Culture What Is Culture? Culture’s Evolutionary Basis Universality, Generality, and Particularity Culture and the Individual: Agency and Practice Mechanisms of Cultural Change Globalization

Culture What is culture and why do we study it? What is the relation between culture and the individual? How does culture change?

We have distinctive features because we are individuals, but we have other distinctive attributes because we belong to cultural groups. Display of affection in different cultures.

What Is Culture? Tylor: Cultures–systems of human behavior and thought– obey natural laws, so they can be studied scientifically

Tylor: “Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, laws, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”

Not through biological inheritance but by growing up in a particular society. Enculturation: the process by which a child learns his or her culture

Culture Is Learned Human cultural learning depends on the uniquely developed human capacity to use symbols Symbols: signs that have no necessary or natural connection to the things they signify or stand for

Culture is Learned Clifford Geertz: Culture is ideas based on cultural learning and symbols. Set of “control mechanisms” – plans, recipes, rules, instructions for governing behavior. Cultural system (of meanings and symbols) used to define world, express feelings and make judgements. Culture is learned through direct instruction and observation (experience, conscious and unconscious behavior modification)

Anthropologists in the 19th century argued for a “psychic unity of man” Acknowledgment that individuals vary in emotional and intellectual tendencies and capacities, but still, all human populations have equivalent capacities for culture.

Culture is symbolic White: Culture is dependent upon symbolling. Culture consists of tools, implements, utensils, clothing, ornaments, customs, institutions, beliefs, rituals, games, art, language… Using symbols: bestowing meaning on things and events, and grasping and appreciating such meanings.

Culture Is Symbolic Symbolic thought is unique and crucial to cultural learning Verbal and nonverbal symbols The association between symbols and what is symbolized is arbitrary and conventional Other primates also demonstrate a rudimentary ability to use symbols However, no other animal has elaborated cultural abilities to the extent of Homo sapiens (use of language)

Nonverbal symbols Flags Logos Religious symbols (holy water)

A natural thing arbitrarily associated with a particular meaning for some people, who share common beliefs and experiences that are based on learning and transmitted across generations. Human beings share the abilities to learn, think symbolically, manipulate language, use tools and other cultural products in organizing their lives and coping with their environments.

Culture Is Shared Culture is located in and transmitted through groups Shared beliefs, values, memories, and expectations link people who grow up in the same culture Enculturation unifies people by providing common experiences

Culture and Nature Culture takes natural biological urges and teaches us how to express them in particular ways Our culture–and cultural changes–affect the ways in which we perceive nature, human nature, and the natural world (use of medicine) How natural acts are converted into cultural habits (consider bathroom/toilet habits)

Culture Is All-Encompassing Anthropologically, culture encompasses features sometimes regarded as trivial or unworthy of serious study (popular culture) To understand North American culture, one must consider television, fast-food restaurants, sports, and games Which people are “cultured”?

Culture Is Integrated Cultures are integrated, patterned systems If one part of the system (the economy) changes, other parts (family structure) change as well Core values: key, basic, or central values that integrate a culture Work ethic and individualism for American culture. Turkey??

Culture Can Be Both Adaptive and Maladaptive Humans have biological and cultural ways of coping with environmental stress What’s good for an individual isn’t necessarily good for the group Adaptive behavior that offers short-term benefits to particular individuals may harm the environment and threaten the group’s long-term survival Cultural traits, patterns and inventions can also be “maladaptive”, threatening the group’s continued existence (survival and reproduction). Air conditioners, refrigerators, automobiles, pollution, global warming

Culture’s Evolutionary Basis Similarities between humans and apes are evident in anatomy, brain structure, genetics, and biochemistry Hominid: member of hominid family; any fossil or living human, chimp, or gorilla Hominins: hominids excluding the African apes; all human species that ever existed

Culture’s Evolutionary Basis Many human traits reflect that our primate ancestors lived in trees Grasping ability and manual dexterity Depth and color vision Learning ability based on a large brain Substantial parental investment in offspring Tendencies toward sociality and cooperation

