© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 1 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Quizzes added to syllabus First Quiz:ANTH : 9/25 First Quiz:ANTH : 9/29 Based on textbook reading for the day

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 2 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Culture What Is Culture? Culture and the Individual: Agency and PracticeCulture and the Individual: Agency and Practice Universality, Generality, and Particularity Mechanisms of Cultural Change Globalization

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 3 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. What Is Culture? Therefore, culture can be studied scientifically –Enculturation – process by which a child learns his or her culture Tylor proposed that culture are systems of human behavior and thought and obey natural laws

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 4 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Culture Is Learned –Accumulation of knowledge about experiences and information not perceived directly by the organism, but transmitted to it through symbols – signs that have no necessary or natural connection with the things for which they stand Cultural learning unique to humans

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 5 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Culture Is Learned –Culture learned through both direct instruction and observation Anthropologists in the 19th century argued for “psychic unity of man” –Acknowledges individuals vary in emotional and intellectual tendencies and capacities but all human populations have equivalent capacities for culture Geertz defines culture as ideas based on cultural learning and symbols

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 6 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Culture Is Shared –Social transmission of culture tends to unify people by providing common experience –Commonality of experience tends to generate common understanding of future events Culture located and transmitted in groups

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 7 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Culture Is Symbolic –Verbal and nonverbal symbols Usually linguistic, but also nonverbal Other primates demonstrated rudimentary ability to use symbols Symbolic thought unique and crucial to cultural learning

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 8 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Humans interact with cultural constructions of nature rather than directly with nature itself Culture and Nature –Culture converts natural urges and acts into cultural customs

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 9 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Anthropological concept of culture is a model that includes all aspects of human group behavior Culture Is All-Encompassing –Everyone is cultured –To understand North American culture, one must consider television, fast-food restaurants, sports and games

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 10 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Culture Is Integrated –Changes in one aspect will likely generate changes in other aspects –Core values – sets of ideas, attitudes, and beliefs that are basic in that they provide an organizational logic for the rest of the culture Culture is a system

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 11 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Culture Can Be Adaptive and Maladaptive –What’s good for individual isn’t necessarily good for group –Determining whether cultural practice is adaptive or maladaptive frequently requires viewing results of that practice from several perspectives Humans have biological and cultural ways of coping with environmental stress

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 12 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Culture and the Individual: Agency and Practice –Ideal culture – what people say they should do, not what they say they do –Real culture – actual behavior as observed by anthropologist People use their culture actively and creatively, rather than blindly following its dictates

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 13 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Culture and the Individual: Agency and Practice –Agency – actions that individuals take, both alone and in groups, in forming and transforming cultural identities –Practice Theory – recognizes that individuals within a society or culture have diverse motives and intentions and different degrees of power and influence Culture is both public and individual

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 14 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Levels of Culture International culture – practices common to identifiable group extending beyond boundaries of one culture –Subcultures – identifiable cultural patterns existing within a larger culture National culture – experiences, beliefs, learned behavior patterns, and values shared by citizens of the same nation

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 15 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Levels of Culture –Direct diffusion – members of two or more previously distinct cultures interact with each other –Indirect diffusion – cultural artifacts or practices are transmitted from one culture to another through intermediate third (or more) culture Cultural practices and artifacts are transmitted through diffusion

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 16 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Ethnocentrism, Cultural Relativism, and Human Rights Cultural relativism – asserts cultural values are arbitrary, and therefore, values of one culture should not be used as standards to evaluate behavior of persons from outside that culture Ethnocentrism – Use of values, ideals, and mores from one’s own culture to judge behavior of someone from another culture

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 17 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Ethnocentrism, Cultural Relativism, and Human Rights Cultural rights – vested in groups and include a group’s ability to preserve its cultural tradition Human rights – vested in individuals and includes the right to speak freely, to hold religious beliefs without persecution, and not be murdered, injured, enslaved, or imprisoned without charge.

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 18 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Levels of Culture, with Examples from Sports and Foods

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 19 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Universality, Generality, and Particularity –Universals traits are ones that more or less distinguish Homo sapiens from other species Biological Psychological Universality

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 20 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Universality, Generality, and Particularity –Regularities that occur in different times and places but not all cultures Diffusion Colonization Particularities –Traits or features of culture not generalized or widespread Particularities may be getting rare Generalities

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 21 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Mechanisms of Cultural Change –Borrowing of traits between cultures Direct – between two adjacent cultures Indirect – across one or more intervening cultures or through some long-distance medium Forced – through warfare, colonization, or some other kind of domination Unforced – intermarriage, trade, and the like Diffusion

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 22 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Mechanisms of Cultural Change –Exchange of features that results when groups come into continuous firsthand contact May occur in any or all groups engaged in such contact Acculturation

© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 23 ©2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Globalization –Economic and political forces take advantage of modern systems of communication and transportation to promote globalization –Allows larger economic and political systems to dominate local people Series of processes that work to make modern nations and people increasingly interlinked and mutually dependent