Comparative Cultural Systems
Anthropology 120
Dr. Teri Brewer
Mon-Fri 8-10 am
McKee 110
Email: goby@mac.com
About The Course
This summer session course provides a general introduction to the holistic and comparative discipline of socio-cultural anthropology,
We will explore the dynamics of selected small scale and tribal as well as aspects of our own through techniques of cross cultural
comparison.
The course is divided into four thematic units. As you work through these you will acquire understanding of how this subject is used
to shape public policy and debate as well of the basics in the study of human cultures. We begin by examining some of the key
concepts, theories, and methods of socio- cultural anthropology, selecting the tools we will need to study cultural dynamics and to
make comparisons across several cultures. We will then use these concepts, theories and methods to think about the nature of culture,
its transmission and change, globalization from the perspective of tribal peoples, the importance of reciprocity and exchange (as
opposed to production and consumption) in such seemingly divergent areas as kinship, politics, personal identity, art and religion.
The course concludes with sessions on current issues in anthropology.
Objectives
You will develop a greater appreciation of a diverse range of cultures around the world from this class, while learning basic techniques
of scholarship and acquiring introductory theoretical and methodological tools that will help you make sense of your own position
within this diversity.
Specifically- by the end of this class, you should be able to:
-Explain the difference between "culture" and "society" and the relevance of this distinction for understanding a very
wide range of human experiences.
-Think critically about the significance of anthropological ideas such as “ethnocentrism” and “cultural relativism” in
relation to contemporary global issues.
-Be familiar with current debates about processes of globalization and localization, relating these to your own life and
experience. Be better able to see relevant issues from the perspective of people in cultures very different from your
own.
-Understand the application of the term such as “sustainability” and ‘diversity” when used in anthropological
contexts.
-Compare and contrast formalist and substantivist approaches to problems of reciprocity and exchange.
-Diagram the structures of various systems of marriage and descent.
-Understand the basic approaches and methods used in research by anthropologists.
-Analyze constructions of race and gender both historically and cross-culturally.
-Be familiar with some of the leading figures in the field.
Books and Readings
The required textbook is available for rental at the Western Carolina University Bookstore:
Ferraro, Gary. Cultural Anthropology: An Applied Perspective. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company. 1998
See also:
http://www.wadsworth.com/anthropology_d/special_features/applied_anthro.html
http://era.anthropology.ac.uk/
http://sapir.ukc.ac.uk/SLyon/
http://bubl.ac.uk/link/a/anthropology.htm
All assignments in this class will benefit from attention to your writing skills and visits to the writing center in Hunter Library. I also
recommend the following book: Strunk & White. The Elements of Style. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2000.
Note: This is a preliminary syllabus. It may be updated, altered or clarified at any time during the course. These will be
announced in class and you are responsible to be sure you note the changes. I will try to keep the website updated and will flag
changes with a little symbol like this:
Schedule of Topics, Readings and Tests
Week One: Thinking about Culture
Before we start:
Obtain book, readings, (and email account if necessary)
Familiarize yourself with this on-line course syllabus.
Be prepared for a discussion of Ferraro, Chapter One the first day of class
Know the subject matter of the four/five subfields of anthropology!
Monday:
Out of the Armchair: Origins of Anthropology (Read Ch 2-3)
Discussion:
Which human populations are the primary focus of contemporary anthropology?
What are some of the uses of anthropological research?
How do anthropologists work?
*Look at these two websites
www.seva.org
www.cs.org
How would you compare the work of these two organizations?
How does their approach to helping people compare to those
discussed by Ferraro?
*Read: Herodotus, “On Cannibals” (on reserve)
*Read Ibn Khaldun,” http://www.humanistictexts.org/ibn_khaldun.htm#_Toc483891013
Tuesday:
The Importance of Culture (Read Ch 4)
*Read: Tim Ingold: “Anthropology is a Generalising Science” (on reserve)
*Read: Raymond Williams: “Culture”
Read: Robert Aunger: “A Special Kind of Inheritance” (on reserve)
Read: Christopher Clausen “The Cult of Culture” (on reserve)
Read: Sue Wright: “The Politicization of Culture” (on reserve)
What are the main aspects of anthropological concepts of culture?
Why is there some disagreement about them?