Culture’s Evolutionary Basis What We Share with Other Primates Substantial gap between primate society and fully developed human culture Still, primates reveal many similarities with humans: Ability to learn from experience and change behavior Tools turn up among several nonhuman species Other primates are habitual hunters

Culture’s Evolutionary Basis How We Differ from Other Primates Cooperation and sharing are much more developed among humans Human females lack a visible estrus cycle and ovulation is concealed Humans mate throughout the year Human pair bonds for mating are more exclusive and durable than those of chimps Humans have rules of exogamy and kinship

Culture’s Evolutionary Basis Universality Universal traits are the ones that more or less distinguish Homo sapiens from other species: Biological: a long period of infant dependency, year-round sexuality, and a complex brain Psychological: common ways in which humans think, feel, and process information Social: life in groups, family, food sharing Exogamy and incest taboo

Culture’s Evolutionary Basis Generality Regularities that occur in different times and places but not in all cultures Diffusion Colonization Invention Nuclear family

Societies can share the same beliefs and customs because of borrowing or through (cultural) inheritance from a common cultural ancestor. Speaking English (common ancestor and domination (colonialism))

Cultural generalities can also arise through independent invention of the same cultural trait or pattern in two or more different cultures. Farming Nuclear family (thought to be “natural” but not universal)

Culture’s Evolutionary Basis Particularity: Patterns of Culture Traits or features of culture not generalized or widespread Cultural particularities are increasingly rare: Diffusion Independent invention When cultural traits are borrowed, the traits are modified to fit the culture that adopts them.

Cultures are integrated and patterned differently and display tremendous variation and diversity. When cultural traits are borrowed, they are modified to fit the culture that adopts them. McDonald’s MTV

By focusing on and trying to explain the various and diverse cultures and alternative customs, anthropology forces us to reappraise our familiar ways of thinking. Making strange familiar and familiar strange!!

Ideal culture: what people say they should do and what they say they do Real culture: their actual behavior as observed by anthropologists.

Culture and the Individual: Agency and Practice Generations of anthropologists have theorized about the relationship between “system” and “individual”: Culture is contested Culture is public and individual Contemporary anthropologists emphasize how day-to-day actions make and remake culture Practice theory recognizes that individuals within a society have diverse motives

Practice theory Individuals within a society or culture have diverse motives and intentions and different degrees of power and influence. The system shapes the way individuals experience and respond to external events, but individuals also play an active role in the way society functions and changes.

Practice theory recognizes both constraints on individuals and the flexibility and changeability of cultures and social systems. subcultures

Levels of Culture National culture: cultural features shared by citizens of the same nation International culture: cultural traditions that extend beyond national boundaries Borrowing, diffusion, migration, colonialism, multinational organizations, communication technology, media… Religions, the World Cup, olympics Subcultures: identifiable cultural patterns existing within a larger culture

Table 2.1. Levels of Culture with Examples from Sports and Foods

Ethnocentrism, Cultural Relativism, and Human Rights Ethnocentrism: a tendency to view one’s own culture as superior and to use one’s own standards and values in judging outsiders Cultural relativism: inappropriate to use outside standards to judge behavior in a given society; such behavior should be evaluated in the context of the culture in which it occurs

Ethnocentrism, Cultural Relativism, and Human Rights Human rights: rights based on justice and morality beyond and superior to particular countries, cultures, and religions Cultural rights: rights vested in religious and ethnic minorities and indigenous societies Intellectual Property Rights (IPR): an indigenous group’s collective knowledge and its applications

Culture Clash: Makah Seek Return to Whaling Past Cultures are diverse but not isolated Makah see themselves as whalers but stopped hunting whales in the early 1900s Gained permission to hunt whales again after 1994 Animal rights groups protested but treaties seem to support this activity 40

Mechanisms of Cultural Change Diffusion: borrowing of traits between cultures Direct Indirect Forced

Mechanisms of Cultural Change Acculturation: an exchange of features that results when groups come into consistent firsthand contact Independent invention: the process by which humans innovate, creatively finding solutions to problems

Globalization Globalization: a series of processes that work to make modern nations and people increasingly interlinked and mutually dependent Economic and political forces Long-distance communication Local people must increasingly cope with forces generated by progressively larger systems