“The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.” Ruth Benedict, Ph.D.

Culture

Anthropology

• Anthropology: the holistic study of humanity.

• In the US, Anthropology is broken up into four main sub-fields.

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Cultural Anthropology

• Cultural Anthropology represents the study of human cultural variation.

• This leads to the question, what exactly is culture?

Culture: one definition

• Culture is a collection of learned ideas and behaviors shared by a particular group of people.

Characteristics of Culture

• All people are cultured.

Characteristics of Culture

• Culture is learned.

Characteristics of Culture

• Culture is shared.

Characteristics of Culture

• Culture incorporates ideas (beliefs, attitudes, values…etc.).

Characteristics of Culture

• Culture incorporates behaviors (economic activities, cooking, celebrations, rituals…etc.).

Culture:

• Culture changes and adapts.

Characteristics of Culture

• Culture is symbolic.

• A symbol is anything that represents an idea, a sound, an activity…etc. Symbols communicate meaning.

Symbolic Culture

“ Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun.”

Max Weber

Characteristics of Culture

• Culture is integrated.

• Part of the holistic perspective of anthropology is the attempt to see the various parts of culture connect to each other.

Culture and Biology

• If we didn’t have large, developed brains we would not have complex culture…

• Yet, our culture is learned and not encoded in our genes.

Culture and Biology

• The relationship between culture and biology is complex: culture shapes how we satisfy biological needs.

• How we satisfy sexual urges, hunger and need for shelter are shaped by culture.

Enculturation

• Enculturation: the process by which we internalize the values and behaviors of our culture.

• Enculturation is a process that begins immediately after birth and well into adulthood.

Ethnocentrism

• Ethnocentrism: the belief in the superiority of one’s own culture…and the tendency to judge other societies by YOUR culture’s standards.

Bias

• Bias: “a particular tendency or inclination, especially one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice”.

Naturalization and Normalization

• Naturalization: the process by which something takes on an aura or feeling of “naturalness.”

• Normalization: the process by which something takes on the aura or feeling of “normality.”

Cultural Relativism

Cultural Relativism involves judging other societies by that societies standards rather than one’s own.

Anthropologists, by and large, attempt to be culturally relativistic in their studies of other societies.

Cultural Relativism

• The degree to which we can be truly culturally relativistic is heavily debated.

• It is very common for contemporary ethnographers to discuss their own backgrounds and biases.

Etic and Emic

• Etic: From the perspective of the outsider or observer.

• Emic: from the perspective of the “native”.

Culture Shock

• Culture shock refers to the anxiety and disorientation caused by operating in a foreign culture where you don’t understand “the rules.”

• Culture shock is experienced, to a greater or lesser extent, by all immigrants, migrant workers and anthropologists.

Anthropology vs. Sociology

• Cultural Anthropology and Sociology both study human social groups and examine human ideas and behaviors.

• However, these fields have different origins and different methods.

Anthropology and Sociology

• Anthropology is the child of colonialism: it has its origins in Europeans studying non-Western, indigenous cultures.

• Anthropology has a reputation for studying so-called “primitive” and “exotic” people.

Sociology

• Sociology is the child of the Industrial. Revolution: it has historically focused on large scale, Western, urban societies.

• Sociology’s methods tend to focus on survey research, reflecting their study of large, literate societies

Doing Anthropology

• Anthropologist typically live and interact with the people they study. This is what is meant by fieldwork.

Fieldwork

• Participant-observation = observing a group of people while participating in their day-to-day lives.

Ethnography

• An ethnography is a piece of literature describing a particular culture or group of people.

Sociology and Anthropology Redux

• Currently, the differences between cultural anthropology and sociology are becoming increasingly small.

• Plenty of anthropologists study large, urbanized cultures. And many sociologists are engaged in participant-observation based research.

Agency

• Agency refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices

• Our cultural context, gender, class and ethnic background all shape the choices we make and the values we hold.

The Individual in Society

• As individuals, we make choices on everything from what we wear, to the foods we eat, to the way we greet others…

• Most of us don’t consider how much symbolic value lies in these choices.