ANTH 102 Week 1.2 Lecture Notes

Reminders

  • Discussion board, general Q&A.

  • Opinion polls are due Saturday and Monday at midnight.

  • Syllabus quiz, due May 11 at midnight.

Today's Lecture

  • 1st hour

    • What is Anthropology?

    • What questions inform the discipline?

  • 2nd hour

    • Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism

    • Looking at the history of Anthropology

Key Questions

  • Why do human beings differ in their beliefs and behaviors?

  • How can people begin to understand beliefs and behaviors that are different from their own?

  • Is it possible to see the world through the eyes of others?

Learning Objectives

  • Define anthropology and its objectives.

  • Identify the four subfields of anthropology and describe the research associated with each.

  • Define culture and its characteristics.

  • Explain the significance of “making the strange familiar and the familiar strange.”

  • Describe the difference between ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.

  • Understand the historical and intellectual context in which anthropology took shape.

  • Explain the difference between armchair anthropology and moving “into the field.”

  • Know some of the key figures in this early history of anthropology.

Humans

  • Share basic biological and behavioral characteristics.

  • Exhibit tremendous variation around the globe.

  • Anthropology argues for the fundamental equality of all humans, while also trying to understand the immense diversity that characterizes human life.

Question 1

  • Why do human beings differ in their beliefs and behaviors?

What is Anthropology?

  • Anthropology is a search for what it means to be human and a documentation of human life and possibility.

    • Holistic: Taking all aspects of human existence into consideration.

    • Comparative: Using comparison to learn what humans have in common, how we differ, and how we change.

    • What is universal?

    • What is particular to a certain culture?

The Four Fields of Anthropology

  • Cultural Anthropology

    • The study of cultures and societies of human beings and their very recent past.

    • Traditional cultural anthropologists study living cultures and present their observations in an ethnography.

  • Archaeology

    • The study of past societies and their cultures, especially the material remains of the past, such as tools, food remains, and places where people lived.

  • Linguistic Anthropology

    • The study of language, especially how language is structured, the evolution of language, and the social and cultural contexts for language.

  • Physical Anthropology

    • Also called biological anthropology, physical anthropology is the study of human evolution and variation, both past and current.

Socio-Cultural Anthropology

  • Focuses on the social lives of living communities.

  • Prior to the 1970s, it focused primarily on non-Western communities.

  • Today, socio-cultural anthropologists study the ethnic groups, occupations, institutions, advertising, or technology of their own cultures as well.

Linguistic Anthropology

  • Studies language as a defining trait of human beings and explores the complexity of human communication.

  • For example, it studies:

    • How people communicate through spoken language, nonverbal interaction, or material practices.

    • How language shapes group membership and identity.

    • How people order their natural and cultural environments using linguistic categories.

Question 2

  • How can people begin to understand beliefs and behaviors that are different from their own?

What is Culture?

  • Culture is a set of beliefs, practices, and symbols that are learned and shared.

  • Together, they form an all-encompassing, integrated whole that binds people together and shapes their worldview and lifeways.

  • Culture is collectively the things that we take for granted.

  • In anthropology, the term “culture” refers to those taken-for-granted notions, rules, moralities, and behaviors within a social group that feel natural and like “the way things should be.”

  • Culture is:

    • Shared

    • Learned

    • Integrated

    • Symbolic

    • Not static; it changes

Question 3

  • Is it possible to see the world through the eyes of others?

Body Rituals Among the Nacirema

  • Details "rituals" used by a tribe that Miner describes as living between Canada and Mexico.

  • Discusses rituals people in this "tribe" use, including their obsession with the mouth and body.

  • What did you find most interesting, or most challenging about this group?

  • Would you want to live among this group for a year?

Who are the Nacirema?

  • American spelled backward

  • Originated by a culture hero, Notgnihsaw (Washington spelled backwards)

  • This exercise demonstrates that our own culture, when viewed from a foreign and slightly ethnocentric perspective, can seem barbaric and savage.

  • The point of this piece is an illustration of ethnocentrism vs. cultural relativism.

  • We need to approach the practices and beliefs of other peoples with sympathy and not apply our own beliefs and values as the standard for evaluation and understanding.

  • Cultural relativism: Is it possible to see the world through the eyes of others?

Definitions

  • Ethnocentrism:

    • The tendency to judge the beliefs and behaviors of other cultures from the perspective of one’s own culture.

  • Cultural Relativism:

    • The attempt to understand the beliefs and behaviors of other cultures in terms of the culture and context in which they are found.

  • Quote:

    • “Relativism… argues for engagement, for dialogue between cultures. This is not the kind of easy cosmopolitanism that implies enormous privilege – the capacity for example to spend three days in the Bali Hilton. It’s a deeper form of knowing that entails some recognition that I am one among others. I’m not the center of the universe.” - Renato Rosaldo (2008)

  • So… Anything Goes?

