Anthropology and the Study
of Culture
(Miller Chapter 1)
The BIG Questions
What is anthropology?
What are the goals of anthropology?
What are the fields of anthropology?
What are some key aspects of anthropology?
How is anthropology relevant to a career in the “real world”?
How can anthropology be applied?
What is Anthropology?
What do you know about anthropology?
What do you think of when someone mentions anthropology? How did
you acquire these impressions?
What do you think anthropology is?
What is Anthropology?
Anthropology is…
The study of humanity, including our prehistoric origins and
contemporary human diversity (p. 4)
The study of humankind in all times and all places
Goals of Anthropology
What do you think are the main goals of anthropology?
Why is anthropology important?
Goals of Anthropology
Discover and appreciate what makes people different from one another
Study diversity and preserve diversity
Discover and appreciate what all people have in common
Study commonalities in all humanity
Look at our own culture more objectively, like an outsider
Make “the strange familiar and the familiar strange”
1
Produce new knowledge and new theories about humankind and
human behavior
Apply this knowledge in an attempt to alleviate human
challenges
The Fields of Anthropology
What are the fields of anthropology? (hint: there are four of
them!)
The Fields of Anthropology
Four fields (p. 4)
–Biological anthropology
•Also known as physical anthropology
–Archaeology
–Linguistic Anthropology
–Cultural anthropology
•Also known as social anthropology or sociocultural
anthropology
Biological Anthropology
The study of humans as biological organisms, including their evolution
and contemporary variation (p. 4 – 5)
Some subfields of biological anthropology include…
Paleoanthropology (Human evolution)
Leakey family
Primatology (Nonhuman primates)
Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey
Examine what we share with our primate relatives as well
as what makes humans unique
Contemporary human variation and adaptation
Molecular/genetic anthropology
Forensic anthropology (application to legal issues)
Bones, Dr. Temperance Brennan – inspired by real-life
forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs
 Caylee Anthony – forensic anthropologists helped with
the autopsy
2
Archaeology
Study of past human cultures through their material remains (p. 4 – 6)
Study of past human cultures through the recovery and analysis of
artifacts
Some subfields of archaeology include…
–Old World archaeology
•Africa, Europe, and Asia
–New World archaeology
•North, Central, and South America
–Underwater archaeology
•Settlements now submerged by water
–Prehistorical archaeology
•Before written records
–Historical archaeology
•Have written documents
• “Garbage project” – Tucson and New York - consumption and
environmental effects
•More beers
•Paper more of a problem than initially thought
Linguistic Anthropology
Study of communication, mainly (but not exclusively) among humans
Includes the study of communication’s origins, history, and
contemporary variation (p. 4 & 6)
Some subfields of linguistic anthropology include…
Historical linguistics
The study of language change over time and how languages
are related
Structural (descriptive) linguistics
The study of the formal structure of languages and their
similarities and differences
Sociolinguistics
The study of communication in social life (analysis of
discourse) and the variations of communication in different
cultural contexts
Cultural Anthropology
3
 Study of living people and their cultures, including variation and change
(p. 4 & 6 – 7)
 Some subfields of cultural anthropology include…
Economic anthropology
How people in different cultures make a living
Political anthropology
Study of social groups, politics, power
Psychological anthropology
Study of interaction between culture and the human mind
Medical anthropology
Study of interaction between culture and health
Development anthropology
Making development projects more socially sensitive and
culturally appropriate
 Cultural anthropologists also study art, religion, migration, marriage,
family…and MORE
Research Approaches in the Four Fields
Anthropology has been called “the most humane of the sciences and
the most scientific of the humanities”
Wide range of approaches that span:
Science (hypothesis, observation, and testing)
Humanities (more subjective, based on feeling)
Anthropology as a social science is empirical – based on observations
rather than on intuition or faith
Fieldwork (being on location and fully immersed in another way of life) is
a core methodological aspect of anthropology
Some Key Aspects of Anthropology
Holistic perspective
Holism – the view that cultures are complex systems and one
must study all their interconnected aspects in order to understand
the whole culture (p. 10)
Must study social, political, economic, and religious practices and
institutions in order to understand the whole culture
Cross-cultural, comparative perspective
Ethnology – the study of a particular topic (such as marriage
forms, religious beliefs, etc.) in more than one culture (p. 19)
Takes a long-term perspective
4
Relies on extensive fieldwork
Participant observation or ethnographic research
May result in an ethnography – an in-depth description of a
culture based on firsthand (primary) research (p. 19)
Focus on cultural relativism rather than ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is judging other cultures by the standards of one’s
own culture rather than the standards of other cultures
The belief that one’s own culture is the way of life and that
other ways of life are strange and inferior
Cultural relativism is the belief that each culture must be
understood in terms of its own values and beliefs and not by the
standards of another culture
Is the opposite of ethnocentrism
The belief that no culture is better than any other culture
Is gained by exposure to “other” ways with a sympathetic eye
and ear to appreciating differences
Absolute cultural relativism versus critical cultural relativism
Absolute cultural relativism says that whatever goes on in a
particular culture must not be questioned or change because it
would be ethnocentric to question any behavior or idea
anywhere.
