anthropology ch.2
culture in this book
"culture consists of the collective processes that make the artificial seem natural
Values
Are symbolic expressions of intrinsically desirable principles or qualities tend to conserve a society's dominant ideas about morality and social issues can change... but more slowly than other aspects of culture
Traditions
Are the more enduring and ritualized aspects of culture assumed to be timeless- pledge of allegence
Cultural Determinism
Cultural relativism can lead to cultural determinism. The idea that all human actions are teh product of culture, which denies teh influence of other factors liek physical environment and human biology on human behavior.
Dynamic
Social groups are not uniform or homogeneous, because not everybody interprets teh events of everyday life in teh same way. Cultural processes are emergent, fluid, and makred by creativity, uncertainty, differeing individual meaning, and social conflcit.
Stability
Symbols, values, norms, traditions are feature that seem stable and common even though they may not be shared by everybody in a society. It is that culture is expressed through social institutions a theme we turn to next
social sanction
a reaction or measure intended to enforce norms and punish their violation -side walk "walk"
Symbol
a symbol going something that conventionally stands for something else- though which people make sense out of teh world. Verbal or nonverbal Symbols are things that people in a given culture associate with something else, often something intangible, such as mtoehrhood, family, God or country
interpretive theory of culture
a theory that culture is embodied and transmitted through symbols
cultural construction
an individuals comprehention of what is proper and improper people collectively "build" meanings through common experience and negotiation. an individuals comprehension of anything is always based on what his or her group defines collectively as proper and improper
cross-cultural perspective
analyzing human social phenomenon by comparing that phenomenon in different countries is necessary to appreciate just how "artificial" our beliefs and actions are. demonstrated the incredible flexibility and plasticity of the human species- human belief and practices come in all shapes and forms
Norms
are typically patterns of behavior, viewed by participants as the unwritten rules of everyday life remain stable because people learn them from an early age and because society encourages conformity Are usually unnoticed by people until they're violated
fuctionalism
cultural practices and beliefs serve purposes for society, such as explaining how the world works, organizing people into roles so they can get things done etc. ---left important legacies on holistic perspective..... Radcliffee-Brown-- Synchronic-- study society as it is today- past can not be known........ Malinowaski- Customs arise to deal with functional needs Functionalists emphasize that social institutions function together in an integrated balance fashion to keep the whole society functioning smoothy and to minimize soical change
holistic perspective
identify and understand the whole/ systematic connections between individual cultural beliefs and practices rather than the individual parts
customs
long-established norms that have a codified and lawlike aspect
social institutuions
organized sets of social relationships that link individuals to each other in a structured way in a particular society
tradition
practices and customs that have become most ritualized and enduring
stability
symbols, values, norms, and traditions
Culture
the complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities acquired by man as a member of society." -acquires/ learned -complex whole Culture is learned, dynamic, used symbols, integrated with daily experience, shared by groups of people
enculturation
the process of learning the social rules and cultural logic of a society Explicit and implicit the idea that people have been doing or believing things for much of their lives
cultural appropriation
the unilateral decision of one social group to take control over the symbols, practices, or objects f another
norms
typical patterns of actual behavior as well as the rules about how things should be done