Anthropology Chapter 2

Evolutionary psychologists believe that fundamental aspects of who we are, how we think and behave, and how we organize our societies are directly related to how we evolved over millions of years and are hardwired in our DNA. They argue that (2 things)

1) Patterns of survival, which developed when humans were primarily hunters and gatherers, selected for different physical and mental abilities among men and women 2)These patterns continue to evidence themselves in patterns of life today and in fact drive much of human behavior

Interpretivist approach

A conceptual framework that sees culture primarily as a symbolic system of deep meaning example: difference in twitch of an eye and a wink

Culture

A system of knowledge, beliefs, patterns of behavior, artifacts, and institutions that are created, learned, and shared by a group of people. It includes shared norms, values, symbols, mental maps of reality, material objects, structures of power, in which our understanding of the world is shaped, reinforced, and challenged.

Homogenization

Anthropologists and other cultural activists worry that the spread of this culture-- fueled by goods, images, and ideas from Western cultures--is creating a homogenizing process that will diminish the diversity of the world's cultures as foreign influences inundate local practices, products, and ways of thinking

Symbols and symbolic action*

Anything that signifies something else. Symbolic action: realms such as language, art, religion, politics, economics Language enables humans to communicate abstract ideas through symbols People shake hands, wave, nod, smile, give thumbs up, give the middle finger

Eric Wolf

Argued that there is power in all human relationships. Consider relationships: teacher/student, parent/child, employer/employee,

Boas argued that similarities among cultures...

Boas, while not ruling out some independent invention, turned to the idea of diffusion-- the borrowing of cultural traits and patterns from other cultures--to explain apparent similarities

Mental Maps of Reality*

Cultural classifications of what kinds of people and things exist, and the assignment of meaning to those classifications Our mental maps are shaped through enculturation, but they are not fixed. Today, globalization continues to put pressure on mental maps of reality as people on the planet are drawn into closer contact with the world's diversity.

Structural Functionalism

Each part of society-- including the kinship, religious, political, and economic structures, fit together and had its unique function within the larger structure.mLike a living organism, a society worked to maintain an internal balance, or equilibrium, that kept the system working. Under this conceptual framework, Structural Functionalism (A conceptual framework positing that each element of society serves a particular function to keep the entire system in equilibrium), British social anthropologists employed a synchronic approach to control their science experiments-- analyzing contemporary societies at a fixed point in time without regard to historical context

Culture is shared yet contested

Enculturation occurs as part of a group. No individual has his or her own culture. Culture is a shared experience developed as a result of living as a member of a group Although culture is shared by members of groups, it is also constantly contested, negotiated, and changing. It is never static.

Formal instruction of culture

English classes, religious instruction, history lessons, dance classes

Exogamy, endogamy

Exogany: marriage outside one's "group" Endogamy: marriage within one's "group"

Informal instruction of culture

Family, friends, media, where we absorb culture from

Values*

Fundamental belief about what is important, true, or beautiful, and what makes a good life.

Three key interrelated effects of globalization on local culture

Homogenization, a two-way transference of culture through migration, and increased cosmopolitanism

Norms*

Idea of rules about how people should behave in particular situations or toward certain other people

Gramsci two aspects of power

Material power- political, economic, or military power Second- Hegemony

Culture is Symbolic and Material

Norms, values, symbols, and mental maps of reality are four elements than an anthropologist may consider in attempting to understand the complex working of a culture. These are not universal, they vary from culture to culture.

Mental maps of reality become a problem when

People treat cultural notions of difference as being scientifically or biologically natural

4 Spatial comfort zones

Public zone(between speaker and audience), social zone (between people who do not know each other), personal zone(between casual friends), intimate zone. In some cases, we cannot maintain these distances and so adjust our behavior to compensate for awkwardness and discomfort. Elevator: everyone stops talking and balances space between them, stares at the floor lights. Urinal- men look at the ceiling

Hegemony

The ability of a dominant group to create consent and agreement within a population without the use of threat or force

Power

The ability or potential to bring about change through action or influence

Historial Particularism

The idea, attributed to Franz Boas, that cultures develop in specific ways because of their unique histories. He claimed that cultures arise from different causes, not uniform process.

