CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

THEORY

Anthropology & Theory

As anthropologists began to accumulate data on

different cultures during the mid-nineteenth century, they needed to be able to explain the cultural differences and similarities they found
The desire to account for the vast cultural variation

that had been observed gave rise to anthropological theory.

Anthropology & Theory

Anthropological theories attempt to answer

questions such as Why do people behave as they do? and How do we account for human diversity?

evolutionism
In an attempt to account for

the diversity of human cultures, the first anthropologists, writing during the last half of the 19th century suggested the theory of cultural evolutionism.

evolutionism
All societies pass through a series of distinct

evolutionary stages. We find differences in contemporary cultures because they are at different evolutionary stages of development.

evolutionism
Edward Tylor

Lewis Henry Morgan

Evolutionism
Euro-American cultures were at

the top of the evolutionary ladder and less-developed cultures on the lower rungs.
The evolutionary process was

thought to progress from simpler (lower) forms to increasingly more complex (higher) forms of culture.

Evolutionism: Lewis Henry Morgan

*Hired to represent the Iroquois in a land grant dispute >began a study of the Seneca culminating in the book Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity(1871)

>wrote Ancient Society (1877) and developed a system of classifying cultures to determine their evolutionary niche

Lewis Henry Morgan

Morgan used the categories , savagery, barbarism

and civilization according to the presence or absence of certain technological features. 1. Lower savagery-from earliest forms of humanity subsisting on fruits and nuts 2. Middle savagery-began with the discovery of fishing technology and the use of fire 3. Upper savagery-began with invention of bow and arrow

Lewis Henry Morgan

4. Lower barbarism-began with the advent of pottery

making 5. Middle barbarism-began with the domestication of plants and animals in the Old World and irrigation cultivation in the New World 6. Upper barbarism-began with the smelting of iron and use of iron tools 7. Civilization-began with the invention of the phonetic alphabet and writing.

Criticisms of Evolutionism
Ethnocentrism Armchair speculators

*Both Morgan and Tylor were trying to establish secular evolutionary rationales rather than relying on the supernatural

Diffusionism
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries,

diffusionists addressed the question of cultural differences in the world by determining that humans were essentially uninventive
Certain cultural features developed in one or several

parts of the world and then spread, through the process of diffusion, to other cultures.

diffusionists
All societies change as a result of

cultural borrowing from one another

A deductive approach is used, with

the general theory of diffusion being applied to explain specific cases of cultural diversity
Diffusionism overemphasized the

essentially valid idea of diffusion

American Historicism
A reaction to the deductive

approach and headed by Franz Boas, this school of anthropological thought was prominent in the first part of the 20th century and insisted upon the collection of ethnographic data through direct fieldwork prior to making cross-cultural generalizations

American Historicism
Ethnographic facts must precede the development of

cultural theories (induction)

Any culture is partially composed of traits diffused

from other cultures Direct fieldwork is absolutely essential Each culture is, to some degree unique Ethnographers should try to get the view of those being studied (emic) not their own view (etic)

Functionalism
Theory of social stratification holding that social

stratification exists because it contributes to the overall well-being of a society

No matter how bizarre a cultural tem might at first

appear, it had a meaning and performed some useful function the well-being of the individual or the society; the job of the researcher is to become sufficiently immersed in the culture and language to be able to identify these functions

Functionalism-Bronislaw Malinowski
Like Boas, Malinowski was a strong

advocate of fieldwork, but he had no interest in asking how a cultural item got to be the way it is. Focused on how contemporary cultures operated or functioned
Ex: the kula among the Trobriand

Islanders

Functionalism-Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown

Like Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown held that the various

aspects of a society should be studied in terms of the functions they perform.

Whereas Malinowski viewed functions mostly as meeting

the needs of the individual, Radcliffe-Brown saw them in terms of contributions to the well-being of the society

A.R. Radcliffe-Brown
Because of the emphasis on

social functions rather than individual functions, Radcliffe-Browns theory has taken the name STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM

functionalism
The functionalist approach is based on two

fundamental principles:

Universal Functions-every part of a culture has a function 2. Functional Unity-a culture is an integrated whole composed of a number of interrelated parts; a change in one part of the culture is likely to produce change in other parts
1.

