08/24/2023 - What, Why, and How of Cultural Anthropology
Anthropus: Man
Logos: The study of
Anthropology: Study of humanity
Subfields of Anthropology:
Each one has a certain interest in human culture
- Physical/ Biological:
- Concerned with evolution (Physical evolution)
- May study fossils + social behavior of evolutionary
- Archeology:
- Focuses on technological and cultural development of human societies over time
- change over time, diachronic perspective
- Prehistoric: focused on periods of time before written records
- Historic: Focused on periods after written records
- Linguistic:
- Study of language
- Language is uniquely a human attribute
- Studies how language affects the way we live + view the world around us
- Contributed to evolutionary success
- Concerned with complex relationships between language and cultural aspects of human thought
- Cultural:
- Largest subfield of anthropology
- Centrality of culture
- Web of meaning that permeates what we do
- Determines the actions we will take + how we see the world
- Discover how things are done by other people around us (parents, etc.)
Early cultural anthropology:
- The roots of anthropology come from 19th century europe - evolutionism
- Concerned with the work of charles darwin
- Engaging with the work of darwinism
- Early theory: Differences (cultural traits (barbaric or civil) were arranged progressively on a hierarchical
ladder (early definitions of racism)
- Edward Tylor (1871): Culture or civilization (distinct or comparable?)
- Prejudice against non-western people, still with us in everyday society
- Anthropologists try to repudiate these early theories
- Franz Boas (early 20th century): tried to reverse that perspective
Principles of culture (Franz Boas):
- Cultural aspects of human behavior as not biologically based
- Nothing to do with biology but by social exposure
- Culture acts through largely unprocessed processes
- Happens at an unconscious level
- All cultures are equally developed
- Through their own priorities and values
- No hierarchy between cultures
- All cultures are equally complex and developed
- Cultural traits can’t be classified or interpreted according to universal perspective
- Only from a relativistic perspective
,Cultural Relativism:
- All human cultures need to be studied
- No culture is inferior or superior to another
- Requires that we make value judgments (biased product in the culture in which we are raised)
- Within the lens of that specific society/ culture
- Acknowledge and recognize different reactions from your biased perspective and put them aside in order to
view another culture from an unbiased lens (no value judgment)
Ethnocentrism:
- Explicit:
- Strong belief that moral standards of one's own culture are superior to other cultures
- Detrimental, breeds intolerance, + social conflict/ violence
- Mild:
- More comfortable with your own cultural ways of doing things
- Subconscious level
Main point of departure triangle:
- Society ~ Sociology
- Culture ~ Anthropology
- Individual ~ Psychology
08/29/2023: The Concept of Culture and Cultural Relativism
Culture is a integrated system of meanings, values, patterns of behavior, with which a specified group of people live
and view the world around them, and which is transmitted across generations through socializations
Features of Culture:
- Shared:
- Shared by a specific group/ community of people
- Social phenomenon
- Each individual is unique but their norms and traits can be tied to their culture/ background
- Learned:
- Culture is learned, transmitted across generations (inculturation)
- Early childhood experiences are significant towards shaping our perspective of the world
- Largely unconscious:
- Primarily learned unconsciously (while growing up or at a young age)
- Most aspects of culture are unconscious
- Arbitrary + Symbolic:
- No necessary connection between 2 specific things
- Primarily symbolic (specific to certain cultures)
- Integrated + Holistic:
- Varies based on context
- Looks at the more complex whole
- Adaptive:
- Humans cope using cultural knowledge
- Allows intervention of new and adaptive forms of culture
- Cultural diversity is due to the adaptivity and flexibility of culture
- The adaptive nature of culture allows our human societies to flourish
Anthropology over time:
- Anthropology gives us the understanding of the biological, technological, and cultural aspects of human
nature
- Teaches us the importance of understanding cultural diversity
- Helps us avoid miscommunication and misunderstandings of cultural differences
, 09/05/2023: Language and communication
- Language:
- System of arbitrary and non-arbitrary vocal sounds and symbols by means of which a social group
cooperates and communicate
- Can't be observed directly only through speech
- Basis of all human experience
- Experience the world through a linguistic lens
- System of symbols (it is symbolic)
- Unique to humans
- Not only communication
- Allows us to create experiences and convey our experiences to the future
- Not speech or writing
- Speech is the only form of language (talking):
- Humans developed speech gradually
- Neanderthals had limited speech
- As hominids became modern humans, language evolved with them
- The surface expression of language and its rules
- Comes from ferdinand de suster
- Dictated the rules of what could have happened in terms of surface structure
- Surface, explicit/ conscious, specific (not a system)
- One phrase of spoken words is not going to capture the entire language but it is dedicated
by the rules of language
- Engage in debate, contest, and negotiate (vocally)
- Productive:
- Able to put words together that make sense to others
- Endless possibilities to mix up words
- Displacement:
- Ability to speak about events that aren't present (past/ future)
- Arbitrariness:
- Symbolic system
- No logically valid connection between a vocal utterance or a particular combination of
sounds
- Conventional:
- Unspoken agreement on what the arbitrary words mean
- Communication:
- Transmission of meaningful information from one person to another
- Not unique to humans (animals communicate with each other using sounds)
Phonological system at the base of every language and there are culturally meaningful distinctions that are part of
phonemics:
Phonology:
- Sounds of speech
- Study of sounds used in speech
Phonetics:
- How the mouth works to create sounds
Phonemics:
- Significant sounds contrasted in language
- A sounds within a word that completely changes the meaning (cat, bat, mat)
Comes from phonology:
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