Theories in Anthropology

bremann article, "Writings on culture" "binds people"

-limitations, boundedness, of term culture -idea of essentializing people, putting people into bounderies by labeling them in a certain culture -anthropologists were defyning people based upon their culture when these people wanted to define themselves -his opinion on term culture: bounded, homogenous, pourous, unstable; thinks not exact but a useful term; he talks about clusters of different cultural traits, "culture" is STERIOTYPING SOMEONE SUBCONCIOUSLY -says that some people essentialize cultures more than others. -synchorinic: looking at nce time diachronic looking at across time root cause of essentializing: ethnography, field work, ethnographic research-->marks people. ethnography itself is the problem -culture is more like a city or crows than a cat "where do you draw the line in a culture?"

Evans-Pritchard, "Sufferers of Misfortune seek for witchcraft amongst their enemies"

-main idea is to look at some different ways that human societies have for moderating the behavior of the people within it, witchraft amond masanda is an example of an institution that regulates peoples behavior, don't wanna be confused of witchraft, don't wanna accidently cast a spell on someone or attract attention of other witches so you act in a certain, moral way. Cyberbulling is ex. It's a way of regulating a persons behavior

Pinker, "The Moral Instinct"

-main point: morals are innate, part of human nature -five basic morals: community, group loyalty, authority, justice/faireness -incest is wrong and we can literally feel its wrong -Id, Ego, SuperEgo -id is animal instict -religion is the ultimate reward

What is culture?

-societies will naturally become more complex -culture is leanred (enculturation--internalize aspects of culture) -"culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits aquired by man as a member of society" -the term culture is general phenomonon for all of humanity that was different than our physical or biological characteristics (agriculutre, religion, science, sports, dress, political systems) -hard to define -view that possibly humans are nothing without culture

Cultural epidemiology (Cultural Ecology)

-steward Cultural Ecology - materialist and evolutionist, but borrowed from functionalism and biology to focus on culture as adaptations to the environment. Attempted to answer criticisms of evolutionism. -stresses how particular sociocultural systems adapt to enviornmental conditions (rainfall, temp, soil)

Human nature: are we inherantly good or bad

Human nature: 1) are we inatly good or bad. Is it mix between pinker moral instinct article. Also think about attempts to figure out what human nature is by looking at chimps and seeing what are the core human characteristics. The idea of human nature is that if you could strip away all the culture then what are innatre things. Debate: humans without culture are nothing. Maybe a capacity for culture is part of our nature. Human nature comes from our evolution, language, drives, morals etc.

post-structuralism

Post-structuralism and Critical theory (1970s to present) Foucault, Michel - (archaeology of knowledge) historicizing the creation of subjects Butler, Judith - criticized the naturalization of socially constructed categories like sex

practice theory

Practice Theory (1980s and 90s) - people are structured by interaction in society, but also comprise those interactions and thus structure them. Bourdieu, Pierre Sahlins, Marshall Giddens, Anthony

practice theory

Practice Theory (1980s and 90s) - people are structured by interaction in society, but also comprise those interactions and thus structure them. Bourdieu, Pierre Sahlins, Marshall Giddens, Anthony -people know society but still have some aspects that they dont conform

Cultural materialism (COW)

came out of sociobiology materialism for M (MARVIN) Cultural materialism (1970s and 1980s) - developed out of cultural ecology, focused on environmental factors Harris, Marvin - culture can be explained by recourse to material conditions this was an idea of marvin harris for explaining in india why they would have this notion of a sacred cow, even when starving or in drought they would not even eat cows bc it would save peoples lie, if kill all of cows in time of drought then you would not have cows to have during good times then you were ultimately worse off. Some ppl would survive and then can use the cows to build everything up again. Cultural materialsm-some weird cultural practice and can look at culture and explain it. Cultural materialism definition: using the material conditions to explain cultural practices.

Levi-Strauss, "Anthropology: Its Achievements and Future"

colonization -colonization didnt help many soceities--people thought there culture inferior -colonization started out with european countries but then China, Spain etc. thought they could do it-->led to world war II -end of colonialism in 1949 when WWII over and countries were getting there independance Post colonialism effects on anthropology: natives didnt want anthropologists in culture anymore, levi-strouss solution: native anthropologists

Miner, "Body Ritual among the Nacirema" (read). Ethnocentrism concept

ethnocentrism concept.

methods used in anthropology

ethnographer, participant observation, personal interviews,

society as an organism

herbert spencer (s for Society, organsiSm) -said society was an organism -survival of the fittest

anthropology as a science or a humanity

humanity: ethnographers, studies of fine art, music, science: the use of the scientific method, anthro has been able to make strides in human behavior and cultural development, looks at data, conducts experiments Generalist theories look at it as a humanity. Ex. Symbolic looks at it like interpreting a book. Scupin presents anthropology as a science ina nice way.

