THE%20CULTURE%20CONCEPT%20IN%20ANTHROPOLOGY

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• THE CULTURE CONCEPT IN ANTHROPOLOGY
• (1870s to the Present)
• 1. Cultural Evolution
• 2. Cultural Relativism
• 3. Patterns of Culture
• 4. System of Symbols Meanings
• 5. Cultural Borderlands
• 6. Humanism Engaged Anthropology

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1. CULTURAL EVOLUTION (1870s)Lewis Henry Morgan
Ancient Society (1877)

• Idea Culture evolves in progressive and linear
  stages, each stage corresponding to certain types
  of technology
• Stages
• SAVAGERY
• fishing, bow arrow (Aboriginals)
• BARBARISM
• pots, domestication of plants/animals, iron
  (Native Americans)
• CIVILIZATION
• writing, phonetic alphabet (Greeks)
• Assumptions Implied racialized worldview
  certain races/cultures will always be more
  civilized (i.e. better) than others

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2. CULTURAL RELATIVISM (early
1900s-1930s)Franz Boas The Mind of Primitive Man
(1911) WEB DuBois The Souls of Black Folk
(1903) Margaret Mead Coming of Age in Samoa
(1928)

• CULTURAL RELATIVISM Behavior in one culture
  should not be judged by the standards of another
  culture
• ETHNOCENTRICISM (opposite of relativism)
  Tendency to view ones culture as superior and to
  apply ones own cultural values in judging the
  behavior and beliefs of people raised in other
  cultures
• Ethnocentrism should be acknowledged avoided

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CULTURAL RELATIVISM (cont.)

• CULTURES Particular to geographic areas, local
  histories, and traditions
• RACE Problematic category because still
  popularly taken as biological, weighted with the
  assumptions of inferiority and superiority
• Native Americans, African Americans, and other
  People of Color NOT RACIALLY INFERIOR, POSSESSED
  UNIQUE HISTORICALLY SPECIFIC CULTURES

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Franz BoasFather of US Anthropology

• Conducted research with Kwakuitl of the Pacific
  Northwest between 1880 and 1920
• Poses for a model being made of a Kwakuitl Winter
  Ceremonial dancer

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FIELDWORK METHODS

• Defining feature of Anthropology since 1920s
• Malinowski (1884-1942), Argonauts of the
  Western Pacific (1922)
• PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION
• Take part in community life as we study it Use
  the senses sound, sight, smell, touch, taste
  talk to people, ask questions, learn new language
• FIELD NOTES
• Keep separate notebook in which you record
  observations experiences
• GENEALOGY
• Take note of kinship, descent, marriage
  relationships
• INFORMANTS/COLLABORATORS/FRIENDS
• People with interest, talent, or training to
  provide useful information about particular
  aspects of life

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FIELDWORK METHODS (cont.)

• LIFE HISTORY
• Recollection of a lifetime of experiences
  intimate and personal cultural portrait how
  specific people perceive, react to, contribute to
  changes that affect their lives
• RESEARCH QUESTIONS
• Questions that guide your research
• SUBJECT POSITION
• Position of the researcher in relation to her
  informants
• subject/s being studied
• Position will affect the kind of knowledge
  gathered analysis

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Salvage Ethnography

• Collecting documenting information about dying
  cultures b/c soon they will be extinct
• Critiques taking for granted that people/culture
  will dye instead of doing something about it!
• Imperialist Nostalgia yearning for what one has
  destroyed (Rosaldo, p.71)

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3. PATTERNS OF CULTURE (1930s)Ruth Benedict
Patterns of Culture (1934)

• Cultures homogenous, harmonious, static forms of
  patterned behaviors
• Frozen scientific objects to be discovered
  recorded
• Cultural Relativism all cultures are different
  but equal
• Cross-cultural Comparison Can help
  anthropologists understand their own cultures.
  Mead ex. Samoan girls experience puberty as
  exciting and their changing bodies as beautiful

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4. SYSTEM OF SYMBOLS MEANINGS
(1960s-70s)Clifford Geertz The Interpretation
of Cultures (1973)

• Blurring boundaries between social sciences
  humanities
• Cultures texts to be read and interpreted
• Interpretation way people make sense of
  differences
• Creative Process take something that makes sense
  in one context and figure out its meaning in
  another
• Natives Point of View Perspective of people
  you are working with

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SYSTEM OF SYMBOLS MEANINGS (cont.)

• Meanings are not private or in peoples heads but
  talked about everyday
• People are sophisticated interpreters of their
  own culture
• Anthropologists want access to stories people
  tell themselves about themselves
• thick description layers of meaning stacked on
  top of each other

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5. CULTURAL BORDERLANDS (1980s)Gloria Anzaldua
Borderlands/La Frontera The New Mestiza (1987)
Renato Rosaldo Culture and Truth (1992)

• Borderlands merging of two or more cultures,
  resulting in struggles for control over resources
  as well as new cultural forms
• Inspired by political intellectual movements of
  1960s in the US and world
• Civil rights, Womens, Environmental, National
  Independence movements
• Spoke to rise of US imperialism Korean and
  Vietnam wars, Central South America, Middle
  East, Harsher Immigration Policies

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CULTURAL BORDERLANDS (cont.)

• Cultural mixing happens at national community
  borders
• Borders are everywhere Groups once defined or
  separated by race, class, gender, sexuality
  (etc.) are in contact
• Relationship between Power and Culture how can
  we analyze social inequality, to move towards
  Equality
• Shift from looking at cultures as consistent
  wholes to looking at differences within
  culturesdifference is more typical than sameness
• Culture is emergent (always being created) and
  contested (always being debated)

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6. Humanism Engaged Anthropology
(1990s-today)Lila Abu Lughod Writing Against
Culture (1991)Paul Farmer Infections and
Inequalities (1999)

• Do anthropologists bear the responsibility of
  putting their ideas into practice to help human
  beings?
• If so, does this humanism influence their course
  of study too much?
• Should anthropologists judge which story
  (practice, policy, etc.) is better?
• Perhaps the sameness of the shared human
  condition is as important as understanding
  respecting differences