Download ch.6 anthro-cultural contact TR-KEY

UNIT 2
HISTORICAL
GLOBALIZATION
Main Issue:
To what extent should contemporary society respond to the legacies of historical
globalization?
CULTURAL SENSITIVITY OF
HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS
• ANTHROPOLOGY
• Greek root words meaning “human
study”
• The study of human cultural practices
and ways of life
• Interpret and explain other cultures.
• Anthropologists do not belong to the
culture they are studying
PITFALLS OF ANTHROPOLOGY
• JUDGING CULTURES
• Cultural Superiorty
• Using our superior standards to judge
other cultures because whatever we
do is always better
• Cultural Relativism
• Believing that no culture’s practices
are better or worse than another
culture’s practices
• Everything is relative
• Only those values held by the
culture can be used to judge
behavior in that culture
INTERPRETING CULTURES
Ethnocentrism
• Inappropriately applying our concepts
and beliefs to explain another group’s
practices
• Interpreting other cultural concepts
through our own cultural lens
• Radical Uniqueness
• No culture’s concepts and beliefs can
explain another culture’s practices
• Understanding of other cultures is
impossible because each cultural is unique
GENERALIZING ABOUT
CULTURAL PRACTICES
• _stereotyping
• People within a culture are generally alike
• There are universal, easily recognizable traits
within a culture
• Radical Individualism
• Each culture is so diverse/complex that no
generalizations are possible
• All statements about culture are limited to the
individual person/event.
THE SOLUTION?
• Cross-Cultural Sensitivity
• Recognizes cultural differences
• Aware of dangers of
judging/interpreting/generalizing about a
culture using values from outside a culture
• Careful to make judgments/interpretations only
when those values are fairly applied to culture
• Careful to make qualified generalizations
based on adequate evidence.
AMAZONS UNCONTACTED TRIBE
http://www.uncontactedtribes.org/evidence
TO WHAT EXTENT DOES
CULTURAL CONTACT AFFECT
PEOPLE?
CULTURAL CONTACT
• Different cultures have different
values, beliefs and traditions that
influence their thoughts and actions
 The
arrival of European
explorer’s in the
America’s in the 15th
century launched a
series of cultural
contacts
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
• Were part of a complex network of
independent nations living across
the Americas
• Spoke many different languages
• Many different forms of governance
• Variety of spiritual beliefs
• Established long-standing alliances
and rivalries
CONTACT IN THE AMERICA'S
• Powerful nations in Europe were
competing for economic and military
supremacy.
• To prove their worth, they began to
expand beyond their horizons.
• They claimed ownership of these lands
for their monarchs.
• GOAL= to spread the Christian faith and
European values in these new lands
EFFECTS OF CULTURAL
CONTACT
• Economic, political and social spheres of one
or both groups
• Conflict
• Disease
• Loss of resources
• Cultural change
• Assimilation
depopulation
of culture