ANTZ202 Introduction to Culture

Meeting 13, April 3, 2007Changes

Notes

• Global inequalities• World system• Innovation, creativity• Define who we are

Tradition and Change

• Continuity• Conservatism• Implies change

Revolution and Modernity

• Discontinuity• Always keep something

Ethnocentrism

• Lenses through which see world• Evaluation

Humanitarian Aid

• Imposed change?• Who chooses?• “Why can’t they be more like us?”

Some Broad Changes

• Industrialisation• Commercialism• Complexification• Individualism

From Last Week

• Diversity• Social complexity• Commercialisation• “West”/”Non-West”

Internal Change

• Independent Invention– Original solutions to problems

• Internal Dynamism– Change through social diversity

Change Through Contacts

• Diffusion– Spread through borrowing– Possibly indirect

• Acculturation– Continuous contact– Asymmetrical

Contacts

• Mobility– Individuals or groups

• Trade and Exchange Networks– Goods, services, knowledge– Specialization– Often Equal

Uninvited Contacts

• War– Territorial expansion– Invasion

• Colonialism– Conquest– Unequal deals

Globalization

• Interconnected, interdependent• Mutual influences• Inequalities• Decentralized flow of capital• Transnational culture of consumption

Mass Media

• “Virtual” contact• “Imagined Communities”– Nationalism– Internationalism

Popular Culture

• Local cultures– Erosion– Diffusion– Adaptation

• Bollywood• Telenovelas

Anthropology and Change

• Humanistic vision• Voluntary vs. coerced change• Cherish cultural diversity• Understanding similarities and differences

Changes in Ethnography

Armchair Anthropology

• Second-hand accounts• Often non-researchers• Displaced context• Deductive• Universalist

Early ethnography

• Realism• Holism (integrated culture)• Particularist (culture in own terms)• Native understanding• Some “Gone Native”

Interpretive Anthropology (Geertz)

• Culture as text• Translation• Meaningfulness, significance• Native voice

Ethnographic Crisis

• “Writing Culture” (Clifford and Marcus 1986)• Question ethnographic realism• Question ethnographic present• Ethnographies as products

Complex Societies

• Global World• Adapt methods• Qualitative basis• Identities• Subjectivities

Problem-Oriented Ethnography

• Issue in broad context• Finding solutions• Applied anthropology• Interdisciplinary