Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Chapter 3 History of Anthropological Theory

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. The Evolution of Evolution  Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution suggested that different species developed, one from another, over long periods of time.  Darwin later rejected his original notion, focusing instead on a process of natural selection.

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Early Anthropological Theory Early Evolutionism  Darwinism influenced cultural theory. In the early years the prevailing view was that culture generally develops (evolves) in a uniform and progressive manner.

“Race” Theory  Evolutionism influenced anthropology in the 19 th century to posit that the reason human cultures differed was because they represented separate subspecies of humans or “races.” Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Early Anthropological Theory

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Early Anthropological Theory Diffusionism  Popular in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries  Suggested that most aspects of high civilization had emerged in culture centers from which they then diffused out

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Later Anthropological Theory Historical Particularism  Frank Boas opposed evolutionism  Stressed the importance of collecting as much anthropological data as possible, from which the laws governing cultural variation would emerge

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Later Anthropological Theory Psychological Approach  How do psychological factors and processes help to explain cultural practices?

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Later Anthropological Theory Functionalism  An analysis of what function or part some aspect of culture or social life plays in the maintenance of society.

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Later Anthropological Theory Structuralism  Lévi-Strauss’ approach views culture as a surface representation of the underlying patterns of the human mind.

Later Anthropological Theory Ethnoscience and Cognitive Anthropology  Attempts to derive the rules of thought that may underlie a given culture from a logical analysis of ethnographic data. Cultural Ecology  The study of the relationships between cultures and their physical and social environments.

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Later Anthropological Theory Political Economy  Assumes that external forces explain the way a society changes and adapts. Central to this approach is the social and political impact of those state societies that transformed the world by colonialism and imperialism after the mid-1400s.

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Recent Developments in Anthropological Theory Evolutionary Ecology Approaches  The idea that natural selection can operate on the behavioral or social characteristic of a population.

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Recent Developments in Anthropological Theory Feminist Approaches  With the advent of the “women’s movement” of the 1960s, a focused effort on studying the roles of women was found necessary.

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Recent Developments in Anthropological Theory Interpretive Approaches  Clifford Geertz- A culture is like a literary text that can be analyzed for meaning.  The goal is to understand what it means to be a person living in a particular culture, rather than to explain why cultures vary.

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. Recent Developments in Anthropological Theory Postmodernists  All knowledge is subjective and actively shaped by the political powers-that-be.