Lecture notes - Introduction to Cultural Anthropology - complete PDF

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Introduction to Cultural Anthropology - complete...

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Anthropology Lecture Notes INTRO Anthropology -

Study of humans, their activities, ideas, technologies and works in general

Humans are looked at as -

Members of an animal species Products of biological evolution Subject to laws of genetics and nature

Language using, tool making, cultural and social animals with world views and varied customs/beliefs Five sub disciplines -

Physical – studies biological dimensions such as anatomy, physical (genetic) variations and biological evolution Archaeological – studies past through human remains Linguistics – study of human language Socio-cultural – study of recent human societies and cultures Applied – helps solve real world problems

Features of Anthropology -

Diachronic: study of changes in a culture over time Synchronic: description of a culture in one time period Holistic: any aspect of a culture is integrated with other aspects, no dimension can be understood in isolation Natural sciences, humanities, fine arts and social sciences War, conflict, gender, race, inequality, etc.

Assumptions of socio-cultural anthropology -

Cultural relativism: not to judge/rank but understand from their culture Comparative perspective: the insistence by anthropologists that valid hypotheses and theories about humanity be tested with information from a wide range of cultures Ethnocentrism: the attitude or opinion that the morals, values, and customs of one’s own culture are superior to those of other people Culture influences how people feel, perceive, behave, adapt Change in one idea usually leads to changes in another Every cultural system is logical/coherent Illogical/cruel customs and beliefs can be understood in context of that social organization Beliefs and intentions of people involved and also consequences

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Behavior is understood as a learned cultural pattern rather than inherited Enculturation: process of learning a culture

Culture -

Knowledge, belief, art, morals, laws, customs, etc. acquired by humans in a society

Concept of culture -

Learned behavior, attitude, perceptions Symbolic and linguistic processes Adaptive Passed on generation to generation

Opposing emphases in explaining culture -

Culture can be largely observed Culture is ideational – consists of ideas rather than behavior itself

Society -

Collection of people separated by language and culture or identity or political and economic background Framework for social action

Ethnography -

Study of a community and its way of life Description of a specific culture

Participant observation -

Live the way of life as the people

Methods within ethnography -

Area background and literature reviews Systematic observation Mapping and census taking Learning the language Genealogical collections Key informants Life history collections Ethnoscience Systematic interviewing

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Psychological or projective tests Collections Technical aids Field notes and field diaries Seasonal cycle issues

LANGUAGE Factors that contrast with other animal systems of communication -

Sematic universality: human language can convey info about things (real, actual, possible, imaginary) Semantic productivity: human language can produce an infinite number of messages Displacement: human languages can communicate an infinite amount of information Arbitraries: units of sound can vary arbitrarily (randomly) Duality of patterning: combination and recombination of arbitrary code units

Phonemes -

Minimal units of recognized contrasting sound (change one in a word context, change whole meaning)

Phonetic -

Study of raw sounds from which phonemes are derived

Allophones -

Acceptable phonetic alternatives to phonemes

Languages consist of a set of sounds that arbitrarily contrast with each other – phonemic system Morphemes -

Strings of phones that make up meaningful utterances Minimal unit of meaning Smallest unit which is grammatically significant

Free morphemes -

Stand on their own, can’t be divided

Bound morphemes -

Can’t stand on its own

Allomorphs

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Alternative version of morphemes

Inflected language -

Language with many bound morphemes attached to root/free morphemes

Chinese and Vietnamese – free morphemes Inuktitut – root and bound Chomsky’s theory of language -

Transformational linguistics Produce sentences we’ve heard before and create new ones Decipher instantly complex or ambiguous sentences with regard to meaning Hear sounds as distinct and broken, hear words and sentences as if they are phonetically the same Create sentences from incomplete utterances Person’s knowledge of languages and processes by which they speak is almost entirely hidden from their consciousness

Goals of transformational linguistics -

Analyze grammar of languages Account for creativity Find rules of grammar that link meaning to sound Find common conceptual structure or design common to all languages

Semantics -

How meaning is assigned to sentences

Phonology -

How sentences are mapped into sound

Syntax-key -

Links language to speech and vice versa

Sentences -

Made up of noun phrase and predicate phrase Noun phrase = determiner + noun Predicate phrase = verb phrase + potential auxillary Verb phrase = verb + noun phrase

Sapir whorf hypothesis

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Language shapes culture, behavior and cultural advancement Language a person speaks shapes their perceptions of reality and causes them to view the world in a certain way

SOCIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY Dimensions of cultural ecology -

Adaptation How they satisfy needs Sources in environment for sustenance Collection vs production Technology Behavior/knowledge skills Socially organized food quest Amount harvested in terms of energy Population supported and density Related to community and its size As related to other social connections As related to other institutions (ex. Child rearing, values, etc.)