Any Star Trek fans?
What is the “Prime Directive”?
No one shall interfere with the culture/cultural
evolution of another planet under any
conditions
What are some challenges of absolute cultural
relativism?
Critical cultural relativism is an alternative to absolute cultural
relativism
Critical cultural relativism says that some of what goes on in
a particular culture can be questioned or changed because of
an idea of a set of universal human rights.
Star Trek fans, was the “Prime Directive” ever
broken/bent?
Under what conditions?
What are some challenges of critical cultural relativism?
Ethnography and Ethnology Summary
5
ETHNOGRAPHY
–means “culture writing”
–provides a first-hand, detailed description of a living culture
–based on first-hand research
ETHNOLOGY
–the study of one topic in more than one culture
•marriage forms, economic practices, religion, etc.
–uses ethnographic material
Applied Anthropology
Anthropology put to use
Involves the use or application of anthropological knowledge to help
solve social problems or to shape and achieve policy goals. (p. 4 & 7)
Is applied anthropology a separate field?
No…
Just like theory, application should be a valued part of every field of
anthropology
Applied aspects integrated within each field
Applied Anthropology in the Various Fields
Applied Biological anthropology
Forensic anthropology
Utilizing anthropological theories and techniques to legal
problems, often helping solve crimes and identifying victims of
mass fatalities and/or human rights abuses
Primatology
Helping with nonhuman primate conservation
Developing ecotourism projects to help generate funds for
local human communities while conserving nonhuman primate
populations
Ergonomics and design
 Building databases on body size and shape of soldiers to help
design jet fighter cockpits
Applied Archaeology
Cultural Resource Management (CRM)
Assessing the presence of possible archaeological remains
(cultural resources) before government-funded construction
projects such as roads and buildings can proceed
Applied archaeologists may also work in…
6
Museums – creating exhibits and preserving artifacts
Historic preservation
Environmental management – applying ancient techniques
of environmental management to contemporary environmental
problems
Applied Linguistic Anthropology
Applied linguistic anthropologists are involved in…
Preserving and documenting indigenous languages
worldwide that are rapidly becoming extinct
Looking at the role of information technology (such as
internet and cell phones) in communication among various
cultures
Developing bilingual education programs
Forensic linguistics
A linguistic anthropologist testified at a trial that six
Shoshone women accused of defrauding the Social
Security administration were not sufficiently fluent in
English to understand government agents when the rules
were explained. The case against the women was then
dismissed and further contacts with the Shoshone women
regarding Social Security were made with interpreters.
Applied Cultural Anthropology
Applied cultural anthropologists work in…
Education
Health care
Business
Conflict prevention and resolution
Advocacy and activism
Poverty reduction
Community development
International development
So can someone with a degree/minor/coursework in
anthropology really get a good job?
Yes!!
