WHAT’S CULTURE

GOT TO DO WITH IT?

ANTH 102
Week 2.1
MONDAY
LECTURE
REMINDERS KEEP IN
MIND

• Get your U of T email address!

• Authentication will be re-introduced starting next week!
• See announcement for more info

• No office hours today

• Writing assignment prompt will be posted online tonight

• Read carefully, questions on Wednesday
 3 KEY
QUESTIONS
• Why do human beings differ in their beliefs and behaviours?

• How can people begin to understand beliefs and behaviours that are different from their own?

• Is it possible to see the world through the eyes of others?

 E C T I V E S
OBJ

AT T H E E N D O F T O D AY Y O U S H O U L D B E A B L E T O :
• Define anthropology and its objectives
• Identify the four subfields of anthropology, and describe the kinds of research
associated with each
• Define culture and its characteristics
• Explain the significance of “making the strange familiar and the familiar
strange”
• Start discussion of ethnocentrism and cultural relativism

LEARNING
OBJECTIVES
WHICH ONE
OF THESE
FOODS
WOULD YOU
PREFER?
WHICH OF
THESE
GREETING
STYLES DO
YOU THINK
IS STRANGE?
W H AT IS
NO RM A L?
HUMANS
Share basic biological and behavioral
characteristics

and

Exhibit tremendous variation around

the globe.

HUMAN
S
QUESTION 1

Why do human beings differ in their

beliefs and behaviours?

Q.1
WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?
“Anthropologists study people—particular people,
in particular times and places—and what makes them human in
their own distinctive ways.”
(Rutherford, 2020)

Anthropology is a search for what it means to be human and a

documentation of human life and possibility.
• Holistic
• Comparative

IN I TIO N
DEF
SOCIO-CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
FOCUSES ON THE SOCIAL LIVES OF LIVING
COMMUNITIES

• Prior to the 1970s, it focused primarily non-Western

communities
• Today, socio-cultural anthropologists study the ethnic groups,
occupations, institutions, advertising, or technology of their
own cultures as well.

SOCIO-
C U L T U R A
L
LINGUISTIC
ANTHROPOLOGY
STUDIES LANGUAGE AS A DEFINING TRAIT OF HUMAN
BEINGS
AND EXPLORES THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN
C O M M U N I C AT I O N
For example, it studies
• How people communicate through spoken language, nonverbal
interaction, or material practices.
• How language shapes group membership and identity.
• How people order their natural and cultural environments using
linguistic categories.

G U I S T I
LIN
C
ANY QUESTIONS?

DO YOU NEED SOME EXTRA COFFEE? TEA? POPCORN?

TIME FOR A
BREAK…
QUESTION 2

How can people begin to understand

beliefs and behaviours that are different
from their own?

Q.2
WHAT IS CULTURE?
Culture is a set of beliefs, practices, and symbols that are learned
and shared. Together, they form an all-encompassing, integrated
whole that binds people together and shapes their worldview and
lifeways.

• “culture is collectively the things that we take for granted”

• In anthropology, the term “culture” refers to those taken-for-granted
notions, rules, moralities, and behaviors within a social group that feel
natural and like “the way things should be.”

F INI T ION
DE
 E M B E R
REM
!

learned
CULTUR shared

E IS… integrated
symbolic
not static, it changes
A wink or a twitch ?
 E M B E R
REM
!

learned
CULTUR shared

E IS… integrated
symbolic
not static, it changes
TIME FOR QUESTIONS…
QUESTION 3

Is it possible to see the world through the

eyes of others?

Q.3
 • Details "rituals" used by a tribe that Miner

BODY describes as living between Canada and Mexico.

• Discusses rituals people in this "tribe" use,

RITUALS including their obsession with the mouth and

body.

AMONG THE • What did you found most interesting, or most

challenging about this group?

NACIREMA • Would you want to live among this group for a

year?
Who are the
Nacirema?
American
• This exercise demonstrates that our own culture, when
viewed from a foreign and slightly ethnocentric
perspective, can seem barbaric and savage.
• The point of this piece is an illustration of
ethnocentrism vs. cultural relativism.
Is it possible to see the world through
the eyes of others?
We need to approach the practices and beliefs of other peoples
with sympathy, and not apply own beliefs and values as the
standard for evaluation and understanding.
= cultural relativism.
 E M B E R
REM
!

Culture
KEY Holism

TERMS Comparative
Four subfields