Dive into Anthropology: Understanding Humanity's Evolution and Culture

1. Anthropology A Closer Look

2. What is Anthropology? “the science of humanity,” which studies human beings in aspects ranging from the biology and evolutionary history of Homo sapiens to the features of society and culture that decisively distinguish humans from other animal species. Because of the diverse subject matter it encompasses, anthropology has become, especially since the middle of the 20th century, a collection of more specialized fields It is concerned with both the biological and the cultural developments of humans. 

3. Four main subdivisions: Physical/Biological Anthropology • anthropology concerned with the comparative study of human evolution, variation, and classification especially through measurement and observation

4. Anthropologist Profile: Louis Leakey •  (born August 7, 1903, Kabete, Kenya—died October 1, 1972, London, England) • Kenyan archaeologist and anthropologist whose fossil discoveries in East Africa proved that human beings were far older than had previously been believed and that human evolution was centred in Africa, rather than in Asia, as earlier discoveries had suggested. Leakey was also noted for his controversial interpretations of these archaeological finds • formed the basis for the most important subsequent research into the earliest origins of human life. He was also instrumental in persuading Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté M.F. Galdikas to undertake their pioneering long-term studies of chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans in those animals’ natural habitats.

5. Four Branches • Cultural Anthropology • The anthropology that deals with human culture especially with respect to social structure, language, law, politics, religion, magic, art, and technology

6. Archeology • study of human activity in the past, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes • broken pots and other artifacts of ancient people that they uncover are only material remains that reflect cultural patterns

7. Linguistic Anthropology • the interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life • How it shapes communication, forms social identity and group membership, organizes large-scale cultural beliefs and ideologies, and develops a common cultural representation of natural and social worlds

8. Clifford Geertz • (born Aug. 23, 1926, San Francisco, Calif., U.S.—died Oct. 30, 2006, Philadelphia, Pa.) • American cultural anthropologist, a leading rhetorician and proponent of symbolic anthropology and interpretive anthropology • champion of symbolic anthropology, which gives prime attention to the role of thought—of “symbols”—in society. Symbols guide action. Culture, according to Geertz, is “a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life.” The function of culture is to impose meaning on the world and make it understandable. The role of anthropologists is to try—though complete success is not possible—to interpret the guiding symbols of each culture

9. What would be the best way to really get to know another society and its culture? Why?

10. Participation-observation • Anthropologists have learned that the best way to really get to know another society and its culture is to live in it as an active participant rather than simply an observer.  • By physically and emotionally participating in the social interaction of the host society it is possible to become accepted as a member. 

11. Skills and Methods used by Anthropologists • Participation-observation • Collection of statistics • Field interviews • Archeological digs • Rigorous compilation of detailed notes • Fieldwork on anthropologists is know as “ethnography”: the scientific study of human races and cultures

12. Anthropological Schools of Thought • School of thought: when a certain way of interpreting a discipline’s subject matter gains widespread credibility, it is considered to be a ‘school of thought’ • Anthropology Schools of Thought1. Functionalism2. Structuralism3. Cultural Materialism

13. Functionalism • All cultures are set up to deal with the universal problems human societies face (physical, or psychological needs) • functionalism posited that all parts of society functioned to satisfy the individualor community’s basic needs • Societies have a set standard/laws/practices to provide stability. • social institutions • Investigate the social function of institutions i.e.) what is the purpose? How are they run? Etc. • Afundamental belief is that society is a logical institution and functions in the best interest of the needs of the majority • Emphasis on order and understandability • practices may at first seem strange to the outsider, functionalists believe it can be explained

14. Functionalism cont… • The theory stresses the importance of interdependence among all behavior patterns and institutions within a social system to its long-term survival. • a reaction against the evolutionary speculations of late 19th cent. • Functionalism was promoted in England by B. Malinowski, who argued that cultural practices had psychological and physiological functions, such as the reduction of fear and anxiety, and the satisfaction of desires • A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, whose theoretical work contended that all instituted practices ultimately contribute to the maintenance, and hence the survival, of the entire social system. How about an analogy????

15. Organic Analogy: • The organic analogy compares the different parts of a society to the organs of a living organism. • The organism is able to live, reproduce and function through the organized system of its several parts and organs. • Like a biological organism, a society is able to maintain its essential processes through the way that the different parts interacted together. • Institutions such as religion, kinship and the economy were the organs and individuals were the cells in this social organism. • Functionalist analyses examine the social significance of phenomena, that is, the function they serve a particular society in maintaining the whole

16. Cultural Materialism • Marvin Harris 1968 book The Rise of Anthropological Theory • cultural materialism "is based on the simple premise that human social life is a response to the practical problems of earthly existence“ • A research strategy that says that the best way to understand human culture is to examine material conditions - climate, food supply, geography, etc.

17. Behavioral Infrastructure, comprising a society's relations to the environment, which includes their ethics and behavioral modes of production and reproduction (material relations). • Behavioral Structure, the ethics and behavioral domestic and political economies of a society (social relations). • Behavioral Superstructure, the ethics and behavioral symbolic and ideational aspects of a society, e.g. the arts, rituals, sports and games, and science (symbolic and ideational relations). • While cultural materialism recognizes the importance of ideas and Darwinian principles in human behavior, it insists that material living conditions are more important than either in explaining cultural evolution. This is called the principle of infrastructural determinism (so infrastructural elements most sig.) • So more deterministic…

18. In Marvin’s words… • "Cultural Materialism is the strategy I have found to be most effective in my attempt to understand the causes of differences and similarities among societies and cultures. It is based on the simple premise that human social life is a response to the practical problems of earthly existence.... In its commitment to the rules of scientific method, cultural materialism opposes strategies that deny the legitimacy of the feasibility of scientific accounts of human behavior... Cultural materialism, with its emphasis upon the encounter between womb and belly and earth and water, also opposes numerous strategies that set forth from words, ideas, high moral values, and aesthetic and religious beliefs to understand the everyday events of ordinary human life.

