Download The Nature of Culture

The Nature of Culture
Chapter 2
Cultural Anthropology
Concept of Culture

The idea of culture was first
introduced near the end of the
19th century


“That complex whole which includes
knowledge, beliefs, art, law,
morals, custom and any other
capabilities, and habits acquired by
man as a member of society”
Burnett-Taylor – 1871
Culture is shared ideals, values
and beliefs that people use to
interpret experience and
generate behaviour and that are
reflected by that behaviour
Characteristics of Culture
Culture is shared
 Shared ideals, values and beliefs and
standards of behaviour

The common denominator that makes actions
intelligible to others and allows people to
predict behaviour in situations and react
accordingly
Characteristics of Culture (cont)
Culture is shared (cont)
 Culture Shock: happens when
one moves to a different culture
and cannot predict and respond
accordingly


This results in confusion and
insecurity
E.g.: anthropologists in the field, or
newcomers to Canada (women’s role
in Canadian society)
Characteristics of Culture (cont)
Culture is shared (cont)
 Culture is different from society

Society is a group of people who live in the
same geographical region, speak the same
language and are, to an extent,
interdependent

Society can have more than one cultural group
 E.g.: First Nations in Canada
Characteristics of Culture (cont)
Culture is shared (cont)
 Social structure holds
society together


Dependency on economic and
family systems and common
identity
Despite culture being shared,
it is not uniform

E.g.: Roles of men and women
differ

Gender roles are a culture’s
interpretation of biological
differences
Characteristics of Culture (cont)
Culture is shared (cont)
 A subculture is a group of people within a larger society
who have distinctive standards and patterns of behaviour

E.g.: Hutterites


Despite distraction they share Canadian values
Some subcultures operate outside mainstream

E.g.: punk
Characteristics of Culture (cont)
Culture is shared (cont)
 Canada is a pluralistic
society

Contains several distinct
cultures and subcultures
(ethnic subcultures)

Canada is a cultural mosaic of
these ethnic subcultures as most
societies today
Characteristics of Culture (cont)
Culture is learned
 Culture is not biologically inherited but
learned


“social heredity” as stated by Ralph Linton
The process by which people learn their culture
through the transmission between generations
is called enculturation
Characteristics of Culture (cont)
Culture is learned (cont)
 Through enculturation we learn socially
acceptable ways to satisfy our biological needs
 E.g.: An animal eats, drinks or sleeps
whenever the need arises whereas humans
do most of this at certain culturally
prescribed times and feel hungry as those
times near.
Characteristics of Culture (cont)
Culture is learned (cont)

Enculturation also teaches us how to “fit in” and
be accepted by other members of our cultural
group


Enculturation forces include school, family, peers,
religion and the media
Enculturation process in never complete as old
patterns of behaviour are changed to need the
needs of a changing society
Characteristics of Culture (cont)
Culture is based on Symbols
 Aspects of culture is based on
symbols


E.g.: Language, art, money,
religion
Language is the most important
symbolic aspect of culture

Through language, humans are
able to transmit culture from one
generation to another

Language makes it possible to
learn from cumulative shared
experiences
Characteristics of Culture (cont)
Culture is integrated
 The tendency for all of aspects of a culture
to function as an interrelated whole is
called integration
Characteristics of Culture (cont)
Culture is integrated (cont)
 E.g.: Kapauku Papuans,
mountain people of New Guinea
studied by Leopold Pospisil in 1955


Economy relies on plant cultivation,
along with pig breeding, hunting and
fishing
Men achieve political power through
business of pig breeding and pig
breeding relies on sweet potatoes
grown in garden plots
 Women are responsible for gardening
activities and caring for pigs
 So to raise many pigs a man must
have many women in the
household and this is accomplished
through polygyny
Characteristics of Culture (cont)
Culture is integrated (cont)

But for each wife a man has to pay a bride price and
wives have to be compensated for their care of pigs
 So it takes pigs to get wives which are need to raise
pigs


So it is the trait of entrepreneurship that produces
leaders in the Kapauku
Kapauku emphasize patrilineality and this is stressed
by the wives living in the husbands’ villages and not
the other way around
Characteristics of Culture (cont)

Another factor conducive to polygyny is a surplus of
women
 This is reflected in one of their rules of warfare, which
is prevalent among the Kapauku: men get killed but
women to not
 This provides for the imbalance of sexes that
provides favourable conditions for polygyny
 Kapauku emphasize patrilineality and this is
stressed by the wives living in the husbands’
villages and not the other way around
Characteristics of Culture (cont)

Both endemic warfare and patrilineality promote
male dominance and thus it is not surprising that
positions of power in Kapauku society is held by men
 This type of male dominance arises under the particular
circumstances of the Kapauku and the relationship
between men and women would be different if the
circumstances would have been different

A change in one part of a culture usually
will affect other parts but given the
various experiences in the enculturation
process some potential for change exists
in the culture