Culture
What are the 4 subfields of anthropology and what do each of them do?
-Biological / physical anthropology - the study of human genetic origins, evolution, and variation
-Archaeology – the study of the material evidence left by peoples of the past.
-Linguistic anthropology – the study of human’s symbolic communication and meaning
-Cultural anthropology – the study of human ideas and practices
How does language shape reality?
•Benjamin Lee Whorf and his colleague Edward Sapir argued that words and grammatical structure actually shape one’s reality.
•People can think about only those things that their language can describe or express.
•Without the words or structures with which to articulate a concept, that concept will not occur.
What is armchair anthropology, and what are the problems associated with this kind of study?
-studying other cultures from a far
-relies on other people's accounts rather than on conducting fieldwork
-early armchair anthropologists relied on accounts from travelers, traders, missionaries, colonial government officials, and novelists
-gives the anthropologist a biased perspective shaped by the positionalities of these people
-eg. A missionary's goal is to convert people. As a result, early accounts from missionaries were full of unscientific language and religious interpretations of what they were seeing.
Define the term reification and explain how the concept of race has been reified throughout history.
From page 208 in the textbook.
"One of the biggest reasons so many people continue to believe in the existence of biological human races is that the idea has been intensively reified in literature, the media, and culture for more than three hundred years. Reification refers to the process in which an inaccurate concept or idea is so heavily promoted and circulated among people that it begins to take on a life of its own. Over centuries, the notion of biological human races became ingrained—unquestioned, accepted, and regarded as a concrete “truth.”"
What are roles and statuses?
A status is any culturally-designated position a person occupies in a particular setting. Within the setting of a family, many statuses can exist such as “father,” “mother,” “maternal grandparent,” and “younger brother.”
Role is the set of behaviors expected of an individual who occupies a particular status.
Give 3 examples of how people may accept, resist or negotiate the cultural systems they are a part of.
eg. accepting a family role, work expectations, gender expectations.
eg. a student walking into a classroom and sitting in the desk facing the wrong direction.
eg. localized McDonald's menus that reflect local tastes
What are three linguistic processes that can lead to language change
•Settlement patterns – bring new dialects to areas or creating new dialects
•Migration routes – can establish dialects boundaries
•Geographical factors – can isolate or expose dialects
•Language contact – can borrow/give words, pronunciations, syntax, meanings, etc.
•Region and occupation
•Social class
•Group reference – language can reference group identity, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, etc.
What are emic and etic perspectives? What are the strengths of each? Give examples.
■Etic – from the perspective of the observer or outsider. Descriptions that typically arise from the ethnographer and the anthropological community.
■Tend to be based on science and are informed by historical, political, and economic studies and other types of research.
■The etic approach acknowledges that members of a culture are unlikely to view the things they do as noteworthy or unusual.
■They cannot easily stand back and view their own behavior objectively or from another perspective
■But, if we know the broader context, we can more easily identify larger patterns of cultural beliefs and practices.
■Eg. Hurston’s friends can’t understand why their folk tales would be of any interest to anyone.
■The townspeople dismiss them as “lies” – however, the anthropologist, equipped with a theoretical perspective, might attribute some significance to these stories that the people telling them are unaware of.
■Emic – trying to obtain the perspective of the studied culture. Descriptions of behaviors and beliefs in terms that are meaningful to people who belong to the culture. – how people perceive and categorize their culture and experiences, what motivates them, excites them, etc.
■>this way you adopt their common sense/their way of representing the world/their way of knowing
■allows people to give their own narratives, tell their own story > gives them agency in creating their own histories.
■and, if we know what motivates people, why they do the things they do, it contextualizes what we as outsiders might not understand. Breaks down misconceptions and judgments.
■helps us avoid interpreting others according to our own beliefs.
What does cline refer to, and how does this help us understand the physical human variation that we see?
From page 210 in the textbook
"Physical anthropologists use the term cline to refer to differences in the traits that occur in populations across a geographical area. In a cline, a trait may be more common in one geographical area than another, but the variation is gradual and continuous with no sharp breaks. A prominent example of clinal variation among humans is skin color. Think of it this way: Do all “white” persons who you know actually share the same skin complexion? Likewise, do all “black” persons who you know share an identical skin complexion? The answer, obviously, is no, since human skin color does not occur in just 3, 5, or even 50 shades. The reality is that human skin color, as a continuous trait, exists as a spectrum from very light to very dark with every possible hue, shade, and tone in between."
