ANTH 111 - Cultural Anthropology - Topic 11: Expressions and Demonstrations of Culture: Art, Play, Sport and Tourism

What are some facts about art in human history?

• The archaeological record suggests that art is a fundamental
  aspect of what it means to be human.

  • In South Africa’s Blombos Cave, archaeologists discovered
    100,000-year-old human-made bone tools for mixing paints.

    • In Spain and France, 32,000 to 10,000 years ago, humans
      depicted reindeer, bison, mammoth, horses, and lions,
      modifying the work of their ancestors over a 20,000-year
      period.

    • Archaeologists do not yet understand the functions these
      cave paintings may have served their varied pre-historical
      audiences.

How do anthropologists look at art?

They look at it within its cultural context.

They consider many different kinds of products, practices and processes to be art.

They also look at the artist and the artist’s place within society. They study the social status of the artist (may be revered and wealthy or stigmatized and economically marginalized.

They observed that art and performance are more specialized in state-level societies.

They ask questions about how art and expressive culture more generally, is related to cultural variation, inequality and power. Also about how cross-cultural art is to be selected and put on display in museums.

Essentially they study variations in art, its preferred forms cross-culturally and the way culture constructs and changes artistic tradition.

What is art?

All ideas, forms, techniques and strategies that humans employ to express themselves creatively and to communicate their creativity and inspiration to others. Human encounters with art involve aesthetic experience or perception through the senses along with intellect or logic.

What does Western Euro-American art focus on?

They focus on aesthetic values to the exclusion of art’s social, political and economic functions.

What are the major categories of art?

• Eras — Paleolithic (early stages of the Stone Age) or Modern

• Medium of expression

• Graphic Arts

• Plastic Arts

• Graffitti

• Body art (tattoos)

• Decorative arts

• Performance Arts (music, dance, theatre)

• Verbal Arts

What is ethnomusicology (in textbook)?

What is transformation-representation?

The process in which experience is transformed as it is represented symbolically in a different medium. Artists can transform a three dimensional human form into a two dimensional flat painting. It is interpretive.

What is an example of transformation-representation?

Poems and Dancing and Lyrics

What are the functions of art?

1. Emotional Gratification

2. Social Integration

3. Social Control

4. Preserving/ Challenging the Status Quo

What is emotional gratification?

A temporary break in which the viewer can receive pleasure which balances with the stresses in their lives. For the artist, it allows for releasing emotional energy in a concrete way.

What is social integration?

Art communicates a good deal about the values, beliefs and ideologies of the culture. It reflects the major cultural themes and concerns of the society, stregthening people’s identification with their culture.

What are examples of social integration?

• The role of music to rally the people against a common enemy

• Prominent breasts on sculptures = importance of having children

• How stories should end —> cliffhangers

What is social control?

It reinforces the existing sociocultural system and serves as a mechanism. It instill obedience and maintain status quo. It also represents the astonishing power of both the gods and the rules.

What is an example of social control?

Wooden Masks in Africa.

What is the status quo?

Its something one can preserve or challenge. Its gained through the accumulation of art objects to indicate high prestige. Art preserved the status quo. Art also acts as a vehicle for protest, resistance and even revolution (ex. Arab Spring —> artists mobilized popular support)

How is art in small-scale societies?

Mainly with foragers and pastoralists.

1. Art is portable (utilitarian)

2. Aesthetic standards are more implicit (suggestions)

3. Art is egalitarian

What is fine art?

A Western-centric judgement that defines fine art as rare, expensive art produced by artists usually trained in the western classes tradition.

What is a characteristic of fine art?

Making art for art’s sake.

What is folk art?

All other art, sometimes referred to as ethnic art, primitive art or crafts.

What are characteristics of folk art?

• Resistance of the notion that art is only what a group of Western experts define it as

• Art by intention VS. art by appropriation

What is art by intention?

Objects or activities that have been deliberately created in order to be appreciated for their aesthetic effect.

What is art by appropriation?

Objects or activities originally made for one purpose, but which are now collected, exhibited in museums or sold in galleries for a new purpose: appreciation of their aesthetic effect.

