Click to edit Master title style Cultural Anthropology, 7E Chapter 1 Culture and Meaning 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style How can people begin to understand beliefs and behaviors that are different from their own? Problem 1 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style Cultural anthropology strives to look beyond the world of everyday experiences to discover patterns and meanings that lie behind that world Example the classroom chair: For the cultural anthropologist, the classroom chair tells some interesting tales and poses some interesting questions Why do we have classroom chairs? Why does the classroom chair take the form it does? Why dont we sit on stools? Introduction 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style Example the classroom chair: An anthropologist might suggest: The classroom chair and desk are part of the political anatomy of educational settings, part of the system of relations that gives meaning to the classroom This piece of furniture forms the body into a shape that prepares it to attend to a teacher and not to others in the same room Introduction 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style 1.1 Why do human beings differ in their beliefs and behaviors? 1.2 How do people judge the beliefs and behaviors of others? 1.3 Is it possible to see the world through the eyes of others? 1.4 How can the meanings that others find in experience be interpreted and described? 1.5 What can learning about other people tell Americans about themselves? Questions 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style From an anthropological perspective, members of a society view the world in a similar way because they share the same culture Example: Views of death vary among cultures: Death is the passage from one world to another. Death is the final event of a life span. Death is part of a never-ending cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. 1.1 Why Do Human Beings Differ in their Beliefs and Behaviors? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style Culture: the meaning that people give to things, events, activities, and people 1.1 Why Do Human Beings Differ in their Beliefs and Behaviors? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style Grief is suppressed in some culture and openly displayed in others. Here, bereaved relatives weep over the body of a 40-year- old kinsman slain in clashes between police and armed civilians in Moldova in Why Do Human Beings Differ in their Beliefs and Behaviors? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style Kwakiutl View of Death The Kwakiutl of British Columbia believe that when a person dies, their soul enters the body of a salmon. When a salmon is caught and eaten, a soul is released and is free to enter another person. 1.1 Why Do Human Beings Differ in their Beliefs and Behaviors? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style Cultural Views of Death The Dani of New Guinea, require a close female relative of a recently deceased person to sacrifice a part of a finger. In southern Europe, widows were required to shave their heads, whereas in traditional India, widows were cremated at their husbands funerals. 1.1 Why Do Human Beings Differ in their Beliefs and Behaviors? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style Defining Culture Human beings are cultural animals; all facets of their livesdeath, birth, courtship, mating, food acquisition and consumptionare suffused with meaning. Differences in culture arise when different groups of human beings create, share, and participate in different realities, assigning different meanings to death, birth, marriage, and food. 1.1 Why Do Human Beings Differ in their Beliefs and Behaviors? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style Clifford Geertz Suggests that without meanings to help us comprehend and impose an order on the universe, the world would seem a jumble, "a chaos of pointless acts and exploding emotions." 1.1 Why Do Human Beings Differ in their Beliefs and Behaviors? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style The ceremonial attire worn by this Hove villager in Papua New Guinea conveys beauty and meaning to the members of this tribe, to whom modern American fashions might seem odd. 1.2 How Do People Judge the Beliefs and Behaviors of Others? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style The Ethnocentric Fallacy and the Relativist Fallacy The ethnocentric fallacy is the idea that our beliefs and behaviors are right and true, but those of other cultures are wrong or misguided. Cultural anthropologists have long fought against ethnocentrism. 1.2 How Do People Judge the Beliefs and Behaviors of Others? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style The Ethnocentric Fallacy and the Relativist Fallacy The alternative to ethnocentrism - relativism is equally problematic. Relativism holds that no behavior or belief can be judged to be odd or wrong simply because it is different from our own. Instead, we must try to understand a culture on its own terms, and to understand behaviors or beliefs in terms of the purpose, function, or meaning they have. 1.2 How Do People Judge the Beliefs and Behaviors of Others? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style Virginity Testing in Turkey & Cannibalism Among the Wari Is it wrong to impose virginity tests on young women if you believe that once she has sexual relations with a man, she can have his child at any time in the future? Is it right to condemn cannibalism if it serves to help people deal with their grief? 