modern
industrialized societies
■ Also known as universal
evolutionism
○ Cultural Ecology: insists that
cultural adaptation towards the
natural environment initiates
social transformations of
evolutionary change
■ relationship between
natural conditions,
technology, and social
organization
● Cultural Materialism and Marxist
Anthropology (Harris;)
○ Cultural Materialism: focuses on
both organizational aspects of
social institutions (politics and
economy) as well as the symbolic
aspects (art, philosophy) as a
result of serving the biological
needs of a society
 ■ Institutions and symbols
serve a biological function
○ Socio-cultural systems can be
divided into
■ Infrastructure: technology
used for the production of
resources such as food,
clothing and shelter
■ Structures: domestic and
political economy
● Domestic: family
structure, domestic
division of labor,
age and gender
roles
● Political: class,
castes, police, and
military
■ Super-structures:
philosophy, art, ideas,
religion, games, science,
values
■ Change in the
infrastructure will cause
change in structures and
superstructures
○ Marxist Anthropology
■ Individuals within the
social collectivity were
seen as acting upon nature
and entering into definite
relations with each other in
providing for themselves
■ Systems of production
influence all of society
■ “Culture is a material
phenomenon”
● Symbolic and Interpretative
Anthropology and the Effect of
Postmodernism
○ Symbolic Anthropology
■ Deals with the
interpretation of symbolic
actions
■ “Culture is a mental
phenomenon; a collection
of organized symbols”
○ Postmodernism: concentrates on
language and power as signs and
symbols that took meaning from
relationships between people
■ Critiques the validity of an
external imposed order in
comparison to individuality
and diversity
■ “Truth is created”
● Feminist Anthropology: aims to study
the roles of women in societies around
the world, focusing on gender inequality,
gender roles, and power differences of
gender groups
○ Ortner: women are related to
nature because of their ability to
bear offspring. Men by default
have to relate to culture and
artificial creation; and culture
eventually molds, nature,
garnering more significance,
bringing more power to men in
the long run