2020-Anth101-Progress, Civilization, Unilineal Cultural Evolution lecture notes week3 PDF

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2020-Anth101-Progress, Civilization, Unilineal Cultural Evolution lecture notes week3...

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Anth101- Introduction to Cultural Anthropology [Progress, Civilization, Unilineal Cultural Evolution] The Idea of "Progress" ● Ethnography - "A research in which the anthropologist closely observes, records, and engages in the daily life…" ● 19th Century "Armchair" and "Verandah" anthropologists ● Bronislaw Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, 1922 ○ Participant Observation ○ Writing style ○ Field notes-Journal ● In addition: ○ Rapport (Trust) ○ Ethics (Consent) ● "Imagine yourself suddenly set down surrounded by all your gear, alone on a tropical beach close to a native village, while the launch or dinghy which has brought you sails away out of sight." -Malinowski 1922:4 ● Other methods: ○ Interviews (Vs. casual conversations) ■ Directed ■ Open-ended ■ Life history ■ Oral history ○ Surveys ○ Archives ○ Key informants ○ Longitudinal research --> comparison research ○ Sounds recordings, photographs, videos Civilization ● What do we think of when you hear "civilization" or "civilized"? ○ Human development, do the have morals? ● Where do our ideas about "civilization" come from? ● Civilizing mission=colonizing=good ● How do they relate to the mission of Anthropology and cultural relativism? Myth of the Primitive ● Justifying colonization -->without sophistication ● Us vs. them (the other) --> strong sense of superiority

Unlineal Cultural Evolution ● Savagery --> Barbarianism --> Civilization ● Associated with the "armchair anthropologists" ● Moral connotation ● Key figures: Edward Burnett Tylor, Herbert Spencer, & Lewis Henry Morgan ● Progress is the idea hat change is good, that you are moving in a direction of improvement...