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| Nature is a cultural construct. Culture is human nature. Human nature is learned through socialization and enculturation. What we do "naturally" is defined by what we have learned through our culture and our experiences with our culture. |
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| The "third eye." As an anthropologist, it's very important to take a step back and view the surrounding field situation objectivly. Malinowski's research was certainly very detailed, but it lacked the realization of his impact on the people and culture he was studying. |
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| A person related by either blood or marriage. All affines. |
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| Having many, but not all properties in common. Marriage cross-culturally will have some things in common, but not all. |
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| A married couple resides in or near the house of the wife's parents, and the girl children live in the house too. |
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| The practice of marrying into a particular social or religious or ethnic group alone. Ex. Hindu Caste system |
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| Emile Durkheim. The role that a particular institution plays in contributing to the cohesion of the society at large. The social glue of society. The rules and regulations that structures provide help to organize the relationships of the society. |
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| Analysis of a complex system with interrelated parts. Meaning is produced and reproduced in culture through various practices, phenomena, and activities which serve as systems of signification. Levi-Strauss examined many rituals such as mythology and kinship and food preparation. |
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| Race is a socially and culturally constructed concept. It is based purely on observable physical differences between people. |
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| How culture is passed from one culture to the next. The process by which we learn, accept, and adapt to the particular way of being human |
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| Emic - smallest unit of meaning, the native interpreation. Whereas Etic is the observation from outsiders, how that applies to the wordview. They way local people understand and explain the things they do is very different from how outsiders interpret it |
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| 1818-1881. He studying the culture of the Iroquois and he lived with them. He read Darwin and became fascinated with the evolution of humans and cultural diversity. He wanted to know if culture was an evolutionary scheme. Uni-linear anthropology. He argued tht alll human societies evolved through stages of savage, barbarianism, and civilization. They all have increasingly more complex modes of production. As the modes became more complex, so did the human society. |
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| The view perpetratred by Louis Henry Morgan in the 1800's. It's the idea that Western mode of society is the pinnacle and all other civilizations were on a lesser scale of civilized. |
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| Accoring to Louis Henry Morgan, different societies move through stages of savage, to barbarian, to civilized, each with an increase in the mode of production produced by the people. |
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| 1858-1917. Concept of social facts. Saw modern society as a problem, not a solution. He was interested in seeing how society could maintain its coherence when shared religion and ethnic background could no longer be assumed. Modern society had problems that didn't occur in primitive society, live divorce and suicide. He thought the aboriginal society was the most ideal life of society for face to face societies. |
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| Emile Durkheim. We come to know who we are through our interactions with other people. The social environment in which we find ourselves changes our behavior. Our personal identity is established in a social environment. |
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| Literature about ethnicity |
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| 1884-1942. Emphasized detailed participant observation and daily contact with group being studied. Argonauts of the Western Pacific. |
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| 1832-1917. Culture is everything we learn. The difference between culture and instinct: Culture is learned*, Instinct is something no one teaches you. |
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| Franz Boas. There are no cultures that are better or worse than others. There are just different ways of being human. Also believed by Edward Burnett Tylor |
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| Armchair anthtropology. "God forbdid" that he actually saw a savage. |
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| Some elements of cultural behavior |
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| When a language ceases to be spoken, a culture dies. Any attempt to explain social phenomena through individual behavior is wrong. |
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| 1872-1950. Gift giving and reciprocity. There is no such thing as a pure gift. All gift giving entails reciprocity and the idea that the person will repay the gift at some point in the future. |
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| A marriage of one man to several wives at the same time. Most common form on polygamy (multiple spouses). |
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| Sir Edward Evans Evans-Pritchard |
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| 1902-1973. Malinowski's student. The Nuer. It's not that people think differently, it's that people think about different things. Very anti-colonial. His research with the Nuer was only during the dry season and was very skewed and spread out. |
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| A system that associates a lineage with a specific animal species. |
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| E. E. Pritchard researched. Witchcraft beliefs. They believe that there is an inherited substance in the belly which sometimes subconsciously performs witchcraft or misdeeds among other people. Oracles are used to determine who bewitched you. "Mangu" - I've been bewitched. |
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| 1858-1942. Any attempt to explain culture by indivudual experience is wrong. Leading authority on the Eskimo, Inuit field work. First position of anthropology in the United States at Columbia University. Curator of the Natural Musuem of History. He emphasized culture over biology. Cultural Relativism.* |
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| There are as many status and roles as there are people to fill them. All people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities |
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| 1946-current. Incest taboo is a human universal. Familiarity breed disinterest. |
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| Incest taboo is a human universal. Argued that incest was not common early on because women died in childbirth and it was beneficial to engage in exogamy in order to improve knowledge and trade. Also, father/daughter incest is most common, but people didn't live as long back then so it simply wasn't possible. |
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| Major Marriage and Minor Marriage |
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| Arthur Wolf. Major: Arranged marriage but live as siblings. Minor: Arranged marriage but live separately and are perfect strangers until marriage day. Taiwan. Major has more kids and less divorce. |
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| E. E. Pritchard. Conflicts between the Nuer and the British - wanted nothing to do with the British and murdered officials. Acephalous - without a chief, abscence of formal political system. Cattle are very rarely slaughtered for food. 350 different names for colors of cows. Scar operation for manhood. Boy now called by the color of his new ox. Marriage is not legal without cattle exchange. Transhumance. Ecological Time. |
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| move wit the herds of the cattle to two very distinct environments depending on the ecological time of the year. |
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| Nuer had no abstract concept of time. Cyclic activity. Time = activity. Live through experience and activity. |
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| Believe they all come from a common ancestor. The closer related you are, the better. |
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