ANTHR-113-02: PRIN SOC & CULTURAL ANTHR - Midterm #1

Social Evolutionism

Claims all societies move along one line of progress: savagery, barbarism, civilization. 

Compelling Factors of Social Evolutionism

1. It borrowed the prestige of Darwin. 

2. It reworked the Great Chain of Being (God to devil) into a ranking of peoples. 

3. It gave Europeans a tidy way to order colonial data while justifying dominance. Morgan treated property and real-estate documents as the peak of development.

Cultural Relativism

The methodological view that a society's customs, beliefs, and values must be understood and evaluated within its own historical and cultural context rather than judged by the external standards of another culture.

Cushing

Lived with the Zuni for over four years as part of a Smithsonian Institution expedition, learned the Zuni language, and was initiated into the tribal council and the Bow Priesthood, effectively becoming anthropology's first practical participant observer. His experiences were initially serialized as articles like My Adventures in Zuni (1882–1883) and reflected in works like Zuni Breadstuff.

• What Was Done - Went “native” by completely assimilating into Zuni society by adopting their clothing, learning their language, and eventually becoming a tribal chief and sacred priest.

Malinowski

• Trobriand Islanders (1914-18)  - Formally systematized and professionalized participant observation as a rigorous academic method. He published these methodological standards and his findings in his landmark 1922 book, Argonauts of the Western Pacific. 

  • What Was Done - Established the scientific framework for fieldwork by living in Trobriand villages to systematically map their social systems, focusing primarily on the Kula ring—a complex, prestige-driven network of ceremonial shell exchange.

Boas

• Cultural Relativism - Cultures and practices are understood in their own context rather than judged by one's own template. Boas used it to reject the civilization/savagery ranking.

  • Baffin Island Field (1883-84) - By living closely with the Inuit and realizing their customs were fully valid, rational responses to their harsh arctic environment rather than signs of inferiority.

William’s Four Senses of Culture

1. Cultivation of Crops or Animals

2. Herder's Kultur - a people's shared ethnicity (language, tales, food, dress);

3. Arnold's refinement, being "cultured," ranking high over low

4. A biological germ culture (1880s). 

Anthropological Meaning of Culture

Close to the second sense, Herder’s Kulture, plural cultures as whole ways of life, learned and shared. They reject the third, since ranking cultures is what Boas attacked. Tylor's singular, progressive "Culture" shows how the hierarchical sense leaked into early anthropology. 

Sahlin’s Original Affluent Lifestyle

• Hunter-gatherers do not work long. Hunting and gathering take only a few hours a day (about five hours), and big game feeds a group for a long time.

Wants of Hunter-Gatherers

Their wants are limited and easily met, so they are affluent in a sense. 

Wants of Modern Society

Wants are insatiable, so people trade life for labor to survive. 

Factors of Sahlin’s Work

• Work & Value - Work is not a continuous burden, but a limited activity shaped by finite desires rather than an endless pursuit of material accumulation

• Zen Nature -  Sahlins contrasts the Western economic model (desiring much and creating endless production) with the hunter-gatherer strategy (desiring little and keeping material wants restricted).  

• Value Via Limitation - Value is derived from having enough and stopping production, rather than maximizing output or generating a surplus. 

• Social Wealth Over Good -  Affluence is measured by the strength of community sharing, reciprocity, and free time, not by accumulated material possessions. 

Embedded Western Thought - Sahlins

• Early European descriptions had Western assumptions.

• Western Assumptions of Hunter-Gatherers: 

1. Called poor (no surplus possessions) 

2. Lazy (no accumulation) 

3. Uncivilized (no concept of time). 

• Key Factor - The observers treated scarcity and constant work as the natural measure of value, though these are features of their own market society, lack of cultural relativism

Hart’s Two Sides of Money

Heads Vs Tails

Heads - Hart

• What it represents: The symbol of the political authority or state that issued and underwrites the currency (often the head of a ruler or state emblem).

• Core function: It views money top-down as a social relation and a token (or money of account) backed by institutional and political legitimacy.

• Theoretical alignment: Corresponds closely to chartalist or Keynesian traditions, where money originates from the authority of the state and societal structures.

Tails - Hart

• What it represents: The quantitative value or numerical specification of what the coin is worth as a medium of exchange.

