The Concept of Culture

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Deciphering the Mask of Culture

Making the strange familiar

Eating dog? Marrying cousins? Giving away prized

possessions? Finger mutilation? Brothers sharing a wife?

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Cross-Cultural Misunderstandings

Gestures (Singapore)

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Are Gestures Universal? A-OK (U.S.)

Money (Japan)

F___ (Spain)

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Mexico: -show height with palm vertical

-do not beckon with fingers

Saudi Arabia: -avoid showing

the sole of your shoe -it is disrespectful

to cross your legs Zimbabwe: -it is rude to maintain eye

contact

Iran: -thumbs up sign is vulgar

-signal with palm down

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Beliefs

Complements(Malaysia)

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Symbols

Gift giving(Chinesetradingpartner)

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Cultural Gestures, Beliefs & Symbols Are Not Universal

Cultural Use of Space Contact & Non-contact cultures Views from both sides of the cultural

border

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We Live in a Globally Interdependent World

Understanding How to Interact With Diverse Peoples is Imperative –

Anthropology:

Will make what seems strange, exotic, or alien familiar to you

We put our own values & beliefs on hold while we learn to understand other cultures without judging them

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Making the Familiar Strange

We may seem strange or alien to others (EXAMPLES)

That forces us to take a critical look at our own culture It leads us to

reassess our own culture & values

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Test Your Cultural Literacy!

Supplemental reading – Who are the N a c i r e m a ?

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Cracking the Nacirema Code

Percent of students who correctly identified

75% 80-

60-

40- 25%

20-

0- IDENTIFY NOT IDENTIFY

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Why Study Anthropology?

“Insular Americans”

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Making the Strange Familiar

Forces us to put our judgment on hold while we try to understand other cultures

It is our culture that leads us to create aliens

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Anthropology Provides Us With a Kaleidoscopic Vision of the World

This vision breaks down cultural barriers But wait! Isn’t globalization creating a

homogenous world culture? McDonalds, Internet provide shared

experiences around the globe

Yet national, racial, & ethnic differences & global inequality promote a system of global apartheid

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The World Political Economy

Makes Knowledge & Toleration

of Other People’s Values, Customs, & Beliefs

Essential

Let’s look at some examples (exam material)

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“9-11” “You’re for us, or you’re against us”

(Us vs. Them) The world is more

divided today How has this shaped

our ideas about MiddleEasterners?

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Iraq, or Al-Qaeda ?

55% Shiites

18% Sunnis

18% Kurds

To many, they are all evil

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Xenophobia Vincent Chin

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Tribal Warfare Displaced Persons Camps, Darfur, Sudan

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The Diné & Black Mesahttp://www.docudharma.com/diary/9565/

Relocation—largest since the Trail of Tears, that killed 1000s of Cherokees in the 1830s

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Immigration & Racist Paranoia

Mexican immigrants – From parasites to terrorists Lou Dobbs: "illegal alien invasion"

“There's no question this type of mass immigration would have a calamitous effect on working

citizens and their families”

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So, What Is Anthropology?

5 Subdisciplines:

Cultural Ethnography Ethnology

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Physical

Archaeology

Linguistics

Applied

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3 Key Concepts Holism

Comparativism

Relativism: To regard alternative ways of life as valid & meaningful designs for living

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Ethnocentrism The opinion that one’s own culture

(values, beliefs, knowledge, behavior) is superior

Does that mean we must accept values, beliefs, & behaviors that are different from our own?

Cultural Relativism

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Why Anthropology?

Once you have studied anthropology, you no longer look at the world from a single point of view.

Having many lenses to view the world is liberating!

An anthropological perspective is not just for anthropologists—it is a

perspective to live by!

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Definitions of Culture There are over 160 different definitions

of culture! Anthropologists emphasize different

aspects of culture: Idealist – beliefs, values, conceptions

(intangible) Materialist – behavior, artifacts (observable) Omnibus – more inclusive (both ideal &

material) Know these for the exam

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Do Anthropologists Agree on Anything?

Culture is: Adaptive – to both the physical & social

environment Culture is the primary means of human

adaptation All humans have the same capacity for

culture; different cultures select different ways of adapting to their particular environments

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Culture is … Learned – through enculturation people

internalize its values Culture is transmitted generation to

generation Shared – Culture is a group phenomenon Patterned – A system of interrelated

parts; we can’t understand the whole by analyzing just one part

Arbitrary – Ideas are culturally defined

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Idealist & Materialist Interpretations

of Culture

Plato:

IdealismIdeas =essenceof humannature

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Aristotle:MaterialismSeeing is believing;Economic conditions create inequality

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Idealism vs. Materialism

So who is right?

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Reductionism The attempt to explain complex

phenomena in terms of simpler or single causes

Both idealists & materialists attempt to prove that they can explain cultural reality better than their opponents: If human nature is idealist, human action is

reduced to a by-product of ideas If human nature is materialist, ideas are reduced to

by-products of material forces

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What Does All This Have To Do With Anthropology ! ?

The major theoretical perspectives & debates in anthropology are based on idealist & materialist perspectives

Ex: Biological Determinism is a materialist argument that biology controls human behavior Used in eugenics, raises issues of race & IQ

Ex: Culture determines behavior Impressionistic, over-generalizes people in a culture

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Are There Any Alternatives?

Holism – We are conditioned by both our biological heritage & our cultural understandings The whole is more than the sum of its

parts

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Dialectical – Material & ideational factors interact

dialectically to produce something new We interact with our physical (material)

environment We produce food, consume it, it transforms us While we do so, we change the environment

What we plant & eat is determined by our cultural definitions of what is edible

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That’s metaphysical because cows can talk about not having opposable thumbs!

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Anthro

Student

s…ok

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Clifford Geertz’s Idealist Interpretation

Geertz: The Concept of Culture I Espouse is a Semiotic One…

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Marvin Harris’ Materialist Interpretation

Harris: The Culture Concept Comes Down to Behavior Patterns…