Increasing Cosmopolitanism

The increasing flow of people, ideas, and products that has allowed worldwide access to cultural patterns that are new, innovative, and stimulating. Cosmopolitanism: A global outlook emerging in response to increasing globalization. This term is usually used to describe sophisticated urban professionals who travel and feel at home in different parts of the world. Combines both universality and difference

Migration and the Two-Way Transference of Culture

The movement of people in large numbers within and across national boundaries associated with contemporary globalization reveals that cultures are not necessarily bound to a particular geographic location. People migrate with their cultural beliefs and practices. They incorporate the cultural practices of their homelands into their new communities. They build links to their homelands through which culture continues to be exchanged.

Agency

The potential power of individuals and groups to contest cultural norms, values, symbols, mental maps of reality, institutions, and structures of power Cultural beliefs are not timeless, they can change and can be changed. Be examining human agency, we see how culture serves as a realm in which battles over power take place-- where people debate, negotiate, contest, and enforce what is considered normal, what people can say, do, and even think Scott argues that not all resistance is revolutionary and many acts of everyday resistance bring change over time

Enculturation

The process of learning culture

Unlineal cultural evolution

The theory proposed by nineteenth century anthropologists (Tylor, Frazer, Morgan) that all cultures naturally evovle through the same sequence of stages from simple to complex. They plotted the world's culture on a continuum from savage-barbarian-civilized.

Stratification

The uneven distribution of resources and privileges among participants in a group or culture Some people are drawn into the center of culture. Others are ignored, marginalized, or even annihilated. Power may be stratified along lines of gender, racial, or ethnic group, class, age, family, religion, sexuality, or legal status. Balance of power is not fixed

How is globalization transforming culture?

Today's flows of globalization are intensifying the exchange and diffusion of people, ideas, and goods, creating more interaction and engagement among cultures.

True or False. It is impossible to separate human nature from human culture

True

Examples of how consumerism shapes our culture

US congress shifted thanksgiving to fall earlier in November to add another week to the daylight savings time start a week earlier so children would have an extra hour of daylight to collect halloween candy It also infiltrate our daily speech "Lets have beer" means "lets be better friends", "can i buy you a drink?" "I find you attractive"

Cultural Relativism

Understanding a group's beliefs and practices within their own cultural context, without making judgements. This is to counteract the effects of ethnocentrism in anthropologist's work. Anthropologists task is first to understand a culture's internal logical and systems of meaning, then to objectively and sensitively represent the diversity of human life and culture

Connecting Culture and Behavior

We have much clearer indications of the ways cultural patterns and beliefs shape human behavior. In the debate over the origins of gender inequality in the upper echelons of math and science careers, we might look instead to gender stereotyping in the classroom, enculturation of girls, and conscious and unconscious gender bias in hiring and promoting. It may be more comfortable to trace inequality to innate biological differences, but there is no biological evidence to think link.

Assuming that our mental maps of reality are natural...

can cause us to disregard the cultural values of others.

Power in a culture reflects..

stratification

Foucalt described this hegemonic aspect of power as

the ability to make people discipline their own behavior so that they believe and act in certain "normal" ways--often against their own interests, even without a tangible threat of punishment for misbehavior

Margaret Mead

turned her attention to enculturation and its powerful effects on cultural patterns and personality types. In her book Coming of Age in Samoa, she explored the seeming sexual freedom and experimentation of young Samoan women and compared it with the repressed sexuality of young women in the US, suggesting the powerful role of enculturation in shaping behavior--even behavior that is imagined to have powerful biological origins

Two important functions of mental maps

1) Classify reality. Example: kingdoms subdivided into phylum, ect. Categories of time. 2) Assign meaning to what has been classified. Example: we divide life span into categories, but then we give different values to different ages. In the US, these categories determine what age you can marry, have sex, drink, drive, vote.

Tylor, Frazer, and Morgan argued that similarities among cultures...

emerged through independent invention as different cultures independently arrived at similar solutions to similar problems.

Advertising is a powerful tool of

enculturation. It teaches us how to be "successful" in consumer culture, how to be cool, and normal

The culture of consumerism includes

norms, values, beliefs, practices, and institutions that have become commonplace and accepted as normal, and that cultivate the desire to acquire consumer goods to enhance one's lifestyle.