Human environment relationships -

Hunting and gathering (smaller groups called bands) Agriculture Herding Industrialism

Hunters and gatherers -

Prehistory Distribution Importance Following characteristics o Division of labor based on age and sex o High mobility o o o o

Congregation and dispersal of groups, usually based on seasonal changes Small living groups or bands Reciprocal sharing Loose and flexible rights to the resources of a given territory

Technology and economy -

Labour

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Men’s work Women’s work Technology Skill and knowledge Productivity low but not precarious Mobility Health Cant control production and lacking storage Surplus give away Multiplex Leisured Material culture scant Transportation

Society -

Population density and community small Familiaristic Band – patrilineal – patrilocal Family level Flexible Microband Marriage Mutual cooperation and defence Affiliation flexible Politics and authority by age and sex Egalitiarian Conflict dealth with trhough fission Overall flexibility, adaptable, light impact, most successful

Tribal societies -

Food producing revolution and its radiation Population and community types Basis of tribal society – language, history, customs, etc. Social design Sedimentary tribes (stay in one place for an extended period), chiefdoms, paramount chiefdoms

Ecological types -

Horticultural – plant domestication Pastoral nomadism – tending of livestock that provides products Advanced hunting and gathering – collecting/gathering of wild plants; hunting animals; fishing Equestrian nomadism

State society -

Territory and citizenship Arise through intensification of agriculture Specialization of labor Social stratification Formalized legal principles An exploitive social economy base on differential power mechanisms Communities with kin and non-kin Rulers in the city Market economies and specialized regional economies Advanced forms of transport Bureaucracy, state religions Centralized regulating institutions Productive surplus leads to social surplus Differential access to land, resources, technology, wealth Class conflict Non producers supported through tax, rent, slavery, etc. Society organized through central systems involving the city Urbanism a way of life Money, math, writing Monumental architecture

Emergence of states -

Gradually and often as related to hydraulic hypothesis 6,000 years ago Mesapotamia, Egypt, indus Valley, China, Peru, Mexico Floodwaters of Tigris and Euphrates valleys God kings, wars, empires, arms and trade race, classes and slavery Some kin groups started to marry within Classes and castes States organized into empires to expand and protect Tribes organized into states Water for crops Lack of good stones Metals Trade and specialization Wars, social control, annual flood, cats, coins, police, armies

Peasants -

Major and significant sub-society of states

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Yet sort of a tribal people forced to participate in state society Big difference is that they do not control their own production Forced to supply surplus to support non-producers Bottom of social pyramid Run and support households Non oriented to run operations like capitalist farmers who operate for profit Many pressures Funds of allocations o Subsistence o Replacement – next year’s crop, plow, horses o Ceremonial o Taxation Cities important to peasants Source of the “great cultures” Strangers who live among them Dual society, dual culture Often illiterate rather than preliterate Often ambivalent attitudes toward the city Pessimistic image of the “limited good” May resent the city culture – rebellions and revolutions

Other dimensions of environmental adaptation of societal type -

Family farming in modern social contexts Corporate farming and plantations Other areas of primary production studied o Forestry, mining, agriculture Urban contexts studied as well o Urban cultures of poverty o Street corner groups o Gangs o Alcohol and drug subcultures o o o o

Neighbourhoods Middle class suburbs Factories and corporations Government agencies but not ruling elites because lack of access

KINSHIP AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION Kinship -

Mating, birth, parenthood, siblingship, extension of family Roles, rules, relationships

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Networks of people Significant part of a person’s identity

Incest taboo -

Prohibits marrying/mating close relatives defined by society Related to exogamy Cross cousins (opposite sex) and parallel cousins (same sex) Exceptions: Hawaiians, Incas, Egyptians Rules against sexual intercourse between relatives Science has demonstrated offspring of incestuous marriage have a higher chance of being deformed Four explanations for why there is a taboo o E.B. Tylor’s theory that you must marry out of your domestic group, or die out o “peace in the family” hypothesis: incest would lead to sexual rivalry and competition within the family unit o Avoiding inbreeding o Familiarity breeds disinterest

Explanations -

Genetic inbreeding Family conflict and guilt theory – Freud Repugnance or sexual aversion theory – Westermarch o Children who are closely connected at childhood are not sexually attracted to each other Demographic theory

Nuclear Family/George Murdock Theory -

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Family has: o Common residence o Economic cooperation o Reproduction Married couple with unmarried children form one kin group Live together, share wealth and property, rely on one another for emotional support, pool labor and resources Responsible for nurturing and enculturating their children Don’t always have to live in their own house, nuclear families (like in Asia) share houses

Types of familes -

Nuclear Polygamous Extended

Functions -

Controlling sexual desire Economic cooperation Reproduction Enculturation

Family of orientation -

Born into

Family of procreation -

Make

Objectives to Murdock’s formulation -

Kibbutz: husband and wife separate from children Nayar of india: women symbolically married to men, men takes on multiple partners, males have no economic responsibility Matrifocal families: women raise children on their own, no male present

Factors related to characteristics and function -

Common residence: family lives together in one home Economic cooperation: men and women have different economic responsibility

Alternative formulations -

Richard adams – dyads – maternal, adult, paternal Robin Fox – mother child bond

Conclusion -

Need for flexibility Not assume normative assumptions Other forms of organization

