Cultural Anthropology

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Cultural Anthropology

• Perspectives
• History
• Approaches

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Perspectives
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Perspectives

• Holistic perspective any aspect of a culture is
  integrated with other aspects, so that no
  dimension of culture can be understood in
  isolation
• Comparative perspective valid hypotheses and
  theories about humanity must be tested with data
  from a wide range of cultures
• Cultural relativism notion that one should not
  judge the behavior of other people using the
  standards of ones own culture
• Ethnocentrism attitude that the morals, values,
  and customs of ones own culture are superior to
  those of any culture

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History
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Yesterday and Today

• Yesterday
• Anthropologist go to far-off places and study
  exotic people or native
• Focus on small scale, non-Western,
  subsistence-oriented cultures
• Today
• Anthropologists study various aspects of
  industrialized societies
• Trend away from far away in favor of
  here-at-home
• Insights about modern societies that other
  disciplines miss through direct contact fieldwork
• Apply methods and statistics to real world
  problems

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19th Century Origins

• Colonialism intensified contact between people of
  European ancestry and the indigenous people of
  Africa, Asia, the Americas
• Evidence of earlier cultures (such as stone based
  tools and fossils of human like creatures)
  unearthed in clear association with extinct
  mammals
• Darwins theory of evolution provided a framework
  for viewing the history of human life as
  progressive (simpler life forms evolving to
  complex)

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19th Century Origins- Unilineal Evolution

• Unilineal evolutionist used written accounts to
  arrange cultures into a sequence of progressive
  stages from simple to complex (with Western
  civilization at the pinnacle)
• Salvage ? Barbaric ? Civilized
• Simplest cultures found today are surviving
  examples of the earliest stages of cultural
  evolution
• Anthropology began as a field that studied how
  humankind had progressed from rude beginnings
  into a more civilized existence.

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19th Century Origins-Contributions

• 19TH century reasoning established a COMPARATIVE
  PERSPECTIVE
• Establishment of anthropology as a separate
  academic discipline
• Other disciplines existed which studied various
  aspects of humankind
• A discipline that studied both the physical and
  cultural diversity of humankind developed
• 1879 University of Rochester 1st anthropology
  class in the United States
• 1886 University of Pennsylvania 1st anthropology
  department

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20th Century Development-American Historical
Particularism

• Main goal was to uncover the past influences on a
  given culture that shaped its present form
• Particularistic because it emphasized that each
  culture has its own unique past
• Franz Boas biggest proponent of this approach

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20th Century DevelopmentFranz Boas

• Approach based on unique differences not progress
• Cultures do not develop along single series of
  progressive stages
• Each culture changes along its own path
• Cultural relativism
• Must be free of preconceived ideas and
  assumptions in order to truly understand another
  culture
• Cultural variation is not related to genetics
• Culture is learned, not biological
• More information needed from firsthand fieldwork
• Believed anthropologists did not know enough to
  make generalizations
• Traditional customs and beliefs disappearing and
  must be documented (i.e. Native Americans)

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20th Century Development-British Functionalism

• Basic tenet was that the cultural features of a
  people should be explained by the functions they
  perform
• Functions
• The ways existing ideas and actions contribute to
  the well-being of individuals and/ or to the
  society
• Bronislaw Malinowski biggest proponent of this
  approach

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20th Century Development-Bronislaw Malinowski

• Purpose of culture is to serve human biological
  needs
• Humans have few inborn drives or instincts that
  provide behavioral instructions to meet needs
• Depend on culture which provides learned
  behaviors, cooperative patterns, and social
  institutions
• Biological needs as starting point for explaining
  culture
• Contribution emphasized the integration of
  culture
• Parts (economy, religion, family, etc.) cannot be
  understood in isolation from each other- HOLISTIC
  APPROACH
• Also stressed firsthand fieldwork
• Weakness biological needs of individuals cannot
  explain cultural variation because biologically
  all humans need the same things
• Why do cultures differ?

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Mid-Century Evolutionary ApproachesTechnological
Environmental Determinism

• Leslie White
• Expanded on unilineal evolutionary theory stating
  technological advancements as example of
  reasonably objective progressive measurement
• Technology becomes more productive, societies
  become larger and more complex
• Hunter-gatherers must live in small nomadic
  groups with weak leaders
• Societies with more territory, more occupational
  specialization, more functional differentiation,
  and more inequality ? more complex
• Julian Steward
• Added to this theory the importance of
  environmental influences
• Tools depend on resources available in a given
  environment
• Environment and technology determine adaptation

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Approaches
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Today 2 Divisions

• Scientific Approach
• Materialism main influence on life is how people
  produce and distribute resources from their
  environment
• Humans are similar in that they share biological
  needs which requires adaptation to environment
  and acquisition of material resources
• Main goal is to explain cultural differences and
  similarities make generalizations

• Humanistic Approach
• Idealism Claims that each culture must be
  analyzed separately
• Uniqueness of each culture
• cultural knowledge and behavior are largely
  independent of material conditions Mistrust
  cultural comparisons
• Main goal is to describe and interpret particular
  cultures achieve insider view