What is play?

It is consciously adopted by the players and is somehow pleasurable. it alludes to non-play world in which they can transform objects, roles, actions and activity (imagination). There’s no direct utilitarian purpose for the participants. Can be limited in terms of time. Participants create rules.

What do anthropologists ask about play?

1. What are children learning about their cultural expectations and gender roles
   through play?

2. How do such activities link or separate different groups within or between societies or countries?

3. How do certain activities relate to group identity?

How does play transform perspective?

• Time for children to ‘try on’ adult roles

• Moving from everyday reality to play reality

• Requires metacommunication —> communicating about communication. (provides info about the relationship between those who are communication)

What are the 2 kinds of transformation of perspective through play?

Framing & Reflexivity

What is framing?

Marking certain behaviors as ‘play’ or ‘ordinary life’. Marked in different ways.

What is reflexivity?

Play suggests that ordinary life can be understood in more than one way. It communicates about what can be, rather than about what should be or what is.

What is adult play?

Allow adults to try on different roles, experiences be creative and form cultural identities with others.

What are examples of adult play?

• Halloween

• Carnival & Mardi Gras

• Society Creative Anachronism (SCA)

• Gaming

  • Role Playing Games (RPGs)

  • Live Action Role Play (LARP)

What is sport?

A physically exertive activity that is aggressively competitive within constraints imposed by definitions and rules. It is a component of culture, ritually patterned, game-like and of varying amounts of play, work and leisure. It can be interpreted as reflections of social relationships and cultural ideals. It is a form of personal and social identification for fans, where fans are invited into a make-believe world.

What is sport and the state?

The institutionalization of sport at the state level helps bring complex modern societies together. It involves the sharing of symbols and behaviors.

What are examples of sport and the state?

1. At the university level = support the Huskies teams = support USASK

2. In Canada —> hockey = a big unifier (still involved b/c of it persuasive nature in Canadian culture)

3. SK Roughriders

What is colonialism?

Establishment of foreign rule over a distant territory and the control of its people.

What is syncretism?

Amalgamation of different cultures into ONE.

What is an example of syncretism?

• British colonialists launched cricket playing in the islands as a replacement for warfare

• Over time, the Trobrianders have remade British-style cricket into a syncretized form that fits with their culture, including status competition and intergroup feasting

• kayasa

What is kayasa?

Refers to a traditional form of obligatory, competitive activity, often in the form of ritual warfare, which was later replaced by cricket as a peaceful alternative.

What is leisure travel?

• Often marketed as providing an “authentic” view of “primitive” cultures

• Tourists often seek to find the culture the tourist industry defines rather than the real one

• Some local communities have taken an active role to secure proceeds and maintain the location

  • Example: Guanacaste National Park, Costa Rica

Why are anthropologists concerned about tourism?

They are concerned with the impact of tourism on indigenous peoples.

What are the complex effects of tourism?

• International tourism has brought a demand for “traditional” forms of expressive culture

  • Effect: raises questions of “authenticity” when traditional forms are changed to please tourist’ desires and schedules.

  • Example: Vietnamese water puppetry —> usually done at the end of rice harvest or at religious festivals

• Positive results of global tourism:

  • Material cultural heritage

    • The sites, monuments, buildings, and movable objects considered to have outstanding value to humanity

  • Intangible cultural heritage

    • UNESCO’s view of culture as manifested in oral traditions, languages, performing arts,

      • rituals and festive events, knowledge and practices about nature and the universe, and craft making

What are some issues related to cultural heritage use and preservation?

1. Who defines cultural heritage in terms of what is authentic or inauthentic?

2. How to design and carry out cultural heritage preservation to address both insider and outsider roles and interests?

3. Power, either local or global, can overwhelm local efforts to define and manage cultural heritage for the benefit of local people, especially the poor

What does “framing the other” refer to?

Portrays the complex relationship between tourism and indigenous communities by revealing the intimate and intriguing thoughts of a Mursi woman from Southern Ethiopia and a Dutch tourist as they prepare to meet each other.