The Concept of Culture

Think of 10 ways in which we use the word culture or cultural.

Eg. Culture shock, Canadian culture, multicultural

Edward Burnett Tylor

1832-1917

Culture or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired my man as a member of society. E. B. Tylor 1871

Ralph Linton (1940). `The sum total of knowledge, attitudes and habitual behaviour patterns shared and transmitted by the members of a particular society'

Ward Goodenough (1957): `The pattern of life within a community, the regularly recurring activities and material and social arrangements characteristic of a particular group'.

Culture is Relative

Culture is a way of life

Material

Objects

Ideas

Attitudes

Values

Behavior

Patterns

“Everything that people have, think, and do as members of a society” (Ferraro, 2003)

What is Canadian Culture?I A M C A N A D I A N !!!

 I am not a lumberjack or a fur trader,And I don't live in an igloo or eat blubber or own a dogsled,And I don't know Jimmy, Sally, or Susie from Canada,Although I am certain they are really, really nice.I have a Prime Minister, not a President.I speak English and French, not American.And I pronounce it "about" ... not "a-boot".I can proudly sew my country's flag on my backpack.I believe in peacekeeping not policing;Diversity not assimilation;And that the beaver is a truly proud and noble animal!A tuque is hat; a chesterfield is a couch.And it is pronounced ZED not ZEE, ZED!Canada is the second largest landmass,The first nation of hockey,And the best part of North America!

“Culture is the framework of beliefs, expressive symbols, and values in terms of which individuals define their feelings and make their judgements” (Geertz 1957 American Anthropologist 59:32-54).

Geertz 1973: `an historically transmitted pattern of meaning embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic form by means which men communicate' (1973: 89).

Topical:Culture consists of everything on a list of topics, or categories, such as social organization, religion, or economy

Historical Culture is social heritage, or tradition, that is passed on to future generations

Behavioral Culture is shared, learned human behavior, a way of life the total way of life of a people

Normative Culture is ideals, values, or rules for living a way of thinking, feeling, and believing

Functional Culture is the way humans solve problems of adapting to the environment or living together

Mental Culture is a complex of ideas, or learned habits, that inhibit impulses and distinguish people from animals

Structural Culture consists of patterned and interrelated ideas, symbols, or behaviors

Symbolic Culture is based on arbitrarily assigned meanings that are shared by a society

Values

Norms

Ideas/Beliefs

Attitudes

Symbols

Traditions

Artifacts

Dimensions of Culture

Characteristics of Culture

Culture is learned

Culture is unconscious

Culture is shared

Culture is integrated

Culture is Symbolic

Culture is a way of life

Culture is Dynamic

Culture is Relative

Culture is learned

How do we learn our culture?

Enculteration

Culture is unconscious

Culture is shared

USA 89%

French Canada 81%

English Canada 77%

United Kingdom 71%

Italy 69%

France 59%

Australia 25%

Such findings signal that Canadian values, ideas, and attitudes should not be relied upon when planning marketing forays into foreign consumer markets

Everyone should use a deodorant

Culture is Relative

Culture is Integrated

Kinship

Medicine

law

Economics

Religion

Culture is Symbolic

A wink or a twitch

1896 1918 1924 1935 1955

1960 1970 1986 1990 2000

Culture is Dynamic

To communicateA tool

gives meaning to differences

Identity

Adaptive

Why do humans have Culture?What is its function?

Can culture be maladaptive?

Is Culture Public or Private?

Ishi ?-1916

What is society?

`A distinct and relatively autonomous community whose members' mutual social relations are embedded in and expressed through the medium of culture'.

`Any portion of a community regarded as a unit distinguishable by particular aims or standards of living or conduct'. i.e. culture

`A group of people who occupy a specific locality and who share the same cultural traditions or culture.'

Society

Young Huli girls of Papua New Guinea dressed for traditional dance

Imagine you wanted to understand how tourism had affected Huli culture.

1. What would you do to prepare yourself for the fieldwork?

2. What would you do when you got there?

3. What would you do when you got back?

FIELDWORK

“to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realise his vision of his world”. Malinowski 1922

What is the goal of Fieldwork?

Applied Anthropology

Participant Observation

Holistic Perspective

Regional Expertise

Emic Perspective

Cultural Relativism

Topical Expertise

Hot asset: Anthropology degrees

By Del Jones, USA TODAY

As companies go global and crave leaders for a diverse workforce, a new hot degree is emerging for aspiring executives: anthropology.

Not satisfied with consumer surveys, Hallmark is sending anthropologists into the homes of immigrants, attending holidays and birthday parties to design cards they'll want.

No survey can tell engineers what women really want in a razor, so marketing consultant Hauser Design sends anthropologists into bathrooms to watch them shave their legs.

Unlike MBAs, anthropology degrees are rare: one undergraduate degree for every 26 in business and one anthropology Ph.D. for every 235 MBAs.

My competitive edge came completely out of anthropology," says Katherine Burr, CEO of The Hanseatic Group. "The world is so unknown, changes so rapidly. Preconceptions can kill you."

Companies are starving to know how people use the Internet or why some pickups, even though they are more powerful, are perceived by consumers as less powerful, says Ken Erickson, of the Center for Ethnographic Research.

It takes trained observation, Erickson says. Observation is what anthropologists are trained to do.

Firms seek guidance from anthropology

Elizabeth ChurchThe Globe and MailMonday, July 26, 1999

As a consultant in Palo Alto, Calif. -- the heart of Silicon Valley -- Susan Squire's uses her training in the study of human behaviour and culture to develop new products such as pull-up diapers and yogurt-to-go.

This is the new world of the anthropologist, where the skills of former academics such as Ms. Squire have become a hot commodity in the quest for business innovation.

Anthropologists, with their expertise in painstakingly observing, documenting and analyzing human behaviour, are winning a growing following among companies eager to know what makes their customers, and their workers, tick.

"What anthropology brings is a way of observing, not laboratory observing, but observing in context," explains Ms. Squire, who is also president-elect of the U.S. National Association for the Practice of Anthropology, which represents anthropologists outside the academic world. "If I want to know what kind of office products people need, I don't pull them into a focus group. I go to their office and watch them during the day."

When Motorola Inc. wanted to know how peasants in rural China might use portable technology, it sent in an anthropologist with expertise in the region. When General Mills Inc. of Minneapolis considered introducing a new breakfast cereal, it put Ms. Squire in people's homes. She is currently involved in understanding how people navigate the Internet and helping develop better tools for doing that.

Ms. Canavan, who has a masters degree in anthropology, says the discipline is valuable because it looks at issues in a holistic way. "We don't only look at a situation. We look at what is going on around, as well."

But perhaps the discipline's greatest attraction for business is its ability to unearth truths that even the subjects don't know about. Mr. Underhill, after 20 years of watching video tapes of shoppers, points out that women don't like to go down narrow aisles and that customers will buy more if there are shopping baskets placed throughout the store.

"People don't always do what they say," Ms. Squires says, adding that anthropologists "really get at issues that people in focus groups don't even think to talk about."