culture distinctively human adaptation culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge,...
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Culture
Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art,morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society" (E.B. Tylor 1871).
What is this thing called culture, anyway?
Culture
However, a more modern source, the American Heritage English Dictionary, gives a primary definition of culture which is substantially different than earlier primary definitions:
"The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought."
CultureWord of many uses…”high”culture, “low” culture,
agriculture, cultivate, cult…”way of life”
CULTURE/culture
CULTURE -
way of life of human beings - ethnology
culture -
way of life of a specific group of human beings - ethnography
MAINLY learned S-R conditioningSymbolicImprinting (Prägung)
Culture
Initially learning was considered to occur on a tabula rasa or “blank slate.”
Today, the term “palimpsest” seems more accurate.
Culture
We acquire culture as a process of maturation - growing up….the various processes involved in the transmission of culture are called enculturation.
Similar to socialization, but does not start until we are capable of symbolic learning.
Enculturation is a major factor in the development of personality...our identity.
Identification with one’s culture is known as ethnocentrism.
Culture
Ethnocentrism is a major challenge to understand another culture.
Cultural relativism is a method that anthropologists have developed to try to take account of their own ethnocentrism.
Cultural relativism is simply an attempt to understand another culture from the point of view of the people in that culture.
How Cultures Are Studied
Participant ObservationCulture Shock
Comparative Method
Important Dichotomies
Emic/Etic
Inside/Outside
Overt/Covert
Real/Ideal
subculture
How Cultures Are Studied
Culture Change
acculturation
functional prerequisites
culture loss
cultural evolution
cultural diffusion
The Trobriand Islands: Two Aspects of Culture Change
First Aspect: Branislaw Malinowski
Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922)
The initial study of the Trobrianders. One of the classic studies in anthropology…describes ethnographic fieldwork and establishes a functionalist approach in ethnology…his analysis
of the “Kula Ring” remains one of the most assigned topics in anthropology. He:
-----compelled anthropology out of the armchair-----advocated modern methods of ethnography such as
participant observation and learning the language
-----societies are integrated wholes; one must study interrelationships
-----stressed need to document the native's perspective (emic)
The Trobriand Islands: Two Aspects of Culture Change
Second Aspect: Annette Weiner Initiating her fieldwork about 50 years after Malinowski, Weiner revised his conclusions, taking into account women’s value in Trobriand economics….A major contribution to the field of cultural anthropology was her in-depth study of the value and circulation of goods among the Trobrianders of Papua, New Guinea. Her publications include Women of Value, Men of Renown: New Perspectives in Trobriand Exchange (1976).
Culture
Lithic (stone) Tool Technology
Core Tool Technology
Flake Tool Technology
Blade Tool Technology
Culture
Hunting and Gathering (Food Foraging) Societies
All societies without domestication for food.
Domain Endogamy/Exogamy
Dialectal culture
Basic division of labor -
Men hunt
Women gather