What we learn from Anthropology: Understanding Human Differences

1. If we assume that the understandings, patterns, and rules of other cultures are the same as our own, then the actions of other people may seem incomprehensible.

2. What we learn from Anthropology:Understanding Human Differences

3. Ethnocentrism • The notion that one’s own culture is superior to any other • Other cultures should be measured by the degree to which they live up to our cultural standards • The American tourist with a handful of Italian Lire says “how much is this in real money?” • Military and industrial technology has led Western societies to impose their beliefs on other, less technologically advanced societies – they provide goods that other people quickly learn to want • Thus Westerners believe their social institutions (education, economy) are superior to those of other cultures • Acts a glue to hold a society together • Culture does not lose value if you believe it to be superior to others • A short hop, skip and jump away from racism

4. Human Biological Diversity • Low levels of skeletal and blood type diversity • Wide diversity in human form – height, skin colour, eye colour, slight and husky builds

5. Cultural Construction of Race • No agreed upon, consistent system of racial classification has ever been developed • Most anthropologists agreed that race as a biological characteristic of humans does not exist • No group of humans has ever been isolated long enough from other humans to make it different from others • Racial classification are therefore a social issue and not a biological issue • There is no way to weight the importance of any trait in determining racial classification • Why should blood type be more or less important than lactose tolerance or hair shade? • Physical features such as: skin colour, eye shape, nose shape, and hair texture are typically chosen as “racial characteristics” because they are easily visible and make the assignment of one individual to a race simple. • Lactose intolerance, dry or wet earwax as determinants of race are useless because they are not socially useful – you can’t see them.

6. Racism and Racialsim • Racism – contempt for people who have physical characteristics different from your own • Racialism – an ideology based on the following suppositions: • There are biologically fixed races • Different races have different moral, intellectual, and physical characteristics • An individual’s aptitudes are determined primarily by his or her race • Races can be ranked • Political action should be taken to order society so that it reflects this hierarchy • Tends to be weak scientific reasoning mixed with a political or social agenda

7. Anthropology and Cultural Relativism • People’s values and customs must be understood in terms of the culture of which they are a part • Every culture has a logic that makes sense to its own members – it is the anthropologist’s job to understand that logic, even if the anthropologist does not approve of it or wish to participate in that culture for themselves • Key element of anthropology

8. Emic and Etic Approaches to Culture • Emic Perspective – provide an insider’s view of culture, the native’s point of view • Use concepts and distinctions that are meaningful to members of the studied culture • How does that culture look from the inside and what must one know to think and act as a member of that culture? • Etic Perspective – outsider’s view • Analysis of data in a way that might not be part of the native’s cultural awareness • Help cultural outsiders gain a sense of what it might be like to be a member of the culture described • Generate useful scientific theories

9. A Class Divided • http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/