Are there key ideas that all share?
How have ideas about culture been politicized?
Wednesday:
Critiques of Anthropology (only the reading below)
Ethnocentrism/ Cultural Relativism: What are they?
Evolutionism, Historicism, Structural-Functionalism, Cultural Materialism- How do these theories differ?
*Read: Alan Bloom “Introduction: Our Vices, Our Virtues” (on reserve)
Read: “Grimshaw & Hart, “Anthropology and the Crisis of the Intellectuals”
Read: Stephen Reyna, “Theory Counts” (on reserve)
*Read: “Lynne Cheney Report” (on reserve)
Based on your reading of this last one, make notes on the following questions for use in tomorrow’s seminar:
What is the Vice-President’s approach to international relations?
What is the Secretary of Defense's approach?
Thursday:
Into the Field: (Read Ferraro Chapter 5)
* Pay particular attention to Ferraro's account of the Kenya kinship study
Read: http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/jcma/papers/1986-ai-memo-871/subsection3_7_1.html
How do these two approaches differ?
*Read: James Peacock: “Method” (on reserve)
*Read: Emerson, Fretz & Shaw: “Member’s Meanings” (on reserve)
*Read: Hugh Brody: “Inuktitut” (on reserve)
Review: Discussion - Quiz 1 handed out today at the end of class- due in Tuesday (proposal for term paper is part of quiz)
Friday: Methods of Field Research (Read Ch 9-10)
Film: Everything is Relatives
Read on-line tutorial: http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/kintitle.html
What are the kinship and marriage systems of the Turks, Akan and Yanamamo?
In what way are all of these systems "economical"?
*Read: Nigel Barley: Extract from The Innocent Anthropologist.
*Read: Horace Miner, “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” (on reserve)
Week 2: Local and the Global
Monday:
Cultural Ecology and Globalization (Ch 16)
What are the principal differences between foraging, farming, and industrial forms of production?
Video: Battle of the Titan: Problems of the Global Economy
*Read: Ted Coyle's article in Smoky Mountain News
http://www.smokymountainnews.com/issues/09_02/09_25_02/out_sustainable.html
How are the long-term prospects for human survival predicted?
What is sustainability? What is sustainable development? What is Indigenous Technical Knowledge?
What relevance does anthropology have for the critical understanding of sustainability?
How might policy makers use this concept to inform planning decisions
*During this week you need to read a national newspaper such as the New York Times every day and collect article on international
development issues. Please submit the collected articles with your take home test next Tuesday.
Tuesday:
News from the Oasis: The Siwan Connections (from my own fieldwork) (7)
From the Heart of the World video;
Read: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tfbrewer/California/siwa/index.htm
*Read: Quanmen article “Planet of Weeds” available on
http://www.dhushara.com/book/upd/millupd/ext/weeds.htm#anchor1013335
*More facts here: http://www.wri.org/wr2000/page.html
What is a typology? A classificatory system? A paradigm? A paradigm shift?
Why are we described by Quammen as being in an "age of the dinosaurs"?
What is a "land-use cascade"?
What predictions are being made about future of humanity, given current trends?
Read: Marshall Sahlins: “The Original Affluent Society” (on reserve)
Read: Richard Lee “Art, Science or Politics? The Crisis in Hunter Gatherer Studies” (on reserve)
Read: Julian Steward article (handout)
Wednesday:
Local Knowledge and the Notion of Cultural Capital
*Read: Fairhead and Leach chapter to be provided
*Read: Bourdieu on Cultural Capital (on reserve)
Can knowledge itself be a form of cultural capital?
*Browse UNESCO reports and initiatives on IK
Who has the right to develop or use indigenous knowledge?
*Read: Introduction to Indigenous Knowledge http://www.nuffic.nl/ik-pages/about-ik.html
Explore: The Indigenous Knowledge Development Monitor website http://www.nuffic.nl/ciran/ikdm/
Thursday:
Evil Twin or Alter Ego?
*Read: Anne Ferguson “Anthropology and its’ Evil Twin: Development in the Constitution of a Discipline” (on reserve)
*Read: David Gow, “Evil Twin or Moral Narrative” (on reserve)
What is microfinance and how does it work?
What is an NGO?
