CHAPTER 2

Culture

Copyright © 2023 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Culture

How did a simple piece of fabric—a face

mask—become a cultural battlefield?

Coronavirus relies on human behavior to

spread—different cultural attitudes
toward mask wearing have had a
significant impact on infection rates and
deaths.
Chapter 2 Outline

What Is Culture?

How Has the Culture Concept Developed in Anthropology?

How Are Culture and Power Related?

How Much of Who You Are Is Shaped by Biology, and How Much by Culture?

How Is Culture Created?

How Is Globalization Transforming Culture?

2.1 What Is Culture?
Define culture and its key characteristics.
What Is Culture?

In popular usage, culture is often equated with distinctive traditions of

different ethnic groups.

Culture is also popularly used to refer to elite art forms.

For anthropologists, culture encompasses people’s entire ways of life.

Culture: a system of knowledge, beliefs, patterns of behavior, artifacts, and

institutions that are created, learned, shared, and contested by a group of
people
Culture Is Learned and Taught
Culture is not genetically inherited.

Enculturation: the process of learning

culture
All humans are equally capable of
learning culture.
Cultural institutions are established to
preserve and pass down culture.
Culture Is Shared Yet Contested

Culture cannot arise from an individual in

isolation; it is developed as a result of
one’s membership in a group.

Smaller cultures can exist within larger

ones.

People can and do contest culture—this

creates change over time.
Culture Is Symbolic and Material

Culture includes both symbolic elements and material objects.

Four key elements of culture are norms, values, symbols, and mental maps of
reality.

Each of these elements powerfully frames what people can say, do, and
sometimes even think.
Norms

Norms: ideas or rules about how people should behave in particular

situations or toward certain other people

Norms are often unwritten assumptions enforced by society about what is

considered “normal” and appropriate behavior.

Most people follow and accept a culture’s norms because challenging them
often results in some form of punishment.

The collective challenging of norms can lead to cultural change.

Values

Values: fundamental beliefs about what is important, what makes a good life,
and what is true, right, and beautiful

Cultural values are not fixed—they can be debated and contested.

Values are powerful ideas that can be enshrined in law or motivate people to
take extreme actions for them.
Symbols

Symbol: anything that represents

something else
Language is an important example of
ideas conveyed through symbols of
written, spoken, and signed words.
Most symbolic communication is
nonverbal, action-based, and
unconscious.
Mental Maps of Reality

Mental maps of reality: cultural classifications of what kinds of people and

things exist, and the assignment of meaning to those classifications

Even categories that seem “natural” are flexible and change over time.

If we assume our mental maps are “natural” or universal, we run the risk of
misunderstanding and disregarding others’ cultural values.
Cultural Relativism

Anthropology challenges our tendency toward ethnocentrism, the tendency

to use one’s own culture to evaluate and judge other cultures.

Cultural relativism: understanding a group’s beliefs and practices within

their own cultural context, without making judgments

Anthropologists still must use their own sense of right and wrong to
approach questions of injustice.
Cultural Appropriation

Cultural appropriation: the unwanted taking of cultural practices or

knowledge from one group by another, more dominant group

Other forms of cultural borrowing between groups and individuals include

diffusion, acculturation, and assimilation.

Power is key to analyzing the dynamics of cultural appropriation.

For example, the NFL’s Washington Commanders used a racial slur against
Native Americans for decades, generating enormous profits.
2.2 How Has the Culture Concept
Developed in Anthropology?
Outline the historical development of the culture concept.
Early Evolutionary Frameworks
Edward Burnett Tylor defined culture as a unified system
of beliefs and behaviors shared by members of a group.

Unilineal cultural evolution: the theory proposed by

nineteenth-century anthropologists that all cultures
naturally evolve through the same sequence of stages
from simple to complex

This theory’s racist hierarchy placed European culture as

the ideal standard.
American Historical Particularism

Historical particularism: the idea, attributed to Franz Boas, that cultures

develop in specific ways because of their unique histories

Margaret Mead compared the sexual freedom of Samoan young people to the
repressed sexuality of U.S. young people.

Mead's controversial research challenged biological assumptions about

gender and highlighted the importance of enculturation in shaping behavior.
British Structural Functionalism

Society: the focus of early British anthropological research whose structure

and function could be isolated and studied scientifically

Structural functionalism: a conceptual framework positing that each

element of society serves a particular function to keep the entire system in
equilibrium

Critics pointed out that this perspective ignores dynamics of conflict and
change.
Culture and Meaning

Interpretivist approach: a conceptual framework that sees culture primarily

as a symbolic system of deep meaning

Thick description: a research strategy that combines detailed description of

cultural activity with an analysis of the layers of deep cultural meaning in
which those activities are embedded
2.3 How Are Culture and Power Related?
Describe the ways that power is embedded in the culture
concept.
What Is Power?

Power: the ability or potential to bring about change through action or

influence

Any individual who is part of a society has complex relationships with

systems of power in that society.

Eric Wolff argued that all human relationships have power dynamics.

Stratification: the uneven distribution of resources and privileges among

members of a group or culture.
Power and Cultural Institutions

Institutions shape and are shaped by

a culture’s norms and values.

For example, schools teach shared

ways of understanding the world.

Institutions are also sites where

people debate and contest cultural
norms and values.
Hegemony

Gramsci described two kinds of power: material power and hegemony.

Material power is exerted through brute force.

