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Culture Change • Invention/Innovation: creation of something new within a culture • Diffusion: borrowed from other cultures • Material, e.g. technology • Non-material, e.g. belief systems, behaviors, styles, words • Culture provides adaptive advantage • Negative impacts Cultures are integrated • Organic analogy – All parts interrelated – Change in one part affects others Economic system Belief system Arts Kinship system • Can be positive or negative • Functional vs. dysfunctional • Holism: Method that takes this into account – Parts viewed in relation to the whole – Development and applied anthropology • E.g., Steve Lansing in Bali • Ideal (norms) vs. real behavior Exchange system Ethnographic Fieldwork Long-term residence with a small group of people participation, structured & unstructured interviewing “Fieldwork is the central activity of anthropology. It is fieldwork, more than common theories or substantive issues, that distinguishes anthropology from psychology, sociology, political science, and economics. It is fieldwork, more than the distinctive content of the material, that produces the uniqueness of anthropology and that entitles the anthropologist to professional status.” Nancy Howell, Surviving Fieldwork Participant-observation Emic and Etic Living with the people Participating in their lives Subjective understanding Participate/emic, and observe/etic “[T]o some extent, the anthropologist who genuinely participates in a cultural practice can take himself as a subject. One cannot have access to the inner reaches of those to whom one talks; one can have partial access to one’s own, and through involvement at least begin to understand what some of the others may have been experiencing.” Tanya Luhrmann, Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft Ethnographic Fieldwork Late 19th - Early 20th Century • Long-term fieldwork, participant observation – First anthropological expedition: A. C. Haddon (U.K.) • 1898-1899 Torres Strait Expedition Southeastern New Guinea – Franz Boas (Columbia, U.S.) – Bronislaw Malinowski (LSE, U.K.) • Better data and theories • Studied small-scale, non-Western societies • Culture shock – – – – – Stress Disorientation Disgust Confusion Doubts • Bicultural perspective – Able to view world in two different ways – Both emic and etic Comparison Differences Source Connections to other aspects of culture history, religion, political structures, economics, kinship systems, etc. E.g. concepts of the person India vs. U.S. Universals Commonalities among all cultures Generalizations 2 kinds Statistical cross-cultural comparison Controlled comparison Statistical Cross-cultural Comparison – HRAF – Human Relations Area Files • Massive bank of ethnographic data • George P. Murdock (Yale 1940s) – Large samples – Correlations – Beatrice Whiting • Witchcraft in 50 societies • No centralized authority witchcraft accusations – Quantitative (numerical data) vs. Qualitative (words & actions) • • • • Large, dispersed sample vs. small, regional Data removed from cultural context Reliability of data questionable The Internet Controlled Comparison – Retain context, qualitative – Small number of similar cultures, small differences – S. F. Nadel – witchcraft in 4 African societies 1930s • Nigeria – Nupe: women’s power witchcraft accusations – Gwari: male dominance both sexes accused – Frustration-aggression hypothesis • Sudan – Property rights and enjoyment of life linked to age – Mesakin men old at 25 frustration witchcraft beliefs – Korongo men old in 50s no tension no witchcraft History of Anthropological Theory Comparison patterns explanations = theories Herbert Spencer Friedrich Engels Edward B. Tylor Karl Marx Lewis Henry Morgan Franz Boas Anthropology’s Roots • Ancient travel writers – Herodotus (484-425 BCE) • Greek “Father of History” • Precursor of ethnography – Marco Polo - Italian (1254-1324) – Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) • Tunisian politician & historian • Developed ‘Science of culture’ • European exploration, colonial expansion 15th–19th centuries – Age of Discovery/Age of Exploration The modern study of anthropology originated in European exploration and colonization in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. Contacts with very different peoples created an interest in understanding and explaining human diversity, which are the goals of anthropology. First Academic Anthropology – U.K.: 1884 Oxford E.B. Tylor – U.S.: 1896 Columbia Franz Boas Anthropological Theory • Statement about relationships among phenomena • Explain and predict • Nadel’s theory regarding witchcraft accusations – Observation: similar cultures, but difference in witchcraft accusations – Hypothesis: • tension retaliation • frustration-aggression – Explains Nupe & Gwari: women’s power – Predicts Mesakin & Korongo: inheritance patterns Development of Anthropological Theory: 19th-century Evolutionists • Philosophers: Hobbes, Rousseau, Adam Smith (18th-19th century) • Auguste Comte – Organic analogy • Society has organs • Function of one determined by its place in whole • Charles Darwin – Biological evolution – Natural selection increasing fitness – Change is result of competition • Evolution dominant rubric for theorizing about society