*Read: Irwin Press, “Ambiguity and Innovation: Implications for the Genesis of the Culture Broker” (on reserve)
Browse the journal Human Organization for further material to think about or discuss.
Test #2 to be handed out today. Due in Tuesday at beginning of class
Friday: Steps Towards Ecology of Mind (Ch 8)
Video--An Ecology of Mind (How is sharing a kind of economy?)
What three aspects of economies are found cross-culturally?
*Read Conserving Native Seeds http://fadr.msu.ru/rodale/agsieve/txt/vol5/4/art1.htm
* And more information here http://www.ciesin.org/docs/004-190/004-190.html
*Read Ruth Benedict extract from The Chrysanthemum and the Sword.
*Read: Gregory Bateson: article (on reserve)
Read: Michael Herzfeld: Environmentalisms (on reserve)
Also Recommended: see video The Water Goddess and the Computer in your own time this week.
Week 3:
Reciprocity and Exchange
Monday: What unites us? What divides us? : Caste, Class, Gender (Ferraro Ch 11, 12, 13)
Video-Ethnic Notions
*Read AAA statement on "race" http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm
According to this statement what is “race”?
How does it differ from ethnicity or nationality?
How many races are there in the world, according to each of these readings?
How does a caste system differ from a class system?
In what ways does the U.S. have both or neither?
How does sex differ from gender?
What does the term “division of labor” mean in an anthropological context?
Tuesday:
Thinking about Reciprocity and Exchange
Video: Strangers Abroad: Malinowski
Reading: Bronislaw Malinowski, “The Essentials of the Kula” (on reserve)
*Reading: Franz Boas, “Potlatch” (on reserve)
*Reading: Marcel Mauss, “Gifts and the Obligation to Return Gifts” (on reserve)
*Reading: Neal Keating, “Rioting and Looting as a Modern Day Form of Potlatch” (on reserve)
Reading: Daniel Miller, “ “The Rituals of Christmas Giving” (on reserve)
*Question sheet on Malinowski (handout)
Wednesday:
Feuding and FeastingVideo: The Kawelka: Ongka’s Big Moka
*Read: Weatherford: “Big Men on Capitol Hill” (on reserve)
*Handout: Asante Market Women
Thursday:
Trade, Barter and Market Place
Video: Asante Market Women (handout and questions)
*Question Sheet: Asante Market Women
*Read: extract from “Malinowski in Mexico” (on reserve)
Handout test #3 due in Tuesday at the beginning of class
Friday:
Chocolate, Sugar, Salt and Rags: Anthropologizing Commodities
Today’s readings are examples of a currently popular approach influenced by ethnographic practice, but where the human story is
developed around core focus on a trading commodity. Extracts will be provided. Some of these writers are anthropologists, others
borrow anthropological paradigms. Can you tell the difference?
Read: extracts from:
Ascherson: Book Review
Coe, Chocolate
Kurlansky Salt
Mintz Sugar
Hansen Salaula
Hendricksen: Traje
Fernandez-Armesto Civilizations
Week 4: Applying Anthropology (Ch 14 and reading to be provided)
Monday:
Arts and Anthropologists
This week you will be reading short extracts from a variety of ethnographies to get a feeling for some good contemporary work on a
range of topics and from varied parts of the world.
*Read Elizabeth Davies, “Metamorphosis in the Culture Market of Niger” (on reserve)
*Read: Michael Owen Jones extract from The Handmade Object and Its Maker. (On reserve)
*Read: John Ryle, “The Anxiety of Exoticism” (on reserve)
*Read: David Derbyshire, “Stone Age Masterpieces…” (On reserve)
*Read: Stuart Plattner, extract from High Art Down Home (on reserve)
Tuesday:
Case Study: Dispute in the Cooperative (from my own fieldwork)
Some notes and extract from interviews will be provided.
*Read: Hugh Gusterson, extract from “Nuclear Rites” (on reserve)
Read: Paul Rabinow, extract from “Making PCR” (on reserve)
*Read: Victor Turner, “Liminality and Community” (on reserve)
*Read Jeremy Hockett’s on line ethnography of the Burning Man festival in Nevada.
http://www.unm.edu/~hockettj/Ethnography.htm
Make summary notes on how these communities compare with the one described in my lecture for Thursday
Wednesday:
Interpreting Cultural Landscapes (possible trip out?)