Hegemony: the ability of a dominant group to create consent and agreement

within a population without the use or threat of force

Because culture often unconsciously shapes people’s norms and values, it

holds enormous hegemonic power.
Human Agency

Agency: the potential power of

individuals and groups to contest cultural
norms, values, mental maps of reality,
symbols, institutions, and structures of
power

Every system of power has room for

resistance, whether visible and public or
subtle and discreet.
2.4 How Much of Who You Are Is Shaped
by Biology, and How Much by Culture?
Explain how biology relates to culture and human behavior.
Nature and Nurture

Although human genetic codes are 99.9 percent identical, there is a

remarkable amount of physical and behavioral variety across cultures.

For example, eating and sleeping may be biological functions, but how these
processes are performed vary widely based on culture.

Anthropologists are highly critical of approaches that overstate the

importance of genetics and underestimate the importance of culture.

Systems of stratification are culturally constructed and changeable.

From Human Beings to Human Becomings

Biology and culture are intertwined.

Epigenetics: an area of study in the field of genetics exploring how

environmental factors directly affect the expression of genes during one’s
lifetime

Human microbiome: the complete collection of microorganisms in the

human body’s ecosystem

Each human body is part of an interconnected environment.

Connecting Culture and Behavior

Culture is not written into DNA; it is learned from people around us.

Even patterns of behavior that seem natural or innate are often not universal
at all.

As popular as it may be to think that genetics is the primary driver of our

development as humans, even our long evolutionary process has been deeply
influenced by culture.
2.5 How Is Culture Created?
Analyze how a culture of consumerism is created.
Creating Consumer Culture
Weber (1864–1920) argued that early
capitalism relied on Protestant values.
Consumerism is not just economic
activity; it has become a way of life and a
way of looking at the world—i.e., a
culture.
Many key cultural rituals now focus
spending and consumption.
Advertising, Financial Services, and Credit Cards

Advertising is a powerful tool of enculturation, teaching us how to “succeed”

in consumer culture.

Many products promise happiness, success, or even upward social mobility.

The financial services industry provides credit—borrowed money—to feed

the consumerist desires promoted by advertising.

To satisfy these desires, consumers must participate in the workforce more

intensely in hopes of paying off debt.
2.6 How Is Globalization Transforming
Culture?
Employ the concept of globalization to understanding contemporary culture
change.
Globalization: Homogenizing or Diversifying?
Will expansion of big, global corporations to
all parts of the world diminish cultural
diversity?
Global encounters do influence local cultures,
but often the result is hybridization.
Global cultural exchange is influenced by
power.
Migration and the Global Flows of Culture

Culture isn’t bound to one geographic location.

When people migrate, they bring their culture with them.

Changes in transportation and communication infrastructure make it easier

to maintain connection to communities they migrated from.
Increasing Cosmopolitanism

Globalization has led to increased

access and connection between
different communities, resulting in a
“new cosmopolitanism.”

Cosmopolitanism is a broad outlook

that imagines a connected global
community.
The Social Life of Things
Blue Jeans: Global Production and Local Culture
Blue Jeans: Global Production and Local Culture

People wear blue jeans around the world.

Cotton, thread, and woven fabric may all come

from different continents.

Jeans are made in 60-70 countries, primarily

by young women in sweatshops.

Though produced globally, jeans can reveal

local expressions of identity.
Anthropologists Engage the World
William Ury: Negotiating Anthropologically
William Ury: Negotiating Anthropologically

Ury specializes as a mediator and

negotiation advisor in conflicts from
workplace disputes to labor strikes to
ethnic wars.

While many conflict involve two opposing

sides, Ury mobilizes the surrounding
community—the third side—to resolve
conflicts.
Thinking Like an Anthropologist
Analyzing Mask Wearing in U.S. Culture
Analyzing Mask Wearing in U.S. Culture
Drawing on your own experiences, how can the key questions of this chapter
help you think more deeply about masking in U.S. culture?
As anthropologists, we can consider:
Masking as a system of meaning and system of power.
The social life of masks.
The assumed links between mask wearing and biology.
Mask wearing within a global perspective.
Review & Discuss
 Review Question 1
Human culture is

A. taught through formal instruction.

B. hardwired into our DNA.

C. learned informally.

D. both A and C.
Review Question 2

The framework that anthropologists use to challenge ethnocentrism is

A. ethnography.

B. norms and values.

C. cultural relativism.

D. mental maps of reality.

Review Question 3

In early evolutionary frameworks, anthropologists tended to describe Western

cultures as

A. savage.

B. barbarian.

C. unilineal.

D. civilized.
Review Question 4

The study of epigenetics tells us that

A. even our genes can be affected by the environment.

B. there is a clear-cut line between biology and culture.

C. men and women are different for hardwired evolutionary reasons.

D. culture is determined by biology.

Review Question 5

Globalization affects culture by

A. spreading the cultural forms of powerful countries and companies.

B. producing new hybrid forms of culture.

C. increasing migration.

D. all of the above.

Discussion Question 1

What do you think are the most widely shared values in U.S. culture? Where
did you learn these values or learn about them?
Discussion Question 2

Edward Burnett Tylor's 1871 book Primitive Culture begins with a definition:
“Culture or Civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex
whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any
other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.”

In the more than 150 years since, how has the anthropological definition of
culture changed?
Discussion Question 3

What are some cultural institutions you encounter in your daily life? How do
they create hegemony? How do you or other people express agency by
resisting those institutions?
Discussion Question 4

How has globalization changed U.S. culture? How has globalization affected
other cultures?
Discussion Question 5

Where do you see the values of consumer culture in your own life? How has
your desire to consume certain things been aroused and cultivated? What
meanings do you attribute to consumption habits and aspirations?
Credits

This concludes the Lecture PowerPoint presentation for Chapter 2 of Cultural

Anthropology, Fourth Edition.

For more resources, please visit https://digital.wwnorton.com/culturalanthro4.

Copyright © 2023 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.