Anthropology Test Chapter 2 - Characteristics of Culture

Five Characteristics Of Culture

1. Culture is learned 2. Culture is shared 3. Culture is symbolic 4. Culture is integrated 5. Culture is dynamic

Pluralistic society

A society in which two or more ethnic groups or nationalities are politically organized into one territorial state, but maintain their cultural difference.

The Concept of Culture

A society's shared & socially transmitted ideas, values, and perceptions which are used to make sense of experience and which generate behavior is what defines culture.

A. Superstructure

A society's shared sense of identity and worldview. The collective body of ideas, beliefs, and values by which a group of people makes sense of the world and their place in it. Ex. Religion and National Ideology.

3 main categories of a culture:

A. superstructure B. social structure C. infrastructure.

4. Culture Is Integrated

All aspects of a culture function as an integrated whole. Any changes in the culture can ultimately effect another part of the culture.

1. Culture Is Learned

All culture is learned rather than biologically inherited. Individuals of a culture will learn the socially appropriate way to satisfy biologically determined needs. Primates have the highest degree of learned behavior patterns.

2. Culture Is Shared

All members of a culture will hold a shared set of values, ideas, perceptions, and standards of behaviors. Every culture emphasizes certain personalities and traits as good and others as bad This does not mean that everyone within a culture will act and think the exact same way. Culture cannot exist without society There are no known human societies that do not exhibit culture.

Society

An organized group(s) of interdependent people who generally share a common territory, language, or culture & who act together for collective survival and well-being. Ex. U.S. society, Hopi society

How to challenge Ethnocentrism?

Become critically self aware of your own culture Question your own biases and assumptions Identifying n& eliminating the understanding that your own culture is the only proper culture. Keep an open mind When studying new cultures, try understanding not judgment Develop a holistic approach of a culture It guards against the culture bound theory or idea that reality are based on the assumptions and values of one's own culture.

C. Infrastructure

Economic Base-The economic foundation of a society. Ex. subsistence practices, and the tools and other material equipment used to make a living.

Bronislaw Malinowski

First anthropologists to stay in a culture and to become part of society- he made ethnography as a system of anthropology- culture emersion. He is a symbol of participation observation and ethnography. He went to the Trobraind Islands of the southern pacific ocean between 1915-1918.

5. Culture is Dynamic

It responds to motions and actions within and around them. It is flexible enough to allow adjustments in the face of unstable or changing circumstances. Luckily, all cultures are adaptable to some degree.

What is the function of culture?

Pass on knowledge and enculturate new members. Ensure the biological continuity of its members. -Provide a social structure for reproduction and mutual support. Hold strategies for the production and distribution of goods and services considered necessary for life. Facilitate social interaction Provide ways to avoid or resolve conflicts within their group as well as with outsiders. Be able to change to remain adaptive under changed conditions.

Ethnic group

People who collectively and publicly identify them selfs as a distinct group based on shared cultural features such as common origin, language, customs and traditional beliefs.

Ethnocentrism

Refers to the belief that the ways one's own culture are the only proper ones. It is the belief that one's own culture is superior to all others.

Hymes, Dell (1974) on how to analyze a speech community in context (Ethnography of Communication, SPEAKING model

Situation: time and place of a speech act and, in general, the physical circumstances of scene and setting Participants: speaker and audience, and their relationships End: goals and outcomes Acts: actions and meanings included and order of the event Key: clues that establish the "tone or manner" of the speech act Instrumentalities: the channel through which communication flows Norms: social rules governing the event and the participants' actions and reactions Genre: the kind of speech act or event, prayers, apologies, debates, celebration etc..

B. Social Structure

Social organization- the rule-governed relationships- with all their rights and obligations- that hold members of a society together. Ex. families, associations, and power relations, including politics.

3. Culture is Symbolic

Symbols are signs, emblems, and/or other things that are arbitrary but represent something in a meaningful way. Language is probably the most significant cultural symbol

Gender

The cultural elaborations and meanings assigned to the biological differentiation between the sexes.

Cultural Relativism:

The idea that one must suspend judgment of other people's practices in order to understand them in their own cultural terms.

Amish Ideals

Value simplicity, hard work, and a high degree of neighborly cooperation. Originated in Western Europe during the Protestant revolution of the 16th century.

Subcultures

Within larger societies there can be subcultures which are distinctive sets of standards and behavior patterns by which a group within a larger society operates. Ex. The Amish of North America represent a subculture (values and traditional lifestyle) within North American society, specifically an ethnic group.

Cultural adaptation

complex ideas, technologies, and activities that allow members of a group to survive and even thrive in their environment.

Enculturation

process that one learns how to become a member of their society. Ex. Socialization agents such as family members, peers, toys, mass media, sports, school and so forth