Psychological Anthropology
Looks at the relationships among

cultures and such psychological phenomena as personality, cognition and emotions

As early as the 1920s American

Anthropologists became interested in the relationship between culture and the individual

Psychological Anthropology
Some of Boass students began asking questions

about what role personality played in human behavior, should personality be viewed as a part of the cultural system or if personality variables are part of culture, how are they causally related to the rest of the system

Edward Sapir
Individuals learn their cultural

patterns unconsciously in the same way that they learn language

Culture can be found within the

interaction of individuals

Margaret Mead
Early interest in adolescence in the

U.S.
Coming of age in Samoa (1928)
Research on Gender

*Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935)

Psychological Anthropology
Anthropologists need to explore the relationships

between psychological and cultural variables

Personality is largely the result of cultural learning
Universal temperaments associated with males and

females do not exist

Neoevolutionism
School of thought that attempted to refine the earlier

evolutionary theories of Tylor and Morgan

Boas and others were extremely critical of 19th

century evolutionists, in part because they made sweeping generalizations based on inadequate data. Yet no one was able to demonstrate that cultures do not develop or evolve in certain ways over time

Leslie White
Resurrected the theories of the

evolutionists
Felt their major shortcoming was an

absence of data

Culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year increases or as the efficiency of the means of putting energy to work is increased *C=E x T

Julian Steward
More interested in developing

propositions about specific cultures or groups of cultures *unilinear evolution-an attempt to place particular cultures into specific evolutionary phases

Julian Steward
*multilinear evolution-suggestion that specific cultures can evolve independently of all others even if they follow the same evolutionary process *cultural ecology-assumption that people who reside in similar environments are likely to develop similar technologies, social structures, and political institutions

Neoevolutionism
Cultures evolve in direct proportion to their capacity

to harness energy
Culture is shaped by environmental conditions Through culture, human populations continuously

adapt to technical-environmental conditions

Because technological and environmental factors

shape culture, individual factors are de-emphasized

French Structuralism
Theoretical orientation holding that cultures are the

product of unconscious processes of the human mind

Claude Levi-Strauss

French Structuralism
Human cultures are shaped by certain

preprogrammed codes of the human mind Theory focuses on the underlying principles that generate behavior rather than the observable empirical behavior itself Emphasizes repetitive structures rather than sociocultural change

French Structuralism
Rather than examining attitudes,

values and beliefs, structuralists concentrate on what happens at the unconscious level

The human mind categorizes

phenomena in terms of binary oppositions.

Ethnoscience
Theoretical school popular in the 1950s and 60s that

tries to understand a culture from the point of view of the people being studied

Ethnoscience
Attempts to make ethnographic description more

accurate and replicable Describes a culture by using the categories of the people under study rather than by imposing categories from the ethnographers culture Because it is time-consuming, ethnoscience has been confined to describing very small segments of a culture Difficult to compare data collected by ethnoscientists

Feminist Anthropology
Seeks to describe and

explain cultural life from the perspective of women

Feminist Anthropology
All aspects of culture have a gender dimension that

must be considered in any balanced ethnographic description Theory represents a long overdue corrective to male bias in traditional ethnographies More subjective and collaborative than objective and scientific Largely critical of a value-free orientation

Cultural Materialism
Cultural systems are most

influenced by such material things as natural resources and technology

*Marvin Harris

Cultural Materialism
Material conditions determine human thoughts and

behavior Theorists assume the viewpoint of the anthropologist, not the native informant Anthropology is seen as scientific, empirical and capable of generating causal explanations De-emphasizes the role of ideas and values in determining the conditions of social life

Postmodernism
Human behavior stems from the way

people perceive and classify the world around them

Interpretive Anthropology: the critical

aspects of cultural systems are subjective factors such as values, ideas and worldviews *Clifford Geertz

Postmodernism
Calls on anthropologists to switch from cultural

generalization and laws to description, interpretation and the search for meaning Ethnographies should be written from several voicesthat of the anthropologist along with those of the people under analysis Involves a return to cultural relativism