Culture Lecture Notes PDF

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Culture What is culture? ● “Culture… is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” Sir Edward Tylor ○ Sir Edward Tylor ranked culture based on quality ■ Things such as religion, education, and political systems were used to rank cultures ● Anthropology and society go hand and hand and anthropology of a specific time reflects society’s views ● Culture is a learned, shared behavior Characteristics of Culture 1. Learned a. Culture is learned “acquired and transmitted” i.

Enculturation- the process of learning one’s culture while growing up in it

b. Through observation c. Culture is learned at different rates 2. Shared a. People share symbols of a culture among its societal members b. Enculturation helps us find unity via common experiences c. Similarities depend on whether there is constant communication within and between cultures d. Homogeneous i.

Cultural group shares most ideas, values, knowledge, behavior, artifacts, etc. ii. Typical of small cultural groups e. Heterogenous i. ii.

Cultural group that shares only a few components Typical of larger societies that contain many subcultures and larger populations

3. Symbolic a. Culture is learned and shared through a symbolic system that can be either verbal or nonverbal b. Meaning is ascribed to words, objects, people, behavior, emotions, and events

c. Most obvious symbolic system is language 4. Culture and Nature a. Culture defines how we deal with nature b. Eating c. Hygiene d. Medicines e. Natural disasters 5. Integrated a. All parts of culture are intermingled and create a pattern b. Economic, technological, ideological, kinship and political systems are interrelated c. Cultures tend to share a set of characteristics that tie other aspects of their culture together- core values 6. Adaptive and Maladaptive a. Reliance on social and cultural adaptation increased during human evolution b. Such cultural patterns as overconsumption and pollution appear to be maladaptive in the long run c. Air conditioning= adaptive but pollution=maladaptive 7. Dynamic a. Adaptive, divers, and cumulative b. Humans rely on cultural adaptation i.

A complex of idea, activities, and technologies that enables people to survive and even thrive in their environments

ii.

To survive, a culture must respond to change (caused by humans or environment) 1. Changes can be slow and unnoticed

iii.

Assimilation- A process of integration whereby members of an ethnocultural community are “absorbed” into another, generally larger, community

c. Universals i.

Tend to be based in biology and are shared by all peoples 1. Long period of infancy

ii.

Can be social

d. Generalities i.

Occur in some societies but not all 1. Nuclear family

e. Particularity i.

Foods, use of words, accent

Levels of Culture ● Culture ○ May hold same core values ● Subculture ○ A smaller insert ● Microculture ○ Even smaller subset of larger subcultural system...