About ½ of all anthropologists work in academia
½ of all anthropologists work outside of colleges/universities
7
Those who study anthropology learn relevant skills
that employers value
Knowledge of qualitative and quantitative research methods
Detailed observation / participant observation
Communication and writing skills
Interviewing
Systematic documentation
Holistic approach – understand complexity and look at the larger context
Multicultural perspective / Respect for cultural differences / “cultural
brokers”
Social ease in strange situations
Experience working with people of diverse backgrounds
Anthropology and Business (Corporate
Anthropology)
A 1999 edition of USA Today called an anthropology degree a “hot
asset in corporate America”
Citicorp
Created a vice presidency for an anthropologist who discovered
early warning signs to identify people who don’t pay their credit card
bills
Hallmark
Hires anthropologists to go into the homes of immigrants, attending
holidays and birthday parties in order to better design cards they’ll
want
Because no survey can tell engineers what women really want in a razor,
marketing companies even send anthropologists into bathrooms to watch
women shave their legs in order to design better razors! (product
design/marketing)
General Motors
Hired an anthropologist to study the “corporate culture” and
“subcultures” at GM (her Ph.D. fieldwork was studying MexicanAmerican farmworkers and Catholic nuns!)
AT&T Labs in California
Has an anthropologist who examines consumers’ behavior in their
homes and offices (for her postdoc research she lived with villagers in
Western Samoa trying to understand the cultural reasons that people
there have an average of eight children)
8
Intel
an “engineering and design ethnographer” who studies how to
better integrate technology into people’s lives
Motorola
Has an anthropologist who is the manager of “culture and
technology initiatives” that helps develop technology that fits into the
way people live their day-to-day lives
General Mills
Susan Squires, an anthropologist, helped to develop drinkable
yogurt (Go-Gurt)after observing American households’ breakfast
routines (product design) (p. 1)
Cross-cultural training
Has
Liberal Arts/Sciences and Business Careers
CEO of Tempur-Pedic Medical (Paul Coulis) majored in biology and
linguistics in college!
Encourages individuals who want to work for his company to study
liberal arts and sciences
Leads to the development of great critical thinking and
communications skills
Have a greater breadth of knowledge rather than just purely
focusing on a business major
The BIG Questions
What is culture?
What are the characteristics of culture?
What are subcultures/microcultures?
What are some of the major theories/debates in anthropology?
Culture and Anthropology
Culture is the core concept in cultural anthropology, but…
Anthropologists do not agree on how to define it
Anthropologists have proposed hundreds of definitions of culture
Culture is one of the most complicated and difficult to define
words in the English language
9
In Popular Culture…
Culture is often associated with…
“High culture” – elite activities
The arts/fine museums
Classical music
Dinning at expensive restaurants with fine wine
Often seen as something either an individual has or doesn’t
have
City dwellers may be seen as “cultured” whereas rural folk may be
seen as “uncultured”
Important to Remember…
All humans have culture!
Anthropologically speaking, all humans throughout the world are all
“cultured”
Earliest Definition of Culture
Edward Tylor – 1871
Culture “is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief,
art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits
acquired by man as a member of society.”
More Recent Definition of Culture
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) – 2002
Culture is the "set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and
emotional features of society or a social group and that it
encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living
together, value systems, traditions and beliefs".
A Couple Simple Definitions of Culture
Culture is learned and shared ways of behaving &
thinking (p. 6)
Culture is the way of life for a society
10
Material and Nonmaterial Aspects of Culture
Culture consists of what humans have constructed, both
material and nonmaterial
Material culture – tangible/physical aspects of culture (includes
buildings, monuments, art, artifacts, technology, etc.)
Nonmaterial culture – intangible/non-physical aspects of culture
(includes philosophy, ideas, beliefs, values, religion, music, rituals,
etc.)
