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Ant 101: Introduction To Anthropology

This lecture discusses the concept of culture according to anthropological definitions. It makes several key points in 3 or fewer sentences: Culture is learned and transmitted through social learning and symbols. It is shared within human groups and provides rules and meaning to guide behavior. Culture encompasses all aspects of human social life, from beliefs and values to practices and artifacts, and integrates these different components. While cultural traits can help human groups adapt, culture can also include maladaptive aspects that threaten group survival.

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Amina Matin
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39 views

Ant 101: Introduction To Anthropology

This lecture discusses the concept of culture according to anthropological definitions. It makes several key points in 3 or fewer sentences: Culture is learned and transmitted through social learning and symbols. It is shared within human groups and provides rules and meaning to guide behavior. Culture encompasses all aspects of human social life, from beliefs and values to practices and artifacts, and integrates these different components. While cultural traits can help human groups adapt, culture can also include maladaptive aspects that threaten group survival.

Uploaded by

Amina Matin
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ANT 101: INTRODUCTION TO ANTHROPOLOGY

Lecture 4: Concept of Culture

Dr. Bulbul Ashraf Siddiqi


Assistant Professor
Dept. of Political Science and Sociology
What Does it mean to be part
of one culture?
Omo Valley Tribes of Southern Ethiopia
Excited Hamar women blowing their horns and shouting taunts to the Maza men
who will whip them. Women regard the scars as a proof of devotion to their
husbands.
WHAT IS CULTURE?
 Culture . . . is that complex whole which includes knowledge,
belief, arts, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and
habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Tylor
1871/1958, p.1)
And Finally,
Culture is
subject to Culture is
change Learned

Culture can be
Adaptive/ mal Culture is
adaptive Symbolic
Culture

Culture is Culture is
Integrated Shared

Culture is All-
Encompassing
CULTURE IS LEARNED
 We learn culture experiencing new things
 Cultural learning depends on the unique human capacity of using symbols,
signs.
 On the basis of cultural learning, people create, remember, and deal with ideas.

 Learning is conscious and unconscious.

 Culture is transmitted through observation

 cultural learning is uniquely elaborated among humans and that all humans
have culture.
 “the psychic unity of man”:
 This means that although individuals differ in their emotional and intellectual
tendencies and capacities, all human populations have equivalent capacities for
culture.

 Regardless of their genes or their physical appearance, people can learn any cultural
tradition.
 Cultures have been characterized as sets of “control mechanisms—plans,
recipes, rules, instructions, what computer engineers call programs for the
governing of behaviour” (Geertz 1973, p. 44).
Enculturation
 The process by which culture is learned and transmitted
across the generations.

Norms and Values:


 Norms are the ideas members of a culture share about the
way things ought to be done. They are the rules of behaviour
that reflect and enforce culture. Norms seem to cluster
around certain identities, roles, or positions in society.
 Values are shared ideas about what is true, right, and
beautiful that underlie cultural patterns and guide society in
response to the physical and social environment. Value of
technology
CULTURE IS SYMBOLIC
Symbol
 Something, verbal or nonverbal, that stands for something else.
 Usuallylinguistic
 Concepts
 Images etc.

 . . . Culture consists of tools, implements, utensils, clothing,


ornaments, customs, institutions, beliefs, rituals, games, works of
art, language, etc. (White 1959, p. 3)

 For White, culture originated when our ancestors acquired the


ability to use symbols, that is, to originate and bestow meaning on a
thing or event, and, correspondingly, to grasp and appreciate such
meanings (White 1959, p. 3).
A Hindu boy with a shaved head, and a giant vase at a
Buddhist temple in Japan
20th Century fad: Fruit packaging, a Coca-Cola pendant,
and a pack of cards, all from the US
CULTURE IS SHARED
 Culture is not an individual phenomenon. Culture is
transmitted in society.

 Shared beliefs, values, memories, and expectations link


people who grow up in the same culture.

 Enculturation unifies people by providing us with


common experiences.
CULTURE AND NATURE
 Culture takes the natural biological urges we share with
other animals and teaches us how to express them in
particular ways.

 People have to eat, but culture teaches us what, when,


and how.

 Inventions: to take a control over ‘nature’


CULTURE IS ALL-ENCOMPASSING
 For anthropologists, culture includes much more than
refinement, taste, sophistication, education, and
appreciation of the fine arts. Not only college graduates
but all people are “cultured.”
 Culture, as defined anthropologically, encompasses
features that are sometimes regarded as trivial or
unworthy of serious study, such as “popular” culture.

 To understand contemporary North American culture, we


must consider television, fast-food restaurants, sports,
and games.
CULTURE IS INTEGRATED
 Cultures are not haphazard collections of customs and beliefs.

 Cultures are integrated, patterned systems. If one part of the system


(e.g., the economy) changes, other parts change as well.

 Cultures are integrated not simply by their dominant economic


activities and related social patterns but also by sets of values, ideas,
symbols, and judgments.

 Cultures train their individual members to share certain personality


traits. A set of characteristic central or core values (key, basic, or
central values) integrates each culture and helps distinguish it from
others.
During the 1950s, most American
women expected to have careers as
wives, mothers, and domestic
managers. As more and more women
have entered the workforce, attitudes
toward work and family have changed.

Nuclear expert and deputy director of ISIS


(Institute for Science and International
Security) Corey Hinderstein uses her office
in Washington, D.C., to monitor nuclear
activities all over the globe.

What do you imagine she will do when she gets home?


CULTURE CAN BE ADAPTIVE AND MALADAPTIVE

 Humans have both biological and cultural ways of coping


with environmental stresses. Besides our biological means
of adaptation, we also use “cultural adaptive kits,” which
contain customary activities and tools.

 Although humans continue to adapt biologically, reliance


on social and cultural means of adaptation has increased
during human evolution.

 Despite the crucial role of cultural adaptation in human


evolution, cultural traits, patterns, and inventions also can
be maladaptive, threatening the group’s continued
existence (survival and reproduction).
IS CULTURAL FEATURES ARE
UNIVERSAL, GENERALIZED OR
PARTICULAR?

 Universality:Certain biological, psychological,


social, and cultural features are universal, found
in every culture:
 Biological: Reproduction and sexuality
 Psychological: Common ways of thinking, feeling,
and processing information.
 Culture organises social life: marriage and family
exist in all societies. Existence of incest taboo
GENERALITY
 Culture pattern or trait that exists in some but not all
societies.
 Speaking in English.
 Colonial rule was very influential in introducing certain
cultural phenomenon in other societies.
 Independent invention of the same cultural trait or pattern in
two or more different cultures: for example ample farming.

PARTICULARITY: PATTERNS OF CULTURE


 Distinctive or unique culture trait, pattern, or integration.
LEVELS OF CULTURE

 National culture refers to those beliefs, learned


behaviour patterns, values, and institutions that are
shared by citizens of the same nation.
 International culture is the term for cultural traditions
that extend beyond and across national boundaries.
Because culture is transmitted through learning rather
than genetically, cultural traits can spread through
borrowing or diffusion from one group to another:
 Borrowing
 Colonialism
 Migration
 Multinational Organisation
 Subculture: Subcultures are different symbol-based
patterns and traditions associated with particular groups
in the same complex society.

 Nowadays, many anthropologists are reluctant to use the


term subculture. They feel that the prefix “sub-” is
offensive because it means “below.” “Subcultures” may
thus be perceived as “less than” or somehow inferior to a
dominant, elite, or national culture.

 What do you think?


How the world loved the swastika - until Hitler stole it
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29644591 , accessed 30.09.15

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