The culture concept in anthropology

THE CULTURE CONCEPT IN ANTHROPOLOGY

• THE CULTURE CONCEPT IN ANTHROPOLOGY

• (1870s to the Present)

• 1. Cultural Evolution

• 2. Cultural Relativism

• 3. Patterns of Culture

• 4. System of Symbols & Meanings

• 5. Cultural Borderlands

• 6. Humanism: Engaged Anthropology

1. CULTURAL EVOLUTION (1870s) Lewis Henry Morgan Ancient Society (1877)

• Idea: Culture evolves in progressive and linear stages, each stage corresponding to certain types of “technology”

• Stages:

• SAVAGERY

• fishing, bow & arrow (Aboriginals)

• BARBARISM

• pots, domestication of plants/animals, iron (Native Americans)

• CIVILIZATION

• writing, phonetic alphabet (Greeks)

• Assumptions: Implied racialized worldview: certain races/cultures will always be more “civilized” (i.e. better) than others

2. CULTURAL RELATIVISM (early 1900s-1930s) Franz Boas The Mind of Primitive Man (1911) WEB DuBois The Souls of Black Folk (1903) Margaret Mead Coming of Age in Samoa (1928)

• CULTURAL RELATIVISM: Behavior in one culture should not be judged by the standards of another culture

• ETHNOCENTRICISM: (opposite of relativism) Tendency to view one’s culture as superior and to apply one’s own cultural values in judging the behavior and beliefs of people raised in other cultures

• Ethnocentrism should be acknowledged & avoided

CULTURAL RELATIVISM (cont.)

• CULTURES: Particular to geographic areas, local histories, and traditions

• RACE: Problematic category because still popularly taken as biological, weighted with the assumptions of inferiority and superiority

• Native Americans, African Americans, and other People of Color: NOT RACIALLY INFERIOR, POSSESSED UNIQUE & HISTORICALLY SPECIFIC CULTURES

Franz Boas “Father” of US Anthropology

• Conducted research with Kwakuitl of the Pacific Northwest between 1880 and 1920

• Poses for a model being made of a Kwakuitl Winter Ceremonial dancer

FIELDWORK METHODS

• Defining feature of Anthropology since 1920s

• Malinowski (1884-1942), Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922)

• PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION

• Take part in community life as we study it; Use the senses: sound, sight, smell, touch, taste; talk to people, ask questions, learn new language

• FIELD NOTES

• Keep separate notebook in which you record observations & experiences

• GENEALOGY

• Take note of kinship, descent, marriage relationships

• INFORMANTS/COLLABORATORS/FRIENDS

• People with interest, talent, or training to provide useful information about particular aspects of life

FIELDWORK METHODS (cont.)

• LIFE HISTORY

• Recollection of a lifetime of experiences; intimate and personal cultural portrait; how specific people perceive, react to, contribute to changes that affect their lives

• RESEARCH QUESTIONS

• Questions that guide your research

• SUBJECT POSITION

• Position of the researcher in relation to her informants &

• subject/s being studied

• Position will affect the kind of knowledge gathered & analysis

Salvage Ethnography

• Collecting & documenting information about dying cultures b/c soon they will be extinct

• Critiques: taking for granted that people/culture will dye instead of doing something about it!

• Imperialist Nostalgia: yearning for what one has destroyed (Rosaldo, p.71)

3. PATTERNS OF CULTURE (1930s) Ruth Benedict Patterns of Culture (1934)

• Cultures: homogenous, harmonious, static forms of patterned behaviors

• Frozen scientific objects to be discovered & recorded

• Cultural Relativism: all cultures are different but equal

• Cross-cultural Comparison: Can help anthropologists understand their own cultures. Mead ex.: Samoan girls experience puberty as exciting and their changing bodies as beautiful

4. SYSTEM OF SYMBOLS & MEANINGS (1960s-70s) Clifford Geertz The Interpretation of Cultures (1973)

• Blurring boundaries between social sciences & humanities

• Cultures: texts to be read and interpreted

• Interpretation: way people make sense of differences

• Creative Process: take something that makes sense in one context and figure out its meaning in another

• “Native’s Point of View”: Perspective of people you are working with

SYSTEM OF SYMBOLS & MEANINGS (cont.)

• Meanings are not private or in people’s heads but talked about everyday

• People are sophisticated interpreters of their own culture

• Anthropologists want access to stories people tell themselves about themselves

• “thick description”: layers of meaning stacked on top of each other

5. CULTURAL BORDERLANDS (1980s) Gloria Anzaldua Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987) Renato Rosaldo Culture and Truth (1992)

• Borderlands: merging of two or more cultures, resulting in struggles for control over resources as well as new cultural forms

• Inspired by political & intellectual movements of 1960s in the US and world:

• Civil rights, Women’s, Environmental, National Independence movements

• Spoke to rise of US imperialism: Korean and Vietnam wars, Central & South America, Middle East, Harsher Immigration Policies

CULTURAL BORDERLANDS (cont.)

• Cultural mixing happens at national & community borders

• Borders are everywhere: Groups once defined or separated by race, class, gender, sexuality (etc.) are in contact

• Relationship between Power and Culture: how can we analyze social inequality, to move towards Equality

• Shift from looking at cultures as consistent wholes to looking at differences within cultures—difference is more typical than sameness

• Culture is emergent (always being created) and contested (always being debated)

6. Humanism: Engaged Anthropology (1990s-today) Lila Abu Lughod “Writing Against Culture” (1991) Paul Farmer Infections and Inequalities (1999)

• Do anthropologists bear the responsibility of putting their ideas into practice to “help” human beings?

• If so, does this humanism influence their course of study too much?

• Should anthropologists judge which “story” (practice, policy, etc.) is better?

• Perhaps the “sameness” of the shared human condition is as important as understanding & respecting “differences”