Characteristics of Culture
Culture is learned
Therefore, culture is not the same as nature
Culture is symbolic / based on symbols
Culture is integrated
Culture is shared
Cultures are dynamic and change
Culture is learned…
All culture is learned rather than biologically inherited
The process through which culture is transmitted from one
generation to the next is called enculturation
Both conscious (learned through direct teaching) and
unconscious (learned through observation)
…therefore, culture is not the same as nature
All humans have basic biological needs (eating, sleeping, shelter,
companionship, sex, etc.), but the ways in which these needs are
satisfied varies from culture to culture
Culture shapes what people eat, how they eat, when they eat,
and the meanings of food and eating
Hunters and gatherers would probably find frozen
dinners appalling!
Culture shapes when to sleep, who sleeps with whom, how
much sleep a person should have
 Japan and emphasis on productivity – sleep deprivation
Where infants and children should sleep
11
Culture is Based on Symbols
A symbol is an object, word, or action with a culturally defined
meaning (p. 14 & 15)
A symbol is often arbitrary – it stands for something else with which
it has no necessary or natural relationship.
Often impossible to predict how a particular culture will
symbolize something
Language is an important symbolic aspect of culture.
If you are hungry…
Are rats jumping in your stomach?
In Hindi (a language of India)
Or are you so hungry you can eat a horse?
In English
Culture is Based on Symbols Which are Mainly
Arbitrary
In India, widows wear white clothing to mark their status
What do widows usually wear in the U.S.?
Culture is Integrated
Culture is holistic
Holism – the view that cultures are complex systems and one
must study all their interconnected aspects in order to understand
the whole culture (p. 10)
Must study social, political, economic, and religious practices and
institutions in order to understand the whole culture
Culture is Shared
Culture is shared among a group of people
Cannot have a culture of 1!
Can be a group of large people making up a culture, but it can also
be a small group of people making up a culture/subculture
 Even a family can have customs, traditions, stories, and beliefs
that bind them and give meaning to their life together
12
Although
multiple individuals share a common culture, each
individual person may see that culture from a slightly different
perspective
Individuals rarely experience the enculturation process in
precisely the same way, nor do they perceive their reality in
precisely identical fashion
Cultures are Dynamic and Change
Cultures
are dynamic systems that respond to a variety of
internal and external forces
Cultures have always changed over time, although the speed at
which they have changed varies
Today, globalization (the process of intensified global
interconnectedness and movement of goods, information, and
people) is a major force of contemporary cultural change
Cultural
adaptation is just as important to human survival as
biological adaptation is.
Adaptation is the process by which organisms adjust to the
conditions of the locality in which they live
Making
coats, building fires, constructing shelters, developing
technology (cultural adaptations) have allowed humans to survive
and expand into a variety of different environments
While
cultures must be flexible in order to meet new challenges
and survive, not all culture change is been positive
Some culture change can be maladaptive and create new problems
 Can you think of any examples?
What is adaptive in one context may be seriously maladaptive in
another context
Behavior that is adaptive in the short run may be maladaptive in the
long run
Cultural Universals
A
cultural universal is an element, pattern, trait, or institution
that is common to all human cultures on the planet
Some examples of some cultural universals include…
13
communicating with a language consisting of a limited set of
sounds and grammatical rules for constructing sentences
using age and gender to classify people (e.g., teenager, senior
citizen, woman, man)
classifying people based on marriage and descent
relationships and having kinship terms to refer to them (e.g.,
wife, mother, uncle, cousin)
raising children in some sort of family setting
having a sexual division of labor (e.g., men's work versus
women's work)
having a concept of privacy
having rules to regulate sexual behavior
distinguishing between good and bad behavior
having some sort of body ornamentation
making jokes and playing games
having art
having a calendar/notion of time
some degree of ethnocentrism
While these cultural universals are present in all human societies,
the particular ways in which these aspects are implemented are
unique
Ideal Culture versus Real Culture
Ideal culture is what a society claims as their culture
Real culture is the actual culture the society has
Can you think of any examples in your culture of ideal culture versus real
culture?