Colonialism (effects on world and anthropology)

- made world less open to anthropologists bc they would come in and write an ethnography and label their culture and have power over them -european white man, ethnocentrism. they thought they were the best. tried to colonise everyone.

historical particularism

-Franz Boas Historical Particularism (1910s and 20s) - we must understand cultures as products of their own, unique histories.

structural functionalism

-Radcliffe Brown -he focused on the structure of society as reflected in the differeing institutions that function to perpetuate the survival of society -ex. in some of his studies, he empasized how males had to marry outside of their particular group into another group. because he is an outsider, he has to show extreme respect to family and wife's kin. he may establish a "joking relationship" where hostility is reduced by teasing

Sociobiology

-Wilson, E.O. Sociobiology - biological underpinnings of human behavior. BEHAVIOR. skips mind

problems with the race concept

-doesnt have any scientific validity -if you are a rascist your not targeting someone specifically -ethnicity is better word than race -race negative connotation

critics of culture

-ethnocentrism (judging another culture based on your own) -real culture vs. ideal culture. what you think culture is vs what it is. american and opportunites ex.

general evolution

becuase white focused on sociocultural change on the global level (white coined term neoevolutionism), rather than particular societies, his approach has been called general evolution.

Malinowski, "Subject, Method and Scope"

-widely viewed as some of the first ethnography in the field, significant, ethnographers review back to hims -meaning of the "bones" of a society: core beliefs of the society, structure, the rules underlying everything, the order, the laws, the procedures in dealing with things -term kinship--supposed to be extremely important in anthro; everyone assumed to be barbaric outside of Europe; like the nacerima article flesh and blood: refers to the imponderabilia of actual life, later called "practice", wants to emphasize that is is a very structured society -the "spirit of the people": the believs of the people, written word in native language. thought important to write in that Why is field work so important?--become essentially part of the culture because human instincts take over; studying without reflection is useless -he gave gifts of tobacco to ppl to allow his stay

How humans evolved

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Structuralism (Structural anthropology)

1. Structural Anthropology (1960s and 1970s) Levi-Strauss, Claude - universal binary categories of mind underlying all systems of meaning. - set up two binaries (male and female) then link other binaries to that

19th Century Evolutionism

19th century evolutionism: Herbert Spencer (society is like an organism) Edward B. Tylor(THINK, INT-ILLECTCUALIST) (intellectualist- human desire for answers drives social evolution) Lewis H. Morgan (social relations, especially kinship, drives evolution, measured as technology) Karl Marc (dialectical materialism) - said that history is for struggle between different classes-->this drives societal change. material causes are central, specifically the struggle between social groups for access to material resources, and the tendency of one group to dominate another so long as they had privileged access to those resources.

symbolic anthropology

2. Symbolic Anthropology (1960s and 70s) Geertz (interpretivism) how symbols act as vehicles for culture Turner, Victor. how symbols operate to perform social acts and transformations Symbolic anthropology- victor turner and Clifford gear. An attempt to understand himan culture by thinking of things in terms of symbols, basically trying to decode human nature, what it means, interpret or read a culture in that way, a more particularist kind of theory bc looks at a specific culture rather than general, synchronic bc looking at particular moment in time. Its idealist too its focused on ideas rather than material causes of things. The ideas in these symbols. Ex. There are key symbols that really have meaning, or rituals that mean things, ex. Symbolic anthropoligists were looking at food and the symbols that the food denoted

generalist and particularist theories

Generalist Theories (meant to explain human diversity and similarities everywhere): Evolutionism, functionalism, structuralism, cultural ecology and cultural materialism, cognitive anthropology, Marxist anthropology Particularist orientations (anti-theory): Historical particularism, symbolic anthropology, ethnoscience, post-structuralism, post- modernism

Post-colonialist critiques of anthropology:

Post-colonialist critiques of anthropology: two aspects: 1) after colonialism, anthropology had to make major changes to itself. The position that anthropologists were in before colonialsm changed. They couldn't just come in and live with them. Ppl started accusing anthros of defyning them. Brewman article—because anthropologists are writing these ethnologies they are defyning these people and that's a power over them. Depict cultures as being very bounded, homogenous, and basically, said that ethnographers were looking at it objectively like a scientist when cultures were extremely subjective. they were binding them

Neo-Evolutionism

Neo evolutionism (1950s) Leslie White (increasing consumption of energy drives societal complexity) -white defined the term. 19th centural evolutionalists were critiques because they were using their society as the pinaclea and every other culture is a step down. Neo evolutionists were trying to respond to these critisms, so white came up with this idea of how society goes up the ladder of progress with how society uses technology. They are trying to take a step away from ethnocentrism. -the degree that societal devolpment is measured by the amount of energy a society hanrness i.e. the greater energy recourses available, the more highly evolved the sociocultural system

What is power? How is it excersized?

should be excersised through making someone do something rather than through force, foucout talks about power, if you can get someone to do something on their own free will, than that is power over them but if someone says yeah il do this instead of getting betten up. Forcing your hand on someone. Through discourse, creating this understanding and leading ppl to do certain things is a more longlasting power and more stable. Fear and threats are a form of power.

functionalism

social structures in societies exist to make it stronger -the view that society consists of institutions that serve vital purposes for people