1.2 How Do People Judge the Beliefs and Behaviors of Others? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style Virginity Testing in Turkey & Cannibalism Among the Wari (cont.) While early modern Europeans condemned cannibalism and justified enslaving people who they claimed practiced it, Europeans themselves prescribed the consumption of human body parts and blood, particularly of those who died violently, as a cure for various afflictions. 1.2 How Do People Judge the Beliefs and Behaviors of Others? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style Objectivity and Morality Anthropologists may face the dilemma of either maintaining a moral distance from the objects of their studies (remaining objective), or becoming actively involved in criticizing behavior or beliefs they encounter (such as genital mutilation). Scheper-Hughes proposes a more humanitarian anthropology one that is concerned with how people treat one another. 1.2 How Do People Judge the Beliefs and Behaviors of Others? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style The Embarrassed Anthropologist The unique feature of cultural anthropology is the application of the ethnographic method the immersion of investigators in the lives of the people they are trying to understand This process utilizes the techniques of anthropological fieldwork, which requires participant observation the active participation of observers in the lives of their subjects. 1.3 Is it Possible to See the World Through the Eyes of Others? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style The Embarrassed Anthropologist Awkwardness and embarrassment are a part of fieldwork and a part of the process through which the fieldworker learns about another culture. Example: Richard Scaglion spent a year wit the Albelam of Papua New Guinea, participating in a pig hunt, not as the men did, but as the women and children did, driving the pigs into the nets, because, the men explained, no one makes as much noise in the jungle as you. 1.3 Is it Possible to See the World Through the Eyes of Others? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style Confronting Witchcraft in Mexico An anthropologists experience led to his questioning his scientific view of the world when he experienced the terror that came with the Ixtepajanos worldview of witchcraft and magic. The Endangered Anthropologist The risk of injury, disease, or hostile reactions has always been a feature of anthropological fieldwork. 1.3 Is it Possible to See the World Through the Eyes of Others? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style Consider Sherlock Holmes assessment of the watch of Watsons dead brother, and what he was able to extrapolate from its condition. That watch was a product of Western society, and Holmes read the watch as a cultural text that revealed the character of its owner. One way to think about culture is as a text of significant symbols: words, gestures, drawings, natural objects anything that carries meaning. To understand another culture we must decipher it. 1.4 How Can the Meanings That Others Find in Experience Be Interpreted & Described? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style Deciphering the Balinese Cockfight In Balinese society, cockfighting is a major sporting event that is closely tied to cultural interpretations of manhood, competition, and status. 1.4 How Can the Meanings That Others Find in Experience Be Interpreted & Described? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style Anthropologists apply the same concepts and techniques used to understand & interpret other cultures to understand & interpret their own. A Balinese Anthropologist Studies Football As a Balinese, your first reaction to this American sport might be one of horror and revulsion at seeing men violently attaching each other while others cheer them on U.S. football conveys cultural messages about success 1.5 What Can Learning About Other Peoples Tell Americans About Themselves? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style An Anthropologist Looks at a Happy Meal What can you deduce about the following dimensions of life in the United States from a Happy Meal? 1. What can you say about gender roles? 2. What can you deduce about race relations? 3. What can you say about the physical attributes of people favored in the U.S? 1.5 What Can Learning About Other Peoples Tell Americans About Themselves? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style Case Study: Shopping and Selling Retail anthropologist Paco Underhill founded Envirosell to work with merchants and retailers on meeting customers shopping needs. The single most important determinant of shoppers opinions of service they receive is waiting time. 1.5 What Can Learning About Other Peoples Tell Americans About Themselves? 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use. Click to edit Master title style What American customs and traditions might seem strange to people of other cultures? Why? Discussion Question: 2017 Cengage Learning May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in whole or in part, except for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website or school-approved learning management system for classroom use.