What are the strengths and weaknesses of kinship terminology systems and lineage diagrams?
-Different lineage systems lead to different conceptualizations of who is family and who is not
-Decides how inheritance/land/property/housing is allocated.
-shows us what kind of forces hold people together.
-shows us cultural expectations and if/how people negotiate these expectations
-illuminates people’s economic motivations for marriage
-can show us how/when/why systems change.
eg. changes in family size, the prevalence of divorce, increased number of unmarried adults due to economic pressures, urbanization, migration, etc.
-ignores all the "intimate facts of kinship" (think the Lion King diagram). We don't see all the drama, the long intimate moments of daily life, personal interests, etc.
-We have to be careful about the ethnocentric assumptions of these theories.
-We can’t forget that variation and change are possible.
What is structural functionalism, and what are the strengths and weaknesses of this school of thought?
-cultures/societies should be thought of as organic wholes
-Each aspect of society (kinship, religious, political, and economic structures) fits together and has a unique function within the larger structure.
-Like a living organism, a society works to maintain an internal balance, or equilibrium, that keeps the system working
-Helps us see the boundedness of social structures/institutions
-However, seems to take agency away from people
-Is it deduced by anything observable or is it assumed by pure analogy alone?
-Assumes that our behaviors are biologically structured.
-ignores change, outside influence, history, etc.
Define code-switching and give an example of a time when you have code-switched.
•Code-switching – the use of several language varieties in a particular interaction or in different cultural contexts.
•Using one dialect or set of linguistic codes when speaking with your parents vs when you are speaking with your friends.
•Using different codes when speaking to different races.
•Shows how language is not as rigidly structured as Saussure hypothesized but is quite complex and subject to individual volition, cognition, desire, etc.
Discuss some of the ethical considerations of representing other cultures.
■The relationships we have with our subjects are necessarily defined by unequal power dynamics
■We are the mediators between the reader and our subjects.
■Because of the academic nature of our work, it is given great authority and wide distribution
■As such, we have a duty to represent them fairly and accurately.
Discuss what anthropologists mean when they say that race is socially constructed and explain how it is socially constructed in different contexts, giving three examples.
Omi and Winant argue that racial categories are culturally defined; they can vary from one society to another and change over time - racial formation.
This is because race is a sociohistorical concept – racial categories and the meaning of race are given concrete expression by the specific social relations and historical contexts in which they are embedded
The idea of race becomes a useful category for achieving certain political and economic ends
eg.
US - hypodescent: a socially constructed racial classification system in which a person of mixed racial heritage is automatically categorized as a member of the less (or least) privileged group.21
Brazil - tipos: Rather than describing what is believed to be a person’s biological or genetic ancestry, tipos describe slight but noticeable differences in physical appearance.
Brazilians perceive race based on phenotypes or outward physical appearance rather than as an extension of geographically based biological and genetic descent. Individual members of a family can be seen as different tipos.
Japan - burakumin: The burakumin are a socially stigmatized and outcast group. They are descendants of people who worked dirty, low-prestige jobs.
Identify the differences between kinship established by "blood", by marriage, and by choice.
-Kinship is the general way of talking about relatedness.
-Kinship can be by “blood” connections – consanguineal
-Or through marriage ties – affinal
-Kinship can also include “chosen kin” – no formal blood or marriage ties but for practical purposes, function as family.
Eg. adoption, godparents, brotherhoods/sisterhoods, etc.
Define cultural relativism and ethnocentricism
-cultural relativism – the idea that cultures should be considered on their own terms. We ought to reserve our judgments about other people and not assume that our own ways are better than others'
-ethnocentrism - the tendency to view one’s own culture as most important and correct and as the stick by which to measure all other cultures.
Define Kinesics, proxemics, and paralanguage and give examples of each.
•Kinesics – all forms of body language. Eg. gestures, body position and movement, facial expressions, and eye contact.
