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OVERVIEW OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL TERMS
ANTHROPOLOGY is the systematic study humankind. Anthropology has five sub-disciplines. Some
anthropologists do not think applied anthropology is a separate sub-discipline, but we will consider it a subdiscipline in this course. The following outline provides a brief summary of each sub-discipline.
I.
II.
SUB-DISCIPLINES OF ANTHROPOLOGY
A.
PHYSICAL OR BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: biological dimensions of
culture
1.
PALEOANTHROPOLOGY: Fossil evolution of humans
2.
PRIMATOLOGY: Study of primates, such as chimpanzees, to assess what is
“human” nature
3.
HUMAN BIOLOGICAL VARIATION: Human population genetics, human
biology
B.
ARCHAEOLOGY: Reconstruction of cultures
1.
PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY: Reconstruction of cultures before writing,
(99% of human history)
2.
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY: Reconstruction of cultures where historical
records exist
3.
ETHNOARCHAEOLOGY: Study of living groups to better understand the
archaeological record
4.
CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGY: Archaeology of Greek & Roman Civilizations
(often in history or art history departments)
5.
C.
CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY: Study of contemporary cultures
1.
ETHNOGRAPHY: Study of individuals and cultures, detailed studies of one
culture
2.
ETHNOLOGY: Comparisons between two or more cultures
3.
ETHNOHISTORY: Historical records about peoples and cultures.
4.
D.
LINGUISTICS - Study of relationships between language and culture
1.
HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS: How languages change over time, study of
language families and relationships between languages
2.
DESCRIPTIVE LINGUISTICS: Study of sounds and structures of particular
languages
3.
SOCIOLINGUISTICS: How language is used in different social contexts
E.
APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY: the use of anthropological theory and methods to solve
contemporary problems and issues.
HOW IS ANTHROPOLOGY DIFFERENT FROM OTHER SOCIAL SCIENCES?
The outline above and gives you an overview of anthropology. Many of you have had other
anthropology courses so this is not news to you. But the point of going over anthropology is to
understand how an anthropology course about art might be different from other humanities or social
science course on the topic, such as psychology or art history. Online materials describe the five
sub-disciplines of Anthropology, but it may not be clear as to how anthropology is distinct from the
other social science disciplines. Some basic distinctive features of anthropology by comparison to
other social sciences:
A. Comparative or cross-cultural perspective. Any topic of interest needs to be examined
from an extensive cross-cultural perspective. Other disciplines such as psychology and
sociology are becoming more cross-cultural, but they tend to select other highly stratified
cultures when they discuss cross-cultural perspectives, i.e., Germany, France, Canada,
B.
C.
D.
E.
III.
Japan, China. While these are important cultures, they are all highly stratified and
hierarchical like our own. We will examine art in a variety of cultures with varying levels
of complexity from all parts of the world.
Biological perspective. All anthropology majors are required to take a course in human
biology and evolution. Sociology does not have biological courses and psychology has
some human biology courses (e.g., on the brain/neurology), but they are usually not
required of all psychology majors. Consequently, an examination of evolution and human
nature and how they influence the nature of art are part of this course.
Time perspective. Anthropologists interested in a particular topic need to examine it the
long period of human history. Archaeology and human evolution are integral parts of
anthropology. Other disciplines may look at a topic in the last 100 or 200 years, but
anthropologists want to go back hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago to
understand a topic. Consequently and as you will see next week, we want to understand the
evolution of art and music over the course of human history.
Field perspective. The key method in cultural anthropology is called participantobservation—living with and participating in the culture under study, generally for a year
or more to learn the language. We like to talk to people in many different contexts.
Archaeologists, physical anthropologists, and anthropological linguists also like to spend
considerable time in the field. By comparison, sociology tends to rely upon systematic
questionnaires and psychology tends to rely upon controlled experiments in the lab setting
or systematic questionnaires. By comparison to cultural anthropology, research in
sociology and psychology requires less time interacting with people.
Holistic. Anthropologists tend to think their discipline is more holistic than other
disciplines because it examines the interactions between biology, culture, and environment.
HOW IS THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY OF ART DIFFERENT THAN ‘CLASSIC’
STUDIES OF ART THEORY AND ART HISTORY?
A.
Western (or Global North) approaches to the study of art, at least up until very recently,
have concentrated more on the aesthetic, formal, and stylistic properties of ‘art objects.’
In the Western artistic cannon (Western art history), the work of various artists is
typically understood in relation to the work of other artists (e.g. historical and and
contemporaneous influences on the artist), rather than within the broader
biological/social/cultural/political/economic contexts in which art is produced.
Furthermore, what qualifies as ‘art’ in ‘classic’ art theory is largely determined by an
elite group of art experts, whereas anthropologists tend to be less interested in distinctions
between “arts” and “crafts” and are interested in a broader range of symbolically
significant creative activity,
IV. WHAT IS CULTURE?
Culture is at the core of understanding what anthropology is all about. It is essential to have a
working framework for understanding culture because it pervades most of the learning units that
follow. Also, we focus on understanding relatively few art forms in a relatively small sample of the
world’s cultures. If you have the following framework, you should be able to apply it to
understanding the relationship between art and society in any culture.
