Cultural Survival

1
Cultural Survival

• The increased contact among cultures has created
  increased possibilities for the domination of one
  group by another, through various means.
• Development and Environmentalism
• Currently, domination comes most frequently in
  the form of core-based multinational corporations
  causing economic change in Third World cultures.
• It is noted that even well-intentioned
  interference (such as the environmentalist
  movement) may be treated as a form of cultural
  domination by subject populations.

2
Culture Clash

• Two sources of culture clash
• When development threatens indigenous peoples and
  their environments (e.g., Brazil and New Guinea).
• When external relations threaten indigenous
  peoples (e.g., Madagascar, where sweeping
  international environmental regulations affect
  traditional subsistence life-ways).

3
Resistance and Survival

• Variation within Systems of Domination
• Scott (1990) differentiates between public and
  hidden transcripts of culturally and politically
  oppressed peoples.
• Public transcript refers to the open, public
  interactions between dominators and the
  oppressed.
• Hidden transcript refers to the critique of power
  that goes on offstage, where the dominators
  cannot see it.
• Gramscis (1971) notion of hegemony applies to a
  politically hierarchical system wherein in the
  dominant ideology of the elites has been
  internalized by members of the lower classes.
• Bourdieu (1977) and Foucault (1979) argue that it
  is much easier to control people's minds than try
  to control their bodies.

4
Weapons of the Weak

• As James Scotts (Weapons of the Weak 1990) work
  on Malay peasants suggests, oppressed groups may
  use subtle, nonconfrontational methods to resist
  various forms of domination.
• Malay peasants protest the introduction of
  combine harvesters, steal things, and kill
  animals.
• Examples of antiauthoritarian discourse include
  rituals (e.g., Carnaval) and folk literature.
• Resistance is more likely to be public when the
  oppressed come together in groups (hence the
  antiassembly laws of the antebellum South).

5
Cultural Survival and Tourism

• http//www.ecotour.org/destinations/kakum.htm
• http//www.maasai.com/maasai.htm

6
Cultural Imperialism

• Cultural imperialism refers to the spread of one
  culture at the expense of others usually because
  of differential economic or political influence.
• While mass media and related technology have
  contributed to the erosion of local cultures,
  they are increasingly being used as media for the
  outward diffusion of local cultures (e.g.,
  television in Brazil).
• E.G. Satellite Dreaming-Australian Aborigines
• The Broadcasting in Remote Aboriginal Communities
  Scheme (BRACS) enables Aboriginal communities to
  intercept incoming satellite signals from the ABC
  and substitute locally produced programming
  Venner 1988, pp 37-43. On mainstream
  television, Aboriginal windows provide limited
  episode current affairs programming for
  Aboriginal audiences.

7
Popular Culture

• According to Fiske (1989), each individual's use
  of popular culture is a creative act.
• Popular culture can be used to express
  resistance.
• Popular Culture is not simply a passive reception
  of mass produced cultural goods.

8
Indigenizing Popular Culture

• Cultural forms exported from one culture to
  another do not necessarily carry the same meaning
  from the former context to the latter context.
• Aboriginal interpretations of the movie Rambo
  demonstrate that meaning can be produced from a
  text, not by a text.
• Appadurais analysis of Philippine indigenization
  of some American music forms demonstrates the
  uniqueness of the indigenized form.

9
A World System of Images

• Mass media can spread and create national and
  ethnic identities.
• Cross-cultural studies show that locally produced
  television shows are preferred to foreign
  imports.
• Mass media plays an important role in maintaining
  ethnic and national identities among people who
  lead transnational lives.

10
Transnational Culture of Consumption

• As with mass media, the flow of capital has
  become decentralized, carrying with it the
  cultural influences of many different sources
  (e.g., the United States, Japan, Britain, Canada,
  Germany).
• Migrant labor also contributes to cultural
  diffusion.

11
Postmodernism

• Postmodernity describes our time and
  situation--todays world in flux, these people on
  the move who have learned to manage multiple
  identities depending on place and context.
• Postmodern refers to the collapsing of old
  distinctions, rules, canons, and the like.
• Postmodernism (derived from the architectural
  style) refers to the theoretical assertion and
  acceptance of multiple forms of rightness, in
  contradistinction to modernism, which was based
  in the assumed supremacy of Western technology
  and values.

12
Globalization

• Globalization refers to the increasing
  connectedness of the world and its peoples.
• With this connectedness, however, come new bases
  for identities (e.g., the Panindian identity
  growing among formerly disparate tribes).
• Postmodern moments refers to a series of personal
  examples bearing out global linkages.

13
The Continuance of Diversity

• Anthropology has a crucial role to play in
  promoting a more humanistic vision of social
  change, one that respects the value of cultural
  diversity.
• The existence of anthropology is itself a tribute
  to the continuing need to understand social and
  cultural similarities and differences.

14
Cultural Survival

• http//www.cs.org/

15
Effects of Anthropology

• If anthro is so super, why no bigger effect?
• more research than applied work.
• things published in Social Science Journal does
  not have much effect on Policy makers.
• Conflict between Policy and Anthros
• Cult. relativism and holism important to anthros
  but not the govt.
• Anthro studies take a long time, govt. want
  answers right away.
• Tensions between anthro ethics and govt.

16
Growing Areas of Anthropology

• Medical Anthropology
• brings together biological and cultural aspects
  of health and medicine.
• i.e. We know the scientific name of tuberculosis
  is Myobacterium tuberculosis, but poverty and
  malnutrition are the main contributing factors.
• Diseases are always experienced by people as
  mediated by their culture.
• i.e. the stigma attached to Aids.
• Development Anthropology
• concerned primarily with poverty, environment,
  disease, malnutrition, gender inequity, and
  ethnic conflict.
• Understand nature of development.
• Importance of long-term research.
• Sensitivity to environmental issues