Week 1 ANTH260 What is Anthropology What is Culture Anthropology 4 fields Socio Cultural Cultural Anthropology Study of human culture Archaeology The study of human cultural past Phsyical Biological Anthropology Linguistics The study of human language Socio Cultural Cultural Anthropology The study of human physical variation past and present The interest in what constitutes culture and community is ancient Relatively young as it is practiced today o Early 1900s first anthropologists For Good and For Evil Investment in discovering human diversity and difference often came form desires to validate oppression and destruction o Genocide o Human enslavement o Create of R race o Human suffering and neglect Culture Edward Tylor That complex whole which includes knowledge belief art morals law custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society Independent invention inheritance from ancestors in a distant region transmission from one race to another How we get culture is much more complicated How do we study culture Ethnography o Qualitative information about a culture or group Participant Observation o Learn about a culture through active engagement o Tylor was an armchair anthropologist theorized about human culture by reading about it NACIREMA Who are they What do they do What are their body rituals What does their culture tell us about anthropological inquiry Franz Boas American German born anthropologist o Late 1800s early 1990s Cultural Relativism Considered one of the major founders of how present day anthropology is practiced o Four field o Cultural relativism o Rejection of biological race and cultural evolution Lewis Henry Morgan Cultural Evolution Inventions and discoveries Idea of government Organization of the family The concept of property Why is this a problem Promotes master culture How do we get culture According to Morgan and Tylor Independent invention inheritance from ancestors in a distant region transmission from one race to another According to Boasian tradition Learned and shared enculturation Something we DO not something we HAVE How Does Culture Function Helps us make sense of the world around us tacit versus explicit what we do vs what we think Common sense cultural elements versus more self evident How do we qualify either Who has what knowledge Key Terms Ethnocentrism Informant The belief and feeling that one s own culture is superior Almost any individual who has acquired a repertoire of cultural behavior Na ve realism Universalism Everybody is the same everywhere Ethnography Cultural relativism Process of discovering and describing a particular culture What is good What is bad relative and context specific