The Concept of Culture
Think of 10 ways in which we use the
word culture or cultural.
Eg. Culture shock, Canadian culture,
multicultural
Culture or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic
sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge,
belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other
capabilities and habits acquired my man as a member
of society. E. B. Tylor 1871
Edward
Burnett
Tylor
1832-1917
Culture is a way of life
Material
Objects
Ideas
Attitudes
Values
“Everything that people have, think, and do as
members of a society” (Ferraro, 2003)
Culture is Relative
Behavior
Patterns
What is Canadian Culture?
I A M C A N A D I A N !!!
I am not a lumberjack or a fur trader,
And I don't live in an igloo or eat blubber or own a dogsled,
And I don't know Jimmy, Sally, or Susie from Canada,
Although I am certain they are really, really nice.
I have a Prime Minister, not a President.
I speak English and French, not American.
And I pronounce it "about" ... not "a-boot".
I can proudly sew my country's flag on my backpack.
I believe in peacekeeping not policing;
Diversity not assimilation;
And that the beaver is a truly proud and noble animal!
A tuque is hat; a chesterfield is a couch.
And it is pronounced ZED not ZEE, ZED!
Canada is the second largest landmass,
The first nation of hockey,
And the best part of North America!
Ralph Linton (1940). `The sum total of knowledge, attitudes and
habitual behaviour patterns shared and transmitted by the
members of a particular society'
Ward Goodenough (1957): `The pattern of life within a
community, the regularly recurring activities and material and
social arrangements characteristic of a particular group'.
“Culture is the framework of beliefs, expressive
symbols, and values in terms of which
individuals define their feelings and make their
judgements”
(Geertz
1957
American
Anthropologist 59:32-54).
Geertz 1973: `an historically transmitted pattern
of meaning embodied in symbols, a system of
inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic
form by means which men communicate' (1973:
89).
Topical:Culture consists of everything on a list of topics, or
categories, such as social organization, religion, or economy
Historical Culture is social heritage, or tradition, that is passed on to
future generations
Behavioral Culture is shared, learned human behavior, a way of life
the total way of life of a people
Normative Culture is ideals, values, or rules for living a way of
thinking, feeling, and believing
Functional Culture is the way humans solve problems of adapting to
the environment or living together
Mental Culture is a complex of ideas, or learned habits, that inhibit
impulses and distinguish people from animals
Structural Culture consists of patterned and interrelated ideas,
symbols, or behaviors
Symbolic Culture is based on arbitrarily assigned meanings that are
shared by a society
Dimensions of Culture
 Values
 Norms
 Ideas/Beliefs
 Attitudes
 Symbols
 Traditions
 Artifacts
Characteristics of Culture
 Culture is learned
 Culture is unconscious
 Culture is shared
Culture is integrated
Culture is Symbolic
 Culture is a way of life
 Culture is Dynamic
 Culture is Relative
Culture is learned
How do
we learn
our
culture?
Enculteration
Culture is unconscious
Culture is shared
Everyone should
use a deodorant
USA
89%
French Canada
81%
English Canada
77%
United Kingdom
71%
Italy
69%
France
59%
Australia
25%
Culture is Relative
Such findings signal that Canadian values, ideas, and attitudes
should not be relied upon when planning marketing forays into
foreign consumer markets
Culture is Integrated
Economics
Kinship
law
Religion
Medicine
Culture is Symbolic
A wink or a twitch
Culture is Dynamic
1896
1955
1918
1960
1924
1970
1935
1986
1990
Why do humans have Culture?
What is its function?
To communicate
A tool
gives meaning to differences
Identity
Adaptive
economics
Kinship
Educational
Medical
Explanatory
Social control
Can culture be
maladaptive?
Is Culture Public
or Private?
Ishi ?-1916
What is society?
FIELDWORK
Imagine you wanted to
understand how tourism
had affected Huli culture.
1. What would you do to
prepare yourself for the
fieldwork?
Young Huli girls of
Papua New Guinea
dressed for
traditional dance
2. What would you do when
you got there?
What is the goal of Fieldwork?
“to grasp the native’s point of
view, his relation to life, to
realise his vision of his world”.
Malinowski 1922
Hot asset: Anthropology degrees
By Del Jones, USA TODAY
As companies go global and crave leaders for a diverse workforce, a
new hot degree is emerging for aspiring executives: anthropology.
Not satisfied with consumer surveys, Hallmark is sending
anthropologists into the homes of immigrants, attending holidays
and birthday parties to design cards they'll want.
No survey can tell engineers what women really want in a razor, so
marketing consultant Hauser Design sends anthropologists into
bathrooms to watch them shave their legs.
Companies are starving to know how people use the Internet or why
some pickups, even though they are more powerful, are perceived by
consumers as less powerful, says Ken Erickson, of the Center for
Ethnographic Research.
It takes trained observation, Erickson says. Observation is what
anthropologists are trained to do.
Firms seek guidance from anthropology
Elizabeth Church
The Globe and Mail
Monday, July 26, 1999
As a consultant in Palo Alto, Calif. -- the heart of Silicon Valley -Susan Squire's uses her training in the study of human behaviour
and culture to develop new products such as pull-up diapers and
yogurt-to-go.
This is the new world of the anthropologist, where the skills of
former academics such as Ms. Squire have become a hot commodity
in the quest for business innovation.
Anthropologists, with their expertise in painstakingly observing,
documenting and analyzing human behaviour, are winning a
growing following among companies eager to know what makes
their customers, and their workers, tick.
"What anthropology brings is a way of observing, not laboratory
observing, but observing in context," explains Ms. Squire, who is
also president-elect of the U.S. National Association for the Practice
of Anthropology. "If I want to know what kind of office products
people need, I don't pull them into a focus group. I go to their office
and watch them during the day."
When Motorola Inc. wanted to know how peasants in rural China
might use portable technology, it sent in an anthropologist with
expertise in the region. When General Mills Inc. of Minneapolis
considered introducing a new breakfast cereal, it put Ms. Squire in
people's homes. She is currently involved in understanding how
people navigate the Internet and helping develop better tools for
doing that.
Ms. Canavan, who has a masters degree in anthropology, says the
discipline is valuable because it looks at issues in a holistic way. "We
don't only look at a situation. We look at what is going on around, as
well."
But perhaps the discipline's greatest attraction for business is its
ability to unearth truths that even the subjects don't know about.
Mr. Underhill, after 20 years of watching video tapes of shoppers,
points out that women don't like to go down narrow aisles and that
customers will buy more if there are shopping baskets placed
throughout the store.
"People don't always do what they say," Ms. Squires says, adding
that anthropologists "really get at issues that people in focus groups
don't even think to talk about."