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The Concept of Culture. Deciphering the Mask of Culture. Making the strange familiar Eating dog? Marrying cousins? Giving away prized possessions? Finger mutilation? Brothers sharing a wife?. Cross-Cultural Misunderstandings. Gestures (Singapore). Are Gestures Universal?.
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Deciphering the Mask of Culture • Making the strange familiar • Eating dog? • Marrying cousins? • Giving away prized possessions? • Finger mutilation? • Brothers sharing a wife?
Cross-Cultural Misunderstandings • Gestures (Singapore)
Are Gestures Universal? • A-OK (U.S.) • Money (Japan) • F___ (Spain)
Iran: -thumbs up sign is vulgar -signal with palm down Mexico: -show height with palm vertical -do not beckon with fingers Saudi Arabia: -avoid showing the sole of your shoe -it is disrespectful to cross your legs Zimbabwe: -it is rude to maintain eye contact
Beliefs • Complements (Malaysia)
Symbols • Gift giving (Chinese trading partner)
Cultural Gestures, Beliefs & Symbols Are Not Universal • Cultural Use of Space • Contact & Non-contact cultures • Views from both sides of the cultural border
We Live in a Globally Interdependent WorldUnderstanding How to Interact With Diverse Peoples is Imperative – Anthropology: • Will make what seems strange, exotic, or alien familiar to you • We put our own values & beliefs on hold while we learn to understand other cultures without judging them
Making the Familiar Strange • We may seem strange or alien to others (EXAMPLES) • That forces us to take a critical look at our own culture • It leads us to reassess our own culture & values
Test Your Cultural Literacy! • Supplemental reading – Who are the N a c i r e m a ?
Cracking the Nacirema Code Percent of students who correctly identified 75% 80- 60- 40- 25% 20- 0- IDENTIFY NOT IDENTIFY
Why Study Anthropology? • “Insular Americans”
Making the Strange Familiar • Forces us to put our judgment on hold while we try to understand other cultures • It is our culture that leads us to create aliens
Anthropology Provides Us With a Kaleidoscopic Vision of the World • This vision breaks down cultural barriers • But wait! Isn’t globalization creating a homogenous world culture? • McDonalds, Internet provide shared experiences around the globe • Yet national, racial, & ethnic differences & global inequality promote a system of global apartheid
The World Political Economy Makes Knowledge & Tolerationof Other People’s Values, Customs, & Beliefs Essential • Let’s look at some examples • (exam material)
“9-11” • “You’re for us, or you’re against us” (Us vs. Them) • The world is more divided today • How has this shaped our ideas about Middle Easterners?
Iraq, or Al-Qaeda ? • 55% Shiites • 18% Sunnis • 18% Kurds • To many, they are all evil
Xenophobia • Vincent Chin
Tribal Warfare • Displaced Persons Camps, Darfur, Sudan
The Diné & Black Mesahttp://www.docudharma.com/diary/9565/ • Relocation—largest since the Trail of Tears, that killed 1000s of Cherokees in the 1830s
Immigration & Racist Paranoia • Mexican immigrants – • From parasites to terrorists • Lou Dobbs: "illegal alien invasion" “There's no question this type of mass immigration would have a calamitous effect on working citizens and their families”
So, What Is Anthropology? • 5 Subdisciplines: • Cultural • Ethnography • Ethnology
Physical • Archaeology • Linguistics • Applied
3 Key Concepts • Holism • Comparativism • Relativism: To regard alternative ways of life as valid & meaningful designs for living
Ethnocentrism • The opinion that one’s own culture (values, beliefs, knowledge, behavior) is superior • Does that mean we must accept values, beliefs, & behaviors that are different from our own? • Cultural Relativism
Why Anthropology? Once you have studied anthropology, you no longer look at the world from a single point of view. Having many lenses to view the world is liberating! An anthropological perspective is not just for anthropologists—it is a perspective to live by!
Definitions of Culture • There are over 160 different definitions of culture! • Anthropologists emphasize different aspects of culture: • Idealist – beliefs, values, conceptions (intangible) • Materialist – behavior, artifacts (observable) • Omnibus – more inclusive (both ideal & material) • Know these for the exam
Do Anthropologists Agree on Anything? • Culture is: • Adaptive – to both the physical & social environment • Culture is the primary means of human adaptation • All humans have the same capacity for culture; different cultures select different ways of adapting to their particular environments
Culture is … • Learned– through enculturation people internalize its values • Culture is transmitted generation to generation • Shared– Culture is a group phenomenon • Patterned – A system of interrelated parts; we can’t understand the whole by analyzing just one part • Arbitrary – Ideas are culturally defined
Idealist & Materialist Interpretations of Culture • Plato: Idealism Ideas = essence of human nature
Aristotle: Materialism Seeing is believing; Economic conditions create inequality
Idealism vs. Materialism • So who is right?
Reductionism • The attempt to explain complex phenomena in terms of simpler or single causes • Both idealists & materialists attempt to prove that they can explain cultural reality better than their opponents: • If human nature is idealist, human action is reduced to a by-product of ideas • If human nature is materialist, ideas are reduced to by-products of material forces
What Does All This Have To Do With Anthropology ! ? • The major theoretical perspectives & debates in anthropology are based on idealist & materialist perspectives • Ex: Biological Determinism is a materialist argument that biology controls human behavior • Used in eugenics, raises issues of race & IQ • Ex: Culture determines behavior • Impressionistic, over-generalizes people in a culture
Are There Any Alternatives? • Holism – We are conditioned by both our biological heritage & our cultural understandings • The whole is more than the sum of its parts
Dialectical • – Material & ideational factors interact dialectically to produce something new • We interact with our physical (material) environment • We produce food, consume it, it transforms us • While we do so, we change the environment • What we plant & eat is determined by our cultural definitions of what is edible
That’s metaphysical because cows can talk about not having opposable thumbs!
Anthro Students …ok
Clifford Geertz’s Idealist Interpretation • Geertz: The Concept of Culture I Espouse is a Semiotic One…
Marvin Harris’ Materialist Interpretation • Harris: The Culture Concept Comes Down to Behavior Patterns…