• Core function: It views money bottom-up as a thing or commodity that enters into objective, anonymous ratios of exchange independent of the specific people making the transaction.

• Theoretical alignment: Corresponds to classical and monetarist economic theories, where money emerges to facilitate trade, precision, and commerce in impersonal markets.

Euro-American Thought/Tension - Hart

• Result of Euro-American Split - Economic policy swings between poles and money is treated as purely social or purely impersonal. Pits the U.S. focus on raw market growth ("heads") against Europe's emphasis on social safety nets and worker protection ("tails"). 

  • The United States - Vastly outpace Europe in GDP and tech innovation, driven by longer work hours and massive capital investments.  

  • Europe maintains a comparable quality of life through state-funded infrastructure, healthcare, and labor stability, balancing global commercial growth with social sustainability.

Hart’s Suggestion On Currency

• Both sides are always present and inseparable, as both faces belong to one coin, so we should hold them together instead of choosing. Rejects the false choice between states and markets, instead integrating the top-down political authority of the state ("heads") with the bottom-up social energy of anonymous markets ("tails") into a cohesive global economic system.

Boas on Race, Language, & Culture 

They are not dependent variables and cannot be lined up on one hierarchy. With separate histories, ranking whole societies is scientifically invalid. Your notes tie language to Saussure: the sign-signified link is arbitrary and depends on shared cultural agreement. 

 Malinowski On The Kula 

Soulava (necklaces) and Mwali (armbands) travel in set directions among island communities. Each item gains renown through its name and past holders and is meant to be passed on, so ownership is temporary. 

 Malinowski In Contrast To Evolutionism

Malinowski used the advanced economic nature of the Kula against evolutionists who held that "savages" lacked intricate trade: it shows elaborate, rule-governed exchange driven by social and aesthetic value as well as utility. 

 Malinowski vs. Armchair Anthropologists

Popularized sustained fieldwork and participant observation through his observations on the Kula, which reinforced the belief that other cultures are not backwards or barbaric. An engaged participant who is still partly outside. Direct observation replaced speculation and gave social anthropology its authority

Classic Accounts of Mediterranean Honor and Shame 

Peristiany and Pitt-Rivers identify that honor belongs to men, who defend family reputation, while shame belongs to women, as modesty and propriety.

Engelke’s Accounts of Mediterranean Honor and Shame 

Stresses that the notions vary by region, gender, and context, and that honor can be a performance rather than a fixed code, making "the Mediterranean" as one culture area questionable.  Shame as private, female, honor as public, men. 

Engelke’s Accounts of Mediterranean Honor and Shame - Key Factors

1. Not rigid

2. Dynamic Social Logic that negotiates everyday social standing

3. Public 

4. Constant Negotiation since public perception is key, honor is fragile always contested

Dumont The West vs. India 

• The West - Individualistic and egalitarian

• India Holistic and hierarchical.

• Caste System - The whole outranks the individual and rank rests on purity and pollution. 

• Brahman - Ascendant, priestly status encompasses and stands above kingly power. Risk: essentializing both sides into a neat opposition, much like Hart's dichotomies. 

The Ascendant Brahmin - Dumont

Ascendant, priestly status encompasses and stands above kingly power. Risk: essentializing both sides into a neat opposition, much like Hart's dichotomies. Hierarchy over power; ritual status over secular/political power. Religious status encompasses and ranks above political power–demonstrated by Brahmins being better/more pure than the king. 

Characteristics of Caste System - Dumont

1. Hereditary Separation

2. Interdependent Labor System

3. Graded hierarchy status 

Ferguson - Cattle Wealth & "Bovine Mystique" 

Studying the Basotho, named that assumption the Bovine Mystique. Cattle are a store of value, an investment, and the currency of social relations, so valuing them is rational in context. Treating it as irrational also misleads development planners. In eastern and southern Africa, cattle are central to marriage negotiations (bridewealth). Westerners read this as an irrational, purely traditional attachment.

Ferguson - Positive Debt

While debt is typically viewed as a negative quality in Western culture, the positive debt of providing the bovine creates a constant relationship that must be upheld, constantly paid in upholding a relationship. To pay it immediately would be seen as ending a relationship. 