•Paralanguage – characteristics of speech beyond the actual words spoken. Eg. pitch, loudness, tempo, duration, etc. Through paralanguage, we can convey meaning. Eg. questions, sarcasm, defiance, surprise, confidence, impatience, etc.
•Proxemics – the social use of space. Think about the socially acceptable distance we are supposed to maintain when we talk to people. This varies from culture to culture, and varies based on the status of the individuals, their gender, age, personal motivations/attitudes/volitions, etc.
What are some ways to give fairer representations of other cultures?
■Ways to give fair representations:
■>polyvocality – giving representation to more than one person’s voice or directly quoting instead of paraphrasing.
■>reflexivity – acknowledging one’s position in their research. How one’s background can affect their interpretations.
Explain what is meant by racial formation, hypodescent, and the one-drop rule.
•A racial classification system in which a person of mixed racial heritage is automatically categorized as a member of the less (or least) privileged group.
•Eg. a child born of a black parent and a white parent would automatically be considered to be black (legally or socially)
What do the residence patterns of the Nayar of Southern India tell us about the "naturalness" of the nuclear family?
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Nayar men and women did not live together after marriage because the husbands, who were not part of the matrilineage, were not considered relatives. Women lived for their entire lives in extended family homes with their mothers and siblings. The male siblings in the household had the social role of father and were important father figures in the lives of their sisters’ children. The biological fathers of the children had only a limited role in their lives. Instead, these men were busy raising their own sisters’ children.
There is strong ethnographic evidence that shows varying ideas of what a basic family relationship is.
Kinship groups come in a variety of shapes and sizes
Kinship can be selected based on biological connections, can be made through marriage, or can be selected as through adoption and fostering.
The mother-father-child triad is not necessarily the most "natural" or most common.
Even in the United States, the ideal of the nuclear family is unrealized.
How is culture defined and what are it's 6 key characteristics?
Characteristics of 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 groups of people together and shapes their worldview and lifeways. Additionally:
2. Culture changes in response to both internal and external factors.
3. Humans are not bound by culture; they have the capacity to conform to it or not, and sometimes change it.
4. Culture is symbolic; individuals create and share the meanings of symbols within their group or society.
5. The degree to which humans rely on culture distinguishes us from other animals and shaped our evolution.
6. Human culture and biology are interrelated: Our biology, growth, and development are impacted by culture.
What do anthropologists mean when they say that language systems are symbolic and arbitrary?
(from page 71 in the textbook)
All human languages are symbolic systems that make use of symbols to convey meaning. A symbol is anything that serves to refer to something else, but has a meaning that cannot be guessed because there is no obvious connection between the symbol and its referent. This feature of human language is called arbitrariness. For example, many cultures assign meanings to certain colors, but the meaning for a particular color may be completely different from one culture to another. Western cultures like the United States use the color black to represent death, but in China it is the color white that symbolizes death. White in the United States symbolizes purity and is used for brides’ dresses, but no Chinese woman would ever wear white to her wedding. Instead, she usually wears red, the color of good luck. Words in languages are symbolic in the same way. The word key in English is pronounced exactly the same as the word qui in French, meaning “who,” and ki in Japanese, meaning “tree.” One must learn the language in order to know what any word means.
What was Zora Neale-Hurston looking for when she went to Eatonville Florida? What did she find? What does this tell us?
Was looking for "folklore". However, when she arrived, she found that the people of Eatonville didn't believe they were telling folklore. They believed they were just telling 'lies'. Shows us that our terms can only tell us so much about the aims and motivations of our subjects.
Why does it appear that certain races dominate certain sports?
From page 224 in the textbook
A variety of factors, including cultural affinities and preferences, social access and opportunities, existence of a societal infrastructure that supports youth participation and development in particular sports, and the degree of prestige assigned to various sports by nations, cultures, and ethnic communities, all play significant roles in influencing the concentration of social and/or ethnic groups in particular sports. It is not a matter of individual or group skills or talents; important socio-economic dimensions shape who participates in a sport and who excels.
Explain how different patterns of kinship and marriage represent rational decisions within cultural contexts, giving an example.
Goldstein and others argue that polyandry is economically advantageous.
-allows brothers to hold on to their family land rather than split it
-allows brothers to pool income
-wife can be assured that her children will be provided for
-Overall, ensures a higher standard of living