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Defining “culture” and cultural anthropology

Defining “culture” and cultural anthropology. Howard Culbertson Southern Nazarene University. Cultural Anthropology -- an academic discipline. Culture is what makes you a stranger when you are away from home.

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Defining “culture” and cultural anthropology

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  1. Defining “culture”and cultural anthropology Howard Culbertson Southern Nazarene University

  2. Cultural Anthropology -- an academic discipline

  3. Culture is what makes you a stranger when you are away from home

  4. Culture: a set of rules or standards that produce behavior that falls within a range of variance a society considers proper and acceptable -- William Haviland

  5. Culture is a complex, integrated coping mechanism. Culture consists of 1. Learned concepts and behavior 2. Underlying perspectives (worldview) 3. Resulting products • nonmaterial (customs and rituals) • material (artifacts)

  6. Cultural anthropology is concerned with: ( we’ll now look at 14 categories or items studied by cultural anthropologists)

  7. 1. Perspective • Holistic (as opposed to atomistic or narrow) • Comparative • The gamut from relativism to ethnocentrism • Get your hands dirty (fieldwork) • Etic (from outsider’s vantage point) • Emic (from an insider’s vantage point)

  8. 2. Material artifacts

  9. 3. Communication Symbols, language and media

  10. 4. Status, roles, relationships

  11. 5. Life cycle (birth, naming, coming of age, anniversaries, death, ancestorhood)

  12. 6. Societal groupssocial classes, economic stratification, ethnicity

  13. 7. Marriage and family

  14. 8. Child rearing and personality formation

  15. 9. Kinship / descent systems

  16. 10. Economicsdistribution of goods and services

  17. 11. Legal systemsNorms, customs, laws

  18. 12. Political organizationLeadership / decision making

  19. 13. ReligionWorldview, beliefs and ritual practices

  20. 14. Expressive arts

  21. 15. Sociocultural change

  22. Defining “culture”

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