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