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The Concept of Culture
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Deciphering the Mask of Culture
Making the strange familiar
Eating dog? Marrying cousins? Giving away prized
possessions? Finger mutilation? Brothers sharing a wife?
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Cross-Cultural Misunderstandings
Gestures (Singapore)
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Are Gestures Universal? A-OK (U.S.)
Money (Japan)
F___ (Spain)
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Mexico: -show height with palm vertical
-do not beckon with fingers
Saudi Arabia: -avoid showing
the sole of your shoe -it is disrespectful
to cross your legs Zimbabwe: -it is rude to maintain eye
contact
Iran: -thumbs up sign is vulgar
-signal with palm down
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Beliefs
Complements(Malaysia)
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Symbols
Gift giving(Chinesetradingpartner)
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Cultural Gestures, Beliefs & Symbols Are Not Universal
Cultural Use of Space Contact & Non-contact cultures Views from both sides of the cultural
border
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We Live in a Globally Interdependent World
Understanding How to Interact With Diverse Peoples is Imperative –
Anthropology:
Will make what seems strange, exotic, or alien familiar to you
We put our own values & beliefs on hold while we learn to understand other cultures without judging them
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Making the Familiar Strange
We may seem strange or alien to others (EXAMPLES)
That forces us to take a critical look at our own culture It leads us to
reassess our own culture & values
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Test Your Cultural Literacy!
Supplemental reading – Who are the N a c i r e m a ?
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Cracking the Nacirema Code
Percent of students who correctly identified
75% 80-
60-
40- 25%
20-
0- IDENTIFY NOT IDENTIFY
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Why Study Anthropology?
“Insular Americans”
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Making the Strange Familiar
Forces us to put our judgment on hold while we try to understand other cultures
It is our culture that leads us to create aliens
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Anthropology Provides Us With a Kaleidoscopic Vision of the World
This vision breaks down cultural barriers But wait! Isn’t globalization creating a
homogenous world culture? McDonalds, Internet provide shared
experiences around the globe
Yet national, racial, & ethnic differences & global inequality promote a system of global apartheid
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The World Political Economy
Makes Knowledge & Toleration
of Other People’s Values, Customs, & Beliefs
Essential
Let’s look at some examples (exam material)
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“9-11” “You’re for us, or you’re against us”
(Us vs. Them) The world is more
divided today How has this shaped
our ideas about MiddleEasterners?
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Iraq, or Al-Qaeda ?
55% Shiites
18% Sunnis
18% Kurds
To many, they are all evil
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Xenophobia Vincent Chin
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Tribal Warfare Displaced Persons Camps, Darfur, Sudan
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The Diné & Black Mesahttp://www.docudharma.com/diary/9565/
Relocation—largest since the Trail of Tears, that killed 1000s of Cherokees in the 1830s
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Immigration & Racist Paranoia
Mexican immigrants – From parasites to terrorists Lou Dobbs: "illegal alien invasion"
“There's no question this type of mass immigration would have a calamitous effect on working
citizens and their families”
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So, What Is Anthropology?
5 Subdisciplines:
Cultural Ethnography Ethnology
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Physical
Archaeology
Linguistics
Applied
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3 Key Concepts Holism
Comparativism
Relativism: To regard alternative ways of life as valid & meaningful designs for living
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Ethnocentrism The opinion that one’s own culture
(values, beliefs, knowledge, behavior) is superior
Does that mean we must accept values, beliefs, & behaviors that are different from our own?
Cultural Relativism
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Why Anthropology?
Once you have studied anthropology, you no longer look at the world from a single point of view.
Having many lenses to view the world is liberating!
An anthropological perspective is not just for anthropologists—it is a
perspective to live by!
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Definitions of Culture There are over 160 different definitions
of culture! Anthropologists emphasize different
aspects of culture: Idealist – beliefs, values, conceptions
(intangible) Materialist – behavior, artifacts (observable) Omnibus – more inclusive (both ideal &
material) Know these for the exam
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Do Anthropologists Agree on Anything?
Culture is: Adaptive – to both the physical & social
environment Culture is the primary means of human
adaptation All humans have the same capacity for
culture; different cultures select different ways of adapting to their particular environments
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Culture is … Learned – through enculturation people
internalize its values Culture is transmitted generation to
generation Shared – Culture is a group phenomenon Patterned – A system of interrelated
parts; we can’t understand the whole by analyzing just one part
Arbitrary – Ideas are culturally defined
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Idealist & Materialist Interpretations
of Culture
Plato:
IdealismIdeas =essenceof humannature
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Aristotle:MaterialismSeeing is believing;Economic conditions create inequality
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Idealism vs. Materialism
So who is right?
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Reductionism The attempt to explain complex
phenomena in terms of simpler or single causes
Both idealists & materialists attempt to prove that they can explain cultural reality better than their opponents: If human nature is idealist, human action is
reduced to a by-product of ideas If human nature is materialist, ideas are reduced to
by-products of material forces
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What Does All This Have To Do With Anthropology ! ?
The major theoretical perspectives & debates in anthropology are based on idealist & materialist perspectives
Ex: Biological Determinism is a materialist argument that biology controls human behavior Used in eugenics, raises issues of race & IQ
Ex: Culture determines behavior Impressionistic, over-generalizes people in a culture
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Are There Any Alternatives?
Holism – We are conditioned by both our biological heritage & our cultural understandings The whole is more than the sum of its
parts
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Dialectical – Material & ideational factors interact
dialectically to produce something new We interact with our physical (material)
environment We produce food, consume it, it transforms us While we do so, we change the environment
What we plant & eat is determined by our cultural definitions of what is edible
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That’s metaphysical because cows can talk about not having opposable thumbs!
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Anthro
Student
s…ok
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Clifford Geertz’s Idealist Interpretation
Geertz: The Concept of Culture I Espouse is a Semiotic One…
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Marvin Harris’ Materialist Interpretation
Harris: The Culture Concept Comes Down to Behavior Patterns…