    • To understand is not to forgive.

    • Just because you come to terms with how something works in another culture doesn't mean you have to agree with it; it means you have to engage it.

  • Know that:

    • The anthropological perspective on the human condition is not easy to maintain.

    • It forces people to question the common-sense assumptions with which they are most comfortable.

    • Develop a form of empathy.

    • Keep questions of ethnocentrism and cultural relativism in mind when doing readings for this course.

Anthropology's Beginnings

  • Explorers, Stories, and “The Other”

  • History:

    • Sixteenth until mid-twentieth century: “The Age of Exploration”

    • Travelers and explorers returned with stories of seemingly “strange” people in faraway places – “the Other.”

    • A time of Cultural Imperialism and Colonialism.

    • The age of Enlightenment (late 18th century):

      • Desire to explain reality in terms of “natural laws” rather than religion.

      • Anthropology tried to offer scientific explanations for human diversity.

Armchair Anthropology

  • Involves the collection, study, and analysis of writings by missionaries, explorers, and colonizers.

  • Made comparisons between and generalizations about the lifeways of various groups in order to hierarchize them.

  • Armchair Anthropology was focused on:

    • Culture rather than cultures.

    • Comparison and hierarchy.

    • Cultural or Unilinear evolution.

Cultural or Unilinear Evolution

  • Main Idea:

    • All societies need to pass through different stages of social evolution.

    • Different societies represent different evolutionary stages.

    • These stages were labeled as (for example) savagery, barbarism, and civilization.

  • Evolutionary Thinking was Ethnocentric because:

    • European society was always considered to be the most advanced stage of evolution.

    • Living societies that had not (yet) reached this level were viewed as primitive relics of Europe’s past.

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

  • Came up with theories and "laws" regarding the evolution of society.

  • Argued that just as organisms evolve from simple to complex, so do societies.

  • Coined the term "survival of the fittest” after reading Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.

  • Suggested that “uncivilized” races living today were comparable to the ancestors of “civilized” races (i.e., Europeans).

Moving From the Armchair Into the Field

  • Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942)

    • Polish ethnographer, stranded on the Trobriand Islands.

    • Emphasized the importance of long-term fieldwork and participant observation.

    • What does that entail?

      • Living among people and observing their daily interactions.

      • Understand what they do from the “native’s point of view.”

    • The result of this fieldwork is ethnography:

      • The firsthand, intensive, and systematic exploration of a specific culture.

Malinowski as Forward-Thinking?

  • Malinowski believed that:

    • Cultural practices must be understood in their context.

    • Non-western peoples are just as reasonable, just as empirically driven, just as creative as their western counterparts, and their worlds are just as culturally rich.

    • Ethnographers must engage in the everyday life of the people they study.

  • He made this argument in a milieu of an era of high colonialism and evolutionism, making it original and even radical for his time.

American Anthro

  • Franz Boas (1858-1942)

    • Born in Germany but moved to the US.

    • Cultures can only be understood through extensive, in-person research.

    • Cultural ideas and practices are perfectly adapted to the natural environment and thus not innate or biological, nor inferior.

    • Cultural Relativism:

      • All populations have an equally developed culture.

      • Differences result from historical, social, and geographic conditions.

Thinking Critically About Anthro's Past

  • Old, white men?

  • Work facilitated and funded by colonial governments.

  • Data used to better control populations.

  • Boas:

    • Accused of salvage anthropology.

    • Criticized for work with Indigenous communities.

  • What voices are missing in this history?

  • How should we approach this legacy today?

  • Can we teach anthropology’s history differently?

  • Who tells your story?

  • Who defines your culture, and in what ways are power and positionality at play?

Key Moments in the History of Anthropology

  • 16th-19th Century:

    • Age of Exploration & Colonialism: Encounters with 'the Other'.

    • Ethnocentric travel & missionary reports

  • Late 19th Century:

    • Armchair Anthropology.

    • Cultural Evolutionism (Herbert Spencer).

    • Ranking of societies.

  • Early 20th Century:

    • Birth of Fieldwork: Malinowski (Participant Observation).

    • Boas: Cultural Relativism & Four-Field Approach.

  • Mid-20th Century:

    • Expansion of Fieldwork & Theories (Structuralism, Functionalism).

    • Critiques of Colonialism emerging more strongly.

  • Late 20th-21st Century:

    • Postcolonial Critiques & Reflexive Anthropology.

    • Indigenous & Global South scholars challenge canon.

    • Decolonizing anthropology; ethics & collaboration.

Key Terms

  • Culture

  • Holism

  • Comparative

  • Four subfields

  • Ethnocentrism and cultural relativism

  • Cultural imperialism

  • The Other

  • Cultural or unilinear evolution

  • Armchair anthropology

  • Participant observation

  • Native’s point of view

  • Spencer, Malinowski, Boas