Freeman - Values of the Gamo

Value connection and play, peaceful sociality, and happiness; coffee gatherings were a place for playful banter. 

Freeman - NGO Integration

Integrated the Gamo into the world economy through apple growing. Resulted in fostering entrepreneurial individualism and isolation, since people had to watch their crops and socialize less. 

Freeman - Rise of Pentacostalism Among The Gamo

As the old basis of happiness eroded, Pentecostalism rose, offering a new idiom of happiness in communing with the Holy Spirit through intense church services. 

Hart & Carstens

• Hart -  Money splits into social and impersonal sides; Western kinship splits into blood/biology versus law/social. 

• Carsten - Relatedness dissolves that split, as Hart's coin does. 

Morgan - Consanguinity

Blood

Morgan - Affinity

Marriage

Morgan - Ego

• The center, any system can be charted (F, M, S, D, B, Z, H, W) and compared.

• Aspects of Morgan’s Work - Divided systems into descriptive (separating lineal from collateral, e.g. father vs. uncle), which he took as civilized, and classificatory (lumping collaterals under lineal terms, e.g. calling father's brother "father"), which he took as primitive. He tied this to a supposed "sexual free-for-all" in early society, which makes it evolutionist. 

Morgan - Kinship Diagram

• E = Ego (the reference point person)

• F = Father

• M = Mother

• S = Son

• D = Daughter

• B = Brother

• Z = Sister (used instead of "S" to avoid confusion with Son)

• H = Husband

• W = Wife

Schneider & Universal Kinship

• In American Kinship, Schneider showed Americans treat blood as the core of kinship, with law (in-laws, spouses) secondary. 

• The Native's Point of View -  Schneider argued "blood" is a cultural symbol, not a natural fact. His later critique argued the genealogical grid projects this Western folk idea onto others, so kinship cannot be assumed universal. 

 Carsten on Langkawi 

Based on her fieldwork in Pulau Langkawi, Malaysia, arguing that kinship is a fluid process rather than a fixed biological status. In this community, family bonds are actively constructed through everyday social and physical practices, primarily co-residence and commensality (eating together). By sharing a house and consuming food—particularly rice and breastmilk, which Langkawi residents believe transform into bodily blood—people gradually manufacture genuine familial ties over time. Ultimately, her research demonstrates how daily acts of feeding, caregiving, and shared living create kin out of non-biological relations.

Carsten - Co-residence and Co-feeding

Living in the same house (the house) and sharing food (nasi or rice, along with other substances) transforms outsiders into close kin. Eating together literally means sharing bodily and social substance.

Carsten - Fluid Identity and Substance

Categories like "biological" and "social" are not clearly separated in Langkawi indigenous thought. Substances such as blood (darah) and milk (susu) are viewed as fluid, mutable, and produced or altered through social interaction and nourishment. 

Carsten - The Heat of Hearth

The domestic hearth is the physical and symbolic center of family life, cooking, and reproduction, highlighting the vital role of women in creating and sustaining community ties. 

Carsten - Relatedness

Carsten introduced this broader analytical term to describe how people construct interpersonal connections beyond strict genealogical grids, accommodating practices like fostering, adoption, and shifting household residency 

Forced Assimilation of the Mashpee - Schwartz

Went to court to prove tribal identity and lost. Forced Assimilation, cost the Mashpee visible markers (language, dress, food), which the court held against them. This is the double bind of recognition. 

Double Bind of Recognition - Schwartz

Policy pushed assimilation, then demanded unbroken distinctive "culture" as proof. Mashpee unable to get recognition due to forced assimilation

Hollywood Injun English (HIE) - Meek

Meek analyzes clipped, stereotyped "Hollywood Indian English," which signals primitiveness and nobility and treats Native people as vanishing. Actual Native languages and speech practices (Meek knows Kaska) are absent or erased.  

Language Ideology - Meek

Ideas about how "Indians" sound shape what counts as authentic. 

Features of Hollywood Injun English (HIE) - Meek

The lexical takeaways of Hollywood Injun English are stolen from a wide spectrum of Native American languages, simplifying, and condensing it into an easily recognizable form.