Individual schedules permitting I would like to arrange a field trip off campus for today. We will discuss possible destinations
*Read: Sylvia Rodriguez on regional tourism http://digital.library.arizona.edu/jsw/3204/ethnic.html
*Read: Deirdre Evans Pritchard article (on short reserve)
Read: Marilyn Strathern Interview: http://www.anu.edu.au/pad/reporter/volume/33/13/news/strathern.html
Thursday:
Medical Anthropology: current issues
*Read: Alvin Toffler website:
*Extract from Daniel Quinn, “Beyond Civilization”
*Read extract from Amitai Etzioni
*Read: Douglas Raybeck on Solsys project http://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~dmoerman/97nl/future.htm
Quiz #4 distributed to be handed in Tuesday at the beginning of class
Friday:
Poster Presentation Session
Note and review comments from poster session for strengthening papers.
Ensure that reading is finished.
Term papers due on Monday at beginning of class
Week 5: Contemporary Issues in Anthropology
Monday:
Patterning the Future
Video to be announced
Submit term papers at the beginning of class
Complete final take home test for submission tomorrow
Tuesday
Video
Using Anthropological Knowledge
Final Test due in today
Wednesday:
Plenary Session- details to be announced
All coursework (graded) will be available for collection from Departmental Office on Thursday morning
Grading:
Your grade will be based on three elements:
A weekly quiz in class on Fridays
(4 x 100 pts)
A research paper and presentation
(1 x 100 pts)
To be discussed during week 1- proposal due in by Friday of week 2
Class participation
(40 bonus points available)
Based on assessment of your participation, attendance and on completion of incidental tasks in class sessions such as film sheets,
reading memos, discussion notes or group exercises. Persistent absence or tardiness may result in your receiving no credit for this
portion of the course grade. See below for details.
Grading Scale: 450 – 500 =
A
400 - 449 =
B
350 – 399 =
C
300 – 349 =
D
0 - 299=
F
Submitting Work:
Work is to be submitted on time. Please staple it securely and make sure that your name and the course number are clearly marked on
every page. You are encouraged to submit word-processed work (except for any in class exercises) but I will not penalize the
submission of handwritten work as long as it is legible.
If it is due it needs to be in at the beginning of the class period.
Late work will be accepted but you will instantly lose 10% of possible points for that assignment and the reasons will be noted. If you
skip class to get the work done you will incur an absence as well as a late work penalty per day. I suggest therefore that you organize
yourself to ensure that you get work in on time and avoid this situation, which could be seriously detrimental to your overall grade.
Attendance:
Attendance is required to pass this course. While I really do understand that sometimes there are other demands on you or you may be
ill, this is an intense summer session course and it is really easy to fall behind but much harder to catch up. I can allow two absences
during the course without penalty (as long as work due comes in on time). The third recorded absence automatically lowers your final
course grade by one letter (for example, from a B to a C). More than three absences will mean the loss of any bonus points for class
participation you may have earned.
All absences FOR WHATEVER REASON (illness, sports participation, legal issues, sleeping in, etc.) count. Absence in the last few
days of the course count just as much as earlier absences. Tardiness (defined as arriving in class after the professor has taken
attendance) will be considered as absence if it happens more than once.
If you do miss a class it is your responsibility to get notes and copies of handouts from someone else in the class. I do not make my
own lecture notes available although I may have spare copies of handouts.
Academic Integrity
Plagiarism and cheating are wrong. They always damage the spirit of scholarship, and they can cause more tangible damage and
concrete harm to you and to others in many circumstances. Anyone found plagiarizing or otherwise cheating in this class will be failed
on the course and the evidence will be given to university authorities. Refer to the Student Handbook and the Undergraduate
Catalogue for further information on sanctions imposed by this university.
Other notes on grades:
If you attend class, do the reading, complete the work and see me or e-mail me if you have any questions you are likely to pass the
class. You tend to get out of these things what you put into them, so if you want a good grade be prepared to work for it. I grade on the
work you submit and add the bonus points that you have earned for participation. If you are under pressure to keep up a certain grade
point average or to pass particular classes such as this one because of scholarship regulations or team participation it is your
responsibility to work effectively to earn the grades you need.