Culture versus Society
Culture and society are not the same thing
Culture is learned and shared ways of behaving & thinking
Society is a group of interacting organisms
People are not the only animals that have societies
Hives of bees, a group of ants, schools of fish, flocks of birds,
and lion prides are all societies
These animals may have complex social behaviors and
interactions, but they do not have culture
In human societies, culture and society are inextricably connected
14
Without a society we could not have culture
Many members of a society often share the same culture
Subcultures/Microcultures
A subculture/microculture is culture within a larger culture
 A subculture/microculture shares cultural aspects with the larger
culture of which it is a part
 Subcultures/microcultures may have different cultural aspects…
without a hierarchical relationship
For example, German Americans versus Italian Americans
or with a hierarchical relationship
For example, Caucasian Americans versus Native Americans
Bases of Microcultures
Some bases of microcultures include…
Class
“Race”
Ethnicity
Gender/Sexuality
Age
Institutions
Microculture: Poverty and Social Class
Worldwide, rates of poverty have not declined in recent times
Disparities between the wealthy and the poor have increased – they
share very different subcultures
What are some of the functions of culture?
Culture provides the knowledge and skills to be able to effectively provide
for the basic needs of a society
Food, shelter, etc.
Culture facilitates social interactions
Provides a social structure for reproduction and support
Enables us to communicate with each other through language
Gives us standards for distinguishing between what is right and
wrong (norms) and what is beautiful and ugly (values)
It makes it possible to anticipate how others in our society are likely
to respond to our actions
15
Offers
ways to pass on knowledge and enculturate new members of
the society
Culture provides for the psychological and emotional needs of its
members
Through art, music, myth, religion, etc. culture gives the members of
the society a means for self-expression and understand one’s place
in the world
Ideally, culture functions to satisfy the physical, social, and
psychological needs and expectations of the people in that society
Three Major Theoretical Debates in Cultural
Anthropology
Is human behavior the result of biology or culture?
Is human behavior the result of people’s thoughts or the material
aspects of their lives?
Is human behavior the result of free will or larger forces beyond
our control?
Is human behavior the result of biology or culture?
Biological Determinists
Human behavior is biologically based
Seek to explain why people do and think what they do by considering biological
factors such as people’s genes and hormones (p. 20)
Freeman on Samoan youth (p. 22)
Cultural Constructionists
Human behavior is culturally based
Human behavior and ideas are best explained as products of culturally shaped
learning (p. 21)
Mead on Samoan youth (p. 22)
Many cultural anthropologists today tend to lean more toward the cultural
constructionist camp.
Is human behavior the result of people’s thoughts or
the material aspects of their lives?
Interpretive Anthropologists (Interpretivists)
Human
behavior/culture can be understood by studying what is in
people’s minds and thoughts – what people think about, their
16
explanations of their lives, and the symbols that are important to them
(p. 21)
Hindus do not eat cows because cows are sacred and it is a sin to
kill and eat them (p. 21)
Cultural Materialists
Human behavior/culture can be understood by studying people’s
material aspects of life – the natural environment and how people
make a living within particular environments
Hindus do not eat cows and they are sacred because living cows are
economically important – they plow fields, their excrement is used for
fertilizer, etc. (p. 21)
Some cultural anthropologists today are strong interpretivists,
whereas others are strong cultural materialists. Others take a middleof-the-road view.
Is human behavior the result of free will or larger
forces beyond our control?
Individual Agency
Emphasize
that human behavior and thoughts are largely based on
individuals’ free will, or agency (p. 21)
Poverty studies – show how even in extreme instances of poverty
individuals act to change their situation as best they can (p. 21)
Structurism
Argue that individual free will is an illusion and that human
behavior and thoughts are conditioned, or structured, by larger
forces such as the economy, social and political organization, and
ideological systems (p. 21)
Poverty studies – show that the poor are trapped by large and
powerful forces that provide them little room for agency (p. 21)
An increasing number of cultural anthropologists seek to blend a structural
perspective with attention to agency
Think of the movie “The Matrix”!
Nacerima
What are your impressions of this article?
If the book and I had not told you this article was about American culture,
do you think you would have recognized this as American culture? Why or
why not?
17
How does it feel to you to look at American culture more “objectively,” as
an outside observer?
Do you think this article is an accurate reflection of American culture?
Why or why not?
18