Chapter 2:
The Concept of Culture
Objectives:
o
o
o
o
Define culture and describe its development in
the field of anthropology
Distinguish between the three major types of
ethnocentrism
Evaluate common metaphors for culture
Appreciate culture as a good part of God’s
creation
The Ethnic Fair


What do you put in an American booth?
 Thinking about your own culture can make you
aware of diversities that make generalizations
difficult.
Facts about culture
 Culture cannot be primarily expressed through
food, clothing, and holiday trinkets.
 Culture is not a fixed, bound entity
 An individual can be familiar with or belong to
more than one culture.
History of the Culture Concept
Early
understandings
of “culture”



Comes from the German
word kultur, meaning to grow
or develop
Was conceived in terms of
unilinear evolution
Was considered to exist in
terms of “high” or “more” in
some societies, and “low” or
“less” in others
How is this conception of culture expressed in
contemporary U.S. English?
History of the Culture Concept

Challenges to unilinear cultural evolution



Historical particularism (Boas)
 fully developed cultures take different paths
on the basis of particular historical and
environmental contexts
Postmodern critique
 emphasizes power, individual creativity,
diversity
Anthropologists now emphasize power dynamics,
change, complexity
Cultural Relativism
Definition
The position that practices and beliefs
can be understood only in relation
to their entire context
Cultural Relativism
Definition
 The position that
cultural practices
and beliefs can be
understood only in
relation to their
entire context
As Distinct From
Moral relativism
Something is only right or
wrong according to
context-specific criteria
OR
Epistemological relativism
The validity of knowledge is
limited to the context in
which it was produced
Varieties of Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism
Putting one’s own culture at the
center of interpretation
Varieties
 racism/xenophobia
 cultural superiority
 tacit ethnocentrism
Varieties of Ethnocentrism
Racism/Xenophobia
The belief that humans are organized
into race groupings that are
different from one another in
intelligence and worth
Varieties of Ethnocentrism
Cultural Superiority
The belief that one culture is more
enlightened, advanced, civilized, or
intelligent than another
Varieties of Ethnocentrism
Tacit Ethnocentrism
The assumption that one’s own way
of life is just normal, not cultural
The Culture Concept Today
Culture
The total way of life of a group of
people that is learned, adaptive,
shared, and integrated, and is
shaped by power, motivations, and
interests
The Culture Concept Today
Metaphors for Culture






water in which we swim
lenses through which we see the world
Christ and culture
rules of the game
a map
a many layered onion, a parfait
What are the problems with each metaphor?
What does each get right? What does each leave out?
The Culture Concept Today
The preferred metaphor:
Culture as a conversation