19. Anthropologist • Margaret Mead,(born Dec. 16, 1901Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.—died Nov. 15, 1978, New York, N.Y.) • Mead was best known for her studies of the nonliterate peoples of Oceania, especially with regard to various aspects of psychology and culture—the cultural conditioning of sexual behaviour, natural character, and culture change. • Male and Female: A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World (1949; 2nd ed., 1976), Anthropology: A Human Science (1964), Culture and Commitment (1970)

20. Schools today (briefly) • Today there are two main rivals to the materialist approach: • idealism which says that human ideas have a stronger effect on culture than material conditions; • biological approach - often known by the current most popular school of biological thought, evolutionary psychology, which says that human culture can best be explained through human biological evolution.

21. Social Change • Refers to changes in the way society is organized, and in the beliefs and practices of the people who live in it • Change in the social structure and the institutions of society • Examples?

22. Anthropology & Change • Anthropologists regard cultures as ever-changing organisms • Among other things, interested in understanding what makes changes in a culture • So, what do you think are the sources of cultural change?

23. Three Major Sources of Cultural Change (anthropology) • Invention: new products, ideas and social patterns. Examples? • Discovery: finding something that was previously unknown to a culture. Examples? • Diffusion: spreading of ideas, methods and tools from one culture to another. Examples?

24. Concept of Culture • Has become the central focus of anthropology • Culture is the full range of learned human behavior patterns • that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. Edward B. Tylor, 1871

25. Concept of Culture • A, the body of cultural traditions that distinguish your specific society.  • When you talk of “Italians” or “Japanese” • B, In complex, diverse societies, subcultures exist • shared cultural traits set them apart • E.g., Vietnamese Americans, Chinese Canadians • C, cultural universals – learned behaviour patterns present in every culture • E.g., language, gender ideas, arts & entertainment, beliefs about right and wrong, etc.

26. Understanding Culture • Anthropologists also study the process of ENCULTURATION • the process by which an individual learns the traditional content of a culture and assimilates its practices and values • It’s a conditioning process whereby man, as child and adult, achieves competence in his culture, internalizes his culture (expectations, rules, etc.) • E.g., learning respect for nation through singing anthem in school. • learns with whom he may be physically violent (a wrestling competitor) and with whom he cannot (the little girl down the street). • becomes aware of his rights and obligations and privileges as well as the rights of others.

27. What are cultures made of? • According to most anthropologists, cultures consist of four main ingredients: • Take a guess…

28. Keep Thinking…

29. Cultures are made of inter-related parts (Here’s a few of the big ones):1) Physical Environment • How does physical environment affect culture? • E.g., Length and type of winter inCanada creates games, rituals, songs and sports

30. 2) Level of Technology • How does level of technology affect culture? • E.g., Degree of technology available (level of automation in manufacturing, amount of people with computer training, etc.), determines how receptive a culture will be to the need for change

31. 3) Social Organization • How does social organization affect culture? • E.g., How is the culture organized? What is its kinship system? How is labour divided and allocated? Answers to these questions help determine how readily a given culture can change

32. 4) System of Symbols • How do symbols affect all cultures? • E.g, language! • Also, all cultures have many symbols. Brand name clothing and music are significant symbols of teen culture in Canada. • To anthropologists, symbols not only include physical objects, but also gestures, dance trends, hairstyles

33. Understanding the 3 Culture Types • Christian missiologists identify three responses to sin in human cultures: guilt, shame, and fear. These three moral emotions have become the foundation for three types of culture. • Guilt-innocence culturesare individualistic societies (mostly Western), where people who break the laws are guilty and seek justice or forgiveness to rectify a wrong. • Shame-honor culturesdescribe collectivistic cultures (common in the East), where people are shamed for not fulfilling group expectations and seek to restore their honor before the community. • Fear-power culturesrefer to animistic contexts (typically tribal), where people afraid of evil and harm pursue power over the spirit world through magical rituals.

34. Understanding the 3 Culture Types • These three types of culture are like group personalities defining how people view the world. Just as individual people have a person-ality, cultural groups share a group-ality. • Groupality refers an “organized pattern of behavioral characteristics of a group.” A person’s cultural type shapes their worldview, ethics, identity, and notion of salvation, even more than their individual personality does. So wouldn’t knowing the culture type of your host context be important for relationships and ministry?

35. Understanding the 3 Culture Types • “But the XYZ culture I live in is both shame and fear!?!”Although guilt, shame, and fear are three distinct cultural outlooks, no culture can be completely characterized by only one. These three dynamics interplay and overlap in all societies. For example, Central Asian cultures integrate shame and fear dynamics. Even individuals or groups within a culture can vary. A rural Thai might be more fear-based than an urbanite in Bangkok. Young adults in America valuing authenticity and connection are becoming more shame-based. A more accurate model of culture measures the influence of each dynamic upon a group, like a triangle with each corner representing guilt, shame, or fear. A group’s cultural orientation, reflected by the position in the triangle, depends on how strongly each dynamic pulls upon the group.   •  Each cultural worldview is a unique blend of guilt, shame, and fear. Like all cultural paradigms, the guilt-shame-fear trichotomy just simplifies complexities into basic categories to help us interpret world cultures.

36. That’s all folks…