1. The difficulties become most acute when culture shifts from something to be described, interpreted, or explained, and is treated instead as a source of explanation itself. Kuper 1999: xii

2. Aims ► Define Culture ► Locate the “problem”:  Human rights “versus” Relativism ► Define cultural relativism ► Why Anthropology?

3. How does this relate to human rights? AAA Statement of 1947

4. culture (kul'chur), — n., v., -tured, -turing. 1. the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc. 2. that which is excellent in the arts, manners, etc. 3. a particular form or stage of civilization, as that of a certain nation or period: Greek culture. 4. development or improvement of the mind by education or training. 5. the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group: the youth culture; the drug culture. 6. Anthropol.the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another.

5. What can an anthropological perspective add? AAA Statement of 1947 AAA Statement of 1947 –Consulted by working group for UDHR How do we understand other peoples practices? Can we ever judge them? How do we understand other peoples practices? Can we ever judge them? –Yes, but develop tools for studying others Culture - central question for the discipline Culture - central question for the discipline –1952 study by Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn cataloged over 100 definitions of culture

6. Anthropological Definitions ► That complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society – E. B. Tylor (1871)

7. Pre-1900 concepts of culture ► Associated with the progressive accumulation of the characteristic manifestations of human creativity: art, science, knowledge, refinement – those things that freed man from control by nature, by environment, by reflex, by instinct, by habit, or by custom.

8. Culture and Evolution ► Culture was NOT associated with tradition; ► Tradition was seen as weighted, limiting; ► So were custom, instinct, or temperament, ► Associated with lower evolutionary status ► AND frequently argued in RACIAL terms. ► “SCIENCE” OF EUGENICS

9. Culture -> cultures ► Plural did not appear with regularity until ~ 1910. ► Before 1910, culture =  thought of as a stage of evolutionary development  to be acquired;  scholars referred to “stages of culture” or “forms of culture.” ► What caused this shift in how we understand culture ?

10. Franz Boas (b.1858, to U.S. 1886, d.1942)  German immigrant  Founder of American Anthropology  Research in British Columbia among the Kwakiutl  Developed new methodological tools  Found that even “primitive” peoples are complex

11. define CULTURE (Kroeber and Kluckhohn ) ► Learned behavior, socially transmitted and cumulative in time; ► Rather than define culture by a single definition, we need to consider how it manifests, i.e. rituals, kinship networks, social arrangements, even law; ► With culture, like life or matter, it is the total of the varied phenomena that is significant.

12. Human Rights and “relativism” ► Discussion of culture arises from a debate about whether human rights are universal or relative to different cultures; ► Do not mistakenly place universalism and relativism in opposition to one another; ► Such debates fail to define culture or use outdated definitions of culture and misunderstand “relativism” in the anthropological sense.

13. So how do we make sense of other peoples’ “strange” practices? ► In this sense, relativism is a method ► Provides the tools for learning the internal logics of local practices ► Ethnographic Method (Boas)  No more separation between person collecting data and theorist  Live among the people  Learn their languages

14. What are those Methods?  Understand “webs of signification” (Geertz)  Symbols have meanings  Find out what meanings people attribute to symbols (including rituals, practices)  In their own terms, contexts (ex. wink)  Culture is “a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms“  Power Relations shape ‘cultural practices’  Colonialism  Economy  History

15. ► Add in Observer’s Perspective  we are subjective creatures  need to develop tools that account for our subjective positions. We see the world the way we do not because that is the way it is but because we have these ways of seeing (Wittgenstein)  Human rights is a way of seeing

16. GOAL: Move away from the dichotomy: Human rights and culture Instead, consider human rights AS culture Instead, consider human rights AS culture HR practices ARE themselves cultural practices founded on liberal values; HR practices ARE themselves cultural practices founded on liberal values; BUT, as they spread throughout the world, HR principles gain local meanings BUT, as they spread throughout the world, HR principles gain local meanings Just don’t forget they can be very political! Just don’t forget they can be very political!

17. What is “human rights as cultural practice”? ► “Human rights have become ‘universalized’ as values subject to interpretation, negotiation, and accommodation. They have become ‘culture’” (Preis 1996:290). ► Complex ► Multivocal ► Intersubjective

18. If human rights is cultural practice, then… ► What does this mean for universalism? ► Shared principles? ► Consensus-based approaches to human rights? ► Can human rights be empirically-determined? ► Relativism is the “how” of universalism  Helps us reach consensus  By giving us methodology for understanding