1. Pauses

2. Repetition 

3. Lack of Contractions 

4. Deletion - Pronoun

5. Pronoun Substitution

6. Third Person Reference

7. Objective - e.g. “Me go to school yesterday’ 

8. Lack of Tense - Past In Present Tense

Effects of Hollywood Injun English (HIE) - Meek

• 1. Baby Talk 

• 2. Foreigner Talk

Schwartz On The Revitalization Double Bind

In his research, particularly on Chiwere (Otoe-Missouria) language politics, Schwartz argues that well-intentioned advocacy slogans like “language is the core of culture” and “when a language dies, a culture dies” inadvertently trap dormant language communities in an impossible no-win situation 

Authenticity Trap - Schwartz

On one hand, dominant settler-colonial expectations dictate that to be recognized as legally and culturally "authentic" Native Americans, tribes must possess and speak their distinct heritage language. 

Penality of Language Loss - Schwartz

On the other hand, many communities have already undergone drastic language shifts due to historic colonial erasure, leaving them with no fluent heritage speakers. If a tribe accepts the premise that language is the absolute baseline of culture, they essentially validate the idea that their own contemporary culture is dead or illegitimate.

Ioway - Schwartz

Keep language

Otoe Missouria - Schwartz

Abandon language, lay it to rest.

Core Paradox - Schwartz

 The trick for indigenous people is to display enough difference to be understood as authentic without being so different that the difference itself cannot be understood as such". 

Resisting Language Loss & Accepting The Standard - (Double Bind Response) - Schwartz

Tribes engage heavily in literacy-based revitalization efforts, adopting dominant ideologies of national/cultural difference to prove their identity, even if full community fluency is structurally out of reach. 

Accepting Language Loss To Resist The Standard (Double Bind Response) - Schwartz

Tribes explicitly separate language from culture ("de-iconization"). They reject the nationalist expectation that authentic Indigeneity requires traditional language fluency, asserting instead that their contemporary cultural identity is fully continuous, resilient, and valid through other historical and cultural mediums.

Janus-faced notion of race 

Race is a biological fiction, yet a social reality with measurable effects on health and treatment. One face says race is socially constructed and so not significant or determinative. The other says it records centuries of unpaid and underpaid labor, unequal investment, and disenfranchisement. 

- Activist Paradox - Scholars use racial categories to fight racism while trying to dismantle the false premise of race. 

Examples of Language Ideology

1. Received Pronunciation guidebooks ranking speech by class, e.g., British books on vernacular

2.  Hollywood Indian English fixing an image of Native speakers

3. Mashpee lost recognition because they spoke English.

Saussure's Arbitrary Sign

Meaning is conventional, so rankings of speech are social, not natural. Language is made up.

Peirce On Language

Adds indexical and iconic links, which is how speech comes to "point to" or "resemble" social types. 

Agency & Gender In Contemporary China - Engelke

Analyzes how traditional marriage and bridewealth practices evolved under state intervention. Despite state bans and pressures, local communities adapted these customs, eventually shifting wealth transfers directly to the bride. 

“Problem of Women” - Engelke

Demonstrates how this economic autonomy provided young women with new avenues for personal agency and authority, proving that gender hierarchies are more complex than state-driven changes might suggest. Proves that the view of Western feminists that all women are passive victims are not necessarily correct. 

Holi In North Indian Villages - McKim

Marriott describes a festival in which hierarchy is temporarily inverted: low castes may douse or beat higher ones, women the men. Rather than overturning the order, the reversal reaffirms it, since everyone knows it will resume

The "Safety Valve" Concept - McKim

By allowing a brief, highly concentrated period of "licentiousness" where these norms are completely flipped, Holi acts as a psychological and social safety valve. It permits marginalized groups to safely vent built-up frustrations, resentment, and tension without sparking actual, systemic revolution.  

Controlled Social Inversion - McKim

The marginalized may act as rulers, but Marriott emphasizes that this license is strictly bounded in time and space. Since the reversal is explicitly framed as a ritual or a divine sport (lila), it has a clear end point.

Re-institutionalizing The Status Quo Through Contrast - McKim

By dramatically turning the world upside down, Holi implicitly highlights how unlivable, chaotic, and destructive total social breakdown would be. Around midday, as the frenzy ends, participants bathe, clean themselves, and deliberately reassume their traditional, rigid social roles.  Holi makes the everyday dominance of traditional authority figures more tolerable and secure for the remaining 364 days of the year