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Explore the important theorists and theories in cultural anthropology, including evolutionism, diffusionism, American historicism, functionalism, psychological anthropology, neoevolutionism, structuralism, and ethnoscience.
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Chapter 4 The Growth ofAnthropological Theory
What We Will Learn • Who have been the important theorists in cultural anthropology since the mid-nineteenth century? • What theories have anthropologists used to explain cultural differences and similarities among the peoples of the world? • How can anthropological data be used to make large-scale comparisons among cultures?
Anthropological Theories • A theory is a statement that suggests a relationship among phenomena. • Theories enable us to reduce reality to an abstract set of principles. • Anthropological principles help us make sense of ethnographic information from different parts of the world. • Theories can generate hypotheses to be tested in an empirical research investigation.
Evolutionism in Brief • All cultures pass through the same developmental stages in the same order. • Evolution is unidirectional and leads to higher levels of culture. • A deductive approach is used to apply general theories to specific cases. • Ethnocentric because evolutionists put their own societies at the top.
Morgan’s Evolutionary Stages • Lower savagery: From the earliest forms of humanity subsisting on fruits and nuts. • Middle savagery: Began with the discovery of fishing technology and the use of fire. • Upper savagery: Began with the invention of the bow and arrow.
Morgan’s Evolutionary Stages • Lower barbarism: Began with the art of pottery making. • Middle barbarism: Began with domestication of plants and animals in the Old World and irrigation cultivation in the New World.
Morgan’s Evolutionary Stages • Upper barbarism: Began with the smelting of iron and use of iron tools. • Civilization: Began with the invention of the phonetic alphabet and writing.
Diffusionism in Brief • Societies change as a result of cultural borrowing from one another. • A deductive approach is used by applying general theories to explain specific cases. • Overemphasized the essentially valid idea of diffusion.
American Historicism in Brief • Ethnographic facts must precede development of cultural theories (induction). • Any culture is partially composed of traits diffused from other cultures. • Direct fieldwork is essential. • Each culture is, to some degree, unique. • Ethnographers should try to get the view of those being studied, not their own view.
Functionalism in Brief • Through fieldwork, anthropologists can understand how cultures work for the individual and the society. • Society is like a biological organism with many interconnected parts. • Empirical fieldwork is essential. • The structure of any society contains indispensable functions without which the society could not continue.
British Functionalists • Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown were strong advocates of fieldwork. • Concentrated on how contemporary cultures meet the needs of individuals and perpetuate the society. • All parts of a culture are interconnected so a change in one part of the culture is likely to bring about change in other parts.
Psychological Anthropology in Brief • Anthropologists need to explore the relationships between psychological and cultural variables. • Personality is largely the result of cultural learning. • Universal temperaments associated with males and females do not exist.
Psychological Anthropologists Benedict and Mead • Interested in exploring relationship between culture and the individual. • Benedict described whole cultures in terms of individual personality characteristics. • Mead’s early research brought her to Samoa to study emotional problems associated with adolescence. • Later she studied male and female gender roles in New Guinea.
Neoevolutionism in Brief • Cultures evolve in proportion to their capacity to harness energy. • Culture is shaped by environmental conditions. • Human populations continuously adapt to techno-environmental conditions. • Because technological and environmental factors shape culture, individual factors are de-emphasized.
Lévi-Strauss • Mental structures preprogrammed in the human mind are responsible for culture and social behavior. • The human mind thinks in opposites. • People classify the units of their culture and relate them to the world around them.
French Structuralism in Brief • Human cultures are shaped by preprogrammed codes of the human mind. • Focus on underlying principles that generate behavior. • Emphasizes repetitive structures rather than sociocultural change. • Assumes the human mind categorizes phenomena in terms of binary oppositions.
Ethnoscience in Brief • Attempts to make ethnographic description more accurate and replicable. • Describes a culture using the categories of the people under study rather than categories from the ethnographer’s culture. • Because it is time-consuming, has been used to describing very small segments of a culture.
Cultural Materialism in Brief • Material conditions determine human thoughts and behavior. • Theorists assume the viewpoint of the anthropologist, not the native informant. • Anthropology is seen as capable of generating causal explanations. • Deemphasizes the role of ideas and values in determining the conditions of social life.
Postmodernism in Brief • Calls on anthropologists to switch from cultural generalization and laws to description, interpretation, and the search for meaning. • Ethnographies should be written from several voices—that of the anthropologist along with those of the people under analysis. • Involves a return to cultural relativism.
1. A ________ is a statement that suggests a relationship among phenomena. • fact • theory • hypothesis • position
Answer: b • A theory is a statement that suggests a relationship among phenomena.
2. The premise that all societies pass through a series of distinct stages is known as: • cultural evolutionism. • cultural determinism. • kulturkreis. • structural functionalism.
Answer: a • The premise that all societies pass through a series of distinct stages is known as cultural evolutionism.
3. Holding that humans are basically uninventive, ________ is a theory that claims certain cultural features were invented in one or several parts of the world, and then spread to other cultures. • cultural materialism • structural functionalism • diffusionism • evolutionism
Answer: c • Holding that humans are basically uninventive, diffusionism is a theory that claims certain cultural features were invented in one or several parts of the world, and then spread to other cultures.
4. Claude Levi-Strauss' ________ concentrates on identifying the mental structures that undergird social behavior. • American historicism • French structuralism • structural functionalism • economic determinism
Answer: b • Claude Levi-Strauss' French structuralism concentrates on identifying the mental structures that undergird social behavior.
5. Structural functionalism places emphasis on the social functions rather than the individual functions of culture. • True • False
Answer: True • Structural functionalism places emphasis on the social functions rather than the individual functions of culture.