A. Definition of culture: socially transmitted and acquired information (e.g., skills,
knowledge) shared by a group. Several definitions exist for culture (see some below), but I
want to emphasize that it is essentially anything socially acquired and shared with a group,
as distinct from behaviors, biology and physiology which are genetically inherited. The
capacity to transmit, learn, remember, and accumulate cultural information are biologically
based, so in this sense it is in our biological nature to be cultural.
One thing we need to understand is that culture is not limited to ethnic groups (e.g., the
Navajo or the French). For instance, within the US, people acquire their ideas and
information about the art and artists in a variety of ways, and people do not agree about
what they see and feel about art, i.e., they have different cultural backgrounds and
information.
B. Products of culture. Culture is socially transmitted information shared by a group and
includes beliefs, knowledge, values, ideologies, good foods to eat, how many spouses you
can have, how people think and feel about nature, what people think is beautiful, what
people think is right and wrong, where you should live after you get married, etc. I will
often refer to all forms of information as “cultural models”. The cultural information in
turn generates the following products:
1. Habits and practices. Particular information that we acquire is the source of things
we do over and over again (e.g., how we brush our teeth, use bathroom, how often
we go to the forest), and these become habits, practices, and customs that we do
not think much about. Consequently, peoples’ interactions with the environment
feel natural and automatic because we have been doing it for so long.
2. Artifacts and Technology. People use culturally acquired information and
knowledge to make tools and technology. The artifacts and technology are used to
adapt the diverse natural and, perhaps more importantly in the context of this
course, social environments.
3. Social Structure and Institutions. Cultural information provides the basis for
establishing cultural institutions (e.g., educational, political, economic, legal) that
are central to shaping and influencing our daily life.
4. Cultural Niche Construction. All of the above—cultural models, habits/practices,
technology, and institutions—establish a niche that we then try to adapt to. We
tend to think about how the natural environment—climate, altitude, etc.—
influence cultural behaviors, but it is also true that we are adapting to our own
culturally constructed environments. For instance, we invent a variety of infant
carrying devices (niche construction) which result in holding infants less. Some
child advocate groups are concerned about this and are trying to emphasize the
importance of holding infants more often. We are trying to respond and adapt to
the culturally constructed niche that is contributing to global warming—e.g., cars,
produce gasses that impact ozone and climate.
5. It is important to remember 1) culture includes all of the above—cultural models,
technology, institutions and 2) culture is both “in our head” (information,
knowledge, values) as well as “out there” (technology and institutions).
6. All of the above—cultural models, technology, institutions—are windows by
which individuals view their natural and social environments.
C. Features of Culture
1. Patterns how we think and feel; patterns emotional reality: Most people
realize culture patterns how we think but culture also profoundly influences how
we feel. So the aim of this course is not only to understand diverse ways cultures
produce and consume art, but to understand that people around the world have
STRONG feelings about what is right and wrong, desirable and undesirable in art.
2. Patterns physical reality; patterns how we perceive physical reality: The
physical world exists, but how we perceive that reality is dramatically impacted
by our culture. For instance, if you were asked to draw a map of the world, your
map would be influenced by where you lived, what maps you had in your
elementary school, whether you traveled, etc. When I ask students to do this the
area of the U.S. is large by comparison to other areas of the world and is often at
the center of their map.
3. Patterns how we categorize reality: What foods are edible or not, how we call
particular relatives (e.g., in many cultures your mother’s sister’s children are
called “siblings”), and what we think is and is not art are examples of how culture
classifies reality.
4. Ethnocentric: Culture is by nature ethnocentric. We tend to think Americans are
particularly ethnocentric, but the fact is that when someone is socialized in a
5.
6.
particular way they tend to grow up thinking that this way is universal, common
and often the best way. Put another way, all humans tend to think the NORMS of
their own culture are right and good, and also tend to judge other cultures by that
standard. For example, in the US it is considered normal for a child to sleep in
their own room, separate from their parents, from a very young age. In other
cultures this would be considered child neglect. In such cultures, parents and
children commonly sleep next to each other well into the child’s adolescence.
Culture tends to give one a sense of moral authority—what is right or wrong.
Some cultures may respect diversity more than others, but culture has a profound
impact on how we feel and what we think is right.
Cumulative: Culture accumulates over time; it changes, has a history and is often
integrated (e.g., political-economic system is linked to child care system).
Adaptive: Culture in a general sense is adaptive in that humans occupy all parts
of the world because culture has enabled us to adapt to deserts, arctic, high
elevations, tropical forests, etc. But this does not mean that every aspect of culture
is adaptive; we may do things in the environment that can be maladaptive (i.e.,
lead to decreasing reproductive fitness), such as contribute to destruction of
forests or pollution. Some aspects of culture may be adaptively neutral (e.g.
personal names are arbitrary, they have no effect on reproductive fitness).