Download Culture

Culture
• A set of learned behaviour and ideas that
human beings acquire as members of a
society. Human beings use culture to adapt
to and to transform the world in which they
live.
Main characteristics of culture:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Learned
Shared
Patterned
Adaptive
Symbolic
Evolving
Learned:
• We have no instincts that automatically
protect us and help us find food and shelter.
We need to learn these things from people
around us.
Shared:
• Culture is not an individual characteristic, it
is a social and collective resource.
Patterned:
• Related cultural beliefs and practices show
up repeatedly in different areas of social
life.
Adaptive:
• We don’t have a highly specific genetic
programming for survival like other animals
do. We depend on culture (our learned
responses) to adapt ourselves to our
environment and to survive as biological
organisms.
Symbolic:
• Symbols are things that represent or stand
for something else, for example, when a
material object represents something
abstract, e.g.: “The limousine is a symbol of
his wealth and authority.”
• Because it is symbolic, culture is what
makes our actions intelligible,
understandable by others.
Evolving:
• Cultures change through time.
• This is because members of different social
groups are constantly modifying their
heritage.
Anthropologists:
• Study human culture and human diversity.
Film: Cannibal Tours
•
•
•
•
Who? Dennis O’Rouke
When? 1987
Where? Sepik River in Papua New Guinea
What to look for? Consider the propensity
of tourists to photograph indigenous
populations, to capture, as it were,
‘evidence’ of seemingly ‘exotic’ peoples and
cultures
• Get together in groups of 4 and compare notes
about the film.
• Choose a Recording Secretary to take notes about
what people say (record people’s full names on the
page). These will be handed to me at the end of
class, and will count toward participation points
(today’s class is only a rehearsal).
• The Recording Secretary should make sure that
everybody has a chance to speak.
• “If one observes the movements of a human
being in possession of a camera…the
impression given is of someone lying in
wait. Like the act of stalking performed by a
hunter…” (adapted from Flusser, 2000:33).
Anthropology:
• Comparative
• Evolutionary
• Holistic
Comparative
• In order to generalize about human nature,
human society and the human past,
anthropology considers the similarities and
differences from the widest possible range
of human societies.
Evolutionary
• We place our observations about human
nature, human society and the human past
in a temporal framework, taking into
consideration change over time.
Holistic
• Anthropology tries to integrate all that is known
about human beings and their activities at the
highest and most inclusive level.
• Holism is a perspective on the human condition
that assumes that mind and body, individuals and
society, and people and the environment
interpenetrate and even define one another.
Idealism and Materialism
• Perspectives that reduce our understanding
of human reality emphasizing one aspect of
our nature at the expense of the other.