Biological Family -

Male + female = child

Social family -

Functioning social unit acting as a family

Kinship and Social Organization (Part II)

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Kinship o Mating, birth, parenthood, siblingship, extension of family o Involves roles, rules, and relationships that people have to recognized kin and sometimes even to deceased ancestors o Network of people and sometimes formal groupings o Significant part of people’s identity Networks of kindred: groups of related people Fictive kinship: kinship that is not defined solely by marriage or biology Relationships and statuses are often not directly translatable Can involve cooperating bonding groups based on various extensions of the Mother-child bond or father-offspring relationships Descent groups o Recruitment through kinship o Cognatic or bilateral groupings: related by birth o Unilineal descent  Lineage- larger than an extended family  Clan- unable to trace how they are related, but believe they are  Phratries and moieties  Patrilineal and matrilineal Patrilineage (father’s side) Matrilineage (mother’s side) Relationships o Among groups o Kinship terminology  Classificatory  Descriptive Marriage in cross-cultural perspective o Mate selection  Restricting the field of eligible  Endogamy: marrying within specific ethnic group, class, or social group  Exogamy: only allowed to marry outside social group Consanguine: related by birth Affine: related by marriage Purpose of marriage o Descent emphasis  Levirate: brother of deceased man is obliged to marry his brother’s widow  Sororate: husband engages in marriage/sexual relations with his wife’s sister o Alliance emphasis  Brideservice (service given to bride’s family as a bride-price), bridewealth (amount of money paid to kin of bride to ratify a marriage) Strengths of bridewealth

Check on behavior Compensates group that lost a woman Initiates a series of exchanges that are valuable among the groups – alliance If there are delays in payment in paying installments, wife may have subtle control over husband o Creates cooperative links within the groups because it is rare that any one person can afford the full price Relations with affines Divorce Types of marriage o Monogamy o Polygamy  Polyandry: woman has two or more husbands  Polygyny: man has two or more wives  Group marriage: three to six adults who are married as a group Residence rules o Neolocal: living away from wife and husband’s relatives o Matrilocal: residence with wife’s family o Patrilocal: residence with husband’s family Types of groups In society o Bond friendship o o o o

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2 persons of the same age and sex Based on friendship and recognition of mutual usefulness Like a partnership Could be relatively informal Recognition of economic assistance, cooperation, social advantages Found among East African pastoralists – bond friends can move cattle into the other’s camp when needed  May ask each other for assistance  Assist in disputes even among families  Valuable alternative to kinship  May be a burden to share with poorer relatives Ritual or fictive kinship  Co-parenthood  Couple agrees to sponsor a newborn child of a friend  Present at baptism and other rituals  Agree to take on responsibility for religious education and economic well-being of the children if later necessary  People often arrange with people of higher status  Useful to gain followership related to political power Age-grading      

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Age is a universal determiner of status and a way to divide people into groups Subordinate to other groups and ways of categorizing Our society age grading at lower end and upper end Age is extremely important in some societies and forms mechanism to determine group membership  These help to provide leadership, organize war and protect territory, and have economic and religious functions  Prominent with pastoralists of East Africa and a few Plains Indian groups  Karimojong  Age sets are central to community and political system  Each age set has a name and corporate identity  Two of the generation sets are fully formed and active at any given time  Adjacent sets see each other as fathers and sons  Junior sets: adult males who serve as warriors and police and heavy work  Continue to recruit until five sets are completed  Senior set: older males who act as judges, administrators, and family heads  Unitiated children take on their own set  4 generational sets cycling about in time  Seniors retire and juniors take over Associations based on sex  Widespread in New Guinea  Men’s huts and clubs  Reinforce male solidarity and dominance  Rival groups  Women excluded  Men married but live at men’s hut Warrior societies    

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 Plains Indians  Cross-cut kinship and band groups  Friendly rivalries  Take turns policing camp and managing collecting buffalo hunt  As well as serving military units Secret societies  Limited to a small number of eligibilities  Great deal of attention dedicated to protecting secrecy  Kawkiutl Cannibal society  Mystery and terror lead to enhanced social and political power  West African Poro society  Initiated through fear (bloody animal sacrifice)

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 Consequences if left or revealed secrets  Punish/kill those who break norm  Mau Mau in Kenya  Ku Klux Klan  Masons Voluntary Associations      

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Clubs Medicine or curing societies (Ojibwa) May cross sex lines May be special purpose or general function May become very important in times of change Tribal associations  Guide newcomers  Direct kinsman  Look after funeral arrangements, tribal ceremonies, educate children Significant for immigrants

Economic Anthropology -

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Production o Access to technology o Access to land/resources o Extraction o Work arrangements o Processing or manufacturing Exchange: goods and services go to producers and non-producers Factors of production o Primitive communism – Marx and Engels o Land and other property o Famialistic economies o Work o Household economies o Pace of work o Not alienated labor Peasants: peasants communalistic economies (Jajmani system) Exchange systems o Reciprocity (mutual or cooperative exchange)  Balanced  General  Negative o Redistribution (reducing inequalities in the distribution of wealth)  Surplus

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Money o o o o o o

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