Sociocultural Anthropology

Anthropology

"Human Beings”

Biological Anthropology

Biological Anthropology used to be called physical anthropology, focusing on the biological aspects of humans and their ancestors.

Archaeology

The study of past human societies through their material remains, such as artifacts, structures, and other physical evidence.

Linguistic Anthropology 

studies the relationship between language, culture, and society, examining how language is used as a cultural resource and how its use reflects and shapes cultural practices, social relations, identities, and worldviews

Culture

Culture is the system of meanings about the nature of experience that is shared from one generation to another, including the meanings people give to things, events, activities, and people. 

Society 

Society is the social structures and organization of a group comprised of people who share a territory or culture 

Culture is

Shared: Culture does not exist solely on the minds of one individual but is shared among multiple people, not everyone has the same culture, we approach and participate in it as individuals, there are differences within any particular “ Cultural Community”, Culture provides us with a framework for action’ in the world

Learned: We learn cultural rules inn the same way we learn language, people who share a culture have similar experiences which helps develop mental structures that enable them to process theses experiences, we are shaped through our interactions with others

Transgenerational: Culture extends beyond an individuals lifetime, we produce books, stories, paintings, architecture, and other material objects that serve to pass on knowledge to future generations, culture is changes and is transformed through time

Characteristics of Culture 

Patterned:Within a given culture we observe behaviours that recur in a similar way. Rituals both reflect and transmit a culture’s norms - or patterned behaviours, and other elements from on generation to the next

Adaptive: Culture is constantly acting and reacting in relation to societal and environmental changes. The dynamic nature of culture is sometimes overlooked. Culture all to often is portrayed as static, or unchanging 

Symbolic: Every culture is filled with symbols, or things that stand for something else and that often evoke various reactions and emotions. Shared symbols make social interactions possible- this is also what enables us to transmit culture from one generation to the next, we learn and teach ways transmitting culture through language, art, artifacts ect

Culture Is

Learned and passed through the generations

Shared: A tool for understanding shared experiences

Patterned

Adaptive

Symbolic

Culture is NOT

Singular

Quantifiable

Something that some groups make “ more” of than others

Bounded, Impervious to change or mutual influences

A possession ( The people of X do ritual Y because its part of their culture) rather by looking at ritual Y, preformed by people X, we see a shared cultural understanding of Z

Logia 

“ The Study Of” or “ Knowledge Of'“ 

Sociocultural Anthropology

The study of how societies are structured and how cultural meanings are created

ethnocentrism

The tendency to judge the beliefs and behaviours of other cultures from the perspectives of ones own culture 

Ethnocentric fallacy

The belief that one's own ethnic group is innately superior to others and that all other groups should therefore be judged by one's own local standards.

Cultural Relativism 

No Behaviour or belief can be judged wrong or odd, just because it is different to our own 

Realistic Fallacy

All moral judgements are wrong

Critical Cultural Relativism

An alternative perspective an cultural relativism

Questions cultural beliefs and practises 

Who accepts them and Why? 

who might they disproportionately harm and benefit 

Why cultural power dynamic enables them 

(virginity Testing in Turkey, Wari funeral Cannibalism)

Anthropology as a Method

Anthropology uses methods science:

Participant Observation, fieldwork, identifying patters, and analyzing cause and effect

Anthropology uses Humanistic approaches:

Searches for meaning in symbols, rituals, and everyday practises

Describe and interpret behaviours/ why it matters/ what it represents

Clifford Geertz

“ Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun”

Culture= system of symbols and meanings

Even “ Small” choices ( coffee, clothing) carry significance

Thick Description 

Meanings are interpreted through participant observations and thick descriptions, treating cultural practises as “text” of symbols that revel how people make sense of their lives 

By situating these practises in social, historical and political, anthropologists both describe and interpret the significance they hold for those who live them 

The Balinese Cockfight 

In Balinese society, cockfighting is a major sporting event that is closely tied to cultural interpretations of manhood, competition, and status 

Greets concludes that the Balinese cockfight is about status, about the ranking of people vis-a-versa one another. the Balineses Cockfight is a text filled with meaning about status as the  Balinese see it. Cocks represent men- more specifically their owners; the fate of the cock in the ring is linked to the social fate of its owners 

For geertz, the cockfight illiterates what status is for the Balinese

 Significant symbolic weight relating to masculinity, status, and male psychological experience, which can be interpreted as having a sexual dimension

How Geertz and others interpret the cockfight

Geertz:

Cockfighting is a metaphor of society

Fighting Cocks are symbols of masculinity, status, rivalry

Bets reflect kinship and honour

winners are believed to go to heaven, while losers are beloved to go to hell

Community tensions are expressed safely

Masculinity, honour, and status are all at stake

Dundes, Mead, Bateson ( Psychoanalytic perspective)

symbolic Castration

Homoerotic Duel

Unconscious Frustrations

Problems and solutions for Cockfighting

Interpretative approaches too focused on symbolism 

Neglect: 

Economic States ( Gambling, class) 

Political Contexts ( Colonial bans, modernization)

Gender ( male dominated, women excluded)   

Risk of “orientalism”

Can outsiders every truly capture insiders Meanings 

1980s -1990s: Reflexive Anthropology (Feminism, post colonialism crique) 

Non- exoticizing, Non-othering ethnography 

Applied Anthropology

A subdiscipline in Anthropology that specializes in putting anthropological knowledge into practice outside of academia.

Different people assign different meanings to events, objects, individuals, and emotions

Indigenous Issues

Regna Darnell and Julia Harrison (2006), scholars of the history of Canadian anthropology, have argued that although the growth of anthropology in Canada has been influenced by the French, British, and Americans scholarly traditions, one thing that marks the Canadian disciplinary tradition as distinct is the strong focus of Indigenous Peoples.

Edward Hedican conducts research in areas that the band themselves find useful, such as research that helps document validity of First Nations land claims

Legal Anthropology

A branch of Sociocultural Anthropology that involves the area of law and society and is sometimes called “ Legal Anthropology”

Medical Anthropology

A branch of anthropology draws upon social, cultural, biological, and linguistic anthropology to better understand those factors which influence health and wellbeing

Political Anthropology 

A field of study that “combines the concerns of ecology and a broadly defined political economy.”  

Corporate Anthropology

The relationship between consumerism , culture and taste ( In terms of cultural preferences for certain foods, clothing styles, or particular aestic trends)

Margert Meed

was a renowned cultural anthropologist, famous for her studies of Oceanic peoples, and known for popularizing anthropology by applying her research to contemporary American life and public issues like sex, child-rearing, women's rights, and race relations.

Methodology

An approach to systematically learn something

Typically promotes the use of specific ways to learn or gather data

Ethnographic Fieldwork

 A Research method in which sociocultural anthropologists have intensive, long term arrangements with a group of people 

Quantitative

What?

Measurement + Assessment

Big data

Qualitative

What, Why, How?

Exploration + Examination

Thick data

Participant Observation

The participant and observation of daily tasks within particular group

Rapport: A feeling of affinity, Friendship, And responsibility between an anthropologist an informant

Interviews

Informal: Spontaneous and unstructured ( Open- ended conversations), they are recorded with permission from the participant

Formal: Scheduled and structured to discuss predetermined topics, are recorded with the permission from the participant

Polyvocal Research: Hearing diverse voices by interviewing various different categories of people to get different perspectives

 Emic “insiders perspective”

Used cultural Relativism to understand the point of view of the informant 

Situate things within the culture we study 

Etic “ Outsiders perspective”

Uses comparative categories, explanations, and interpretations to analyze the situation

Allows us to better understand our findings and communicate them to a wider audience