What is Anthropology?
Anthropos = man
+
Logos = study of holistic approach to the study of all people from all times and spaces
- A comparative science that examines all societies, ancient and modern, simple and
complex and offers a unique cross-cultural perspective
- Holistic
o Study of human condition past, present, future
o Study of humans biology, society, language and culture
- Concerned with identifying and explaining typical characteristics of particular human
populations
- Anthropology studies:
o Not only All varieties of people but all aspects of those peoples experiences and
how different aspects of life relate to each other
o BOTH nonindustrial and industrial societies
o Human beings wherever or whenever they are found
o Human Diversity = result of human adaptation
How people are different across time and space
How basic human attributes (Creativity, adaptability, flexibility) results
in human diversity
- Ethnologists how and why people of today and recent past differ or similar in ways of
thinking and acting
- Ethnography detailed description of many aspects of culture and social life that results
from conducting participant observation
4 SUBFIELDS OF ANTHROPOLOGY
1. Archaeology reconstruction of daily life and customs of prehistoric people, tracing
cultural changes using material remains
2. Cultural Analyzes, interprets and explains social and cultural similarities and
differences
o Ethnography
- Provides an account for a community, society or culture
- Gathers data that he/she organizes analyzes and interprets to develop
an account (book, article or film)
- Method: Participant Observation - fieldwork spends a year or more
in a diff society, living with local people and learning about their
ways of life.
- Benefits:
1. Respect for other customs and beliefs
2. Reminds us that there is a wider world and normal ways of
thinking and acting other than our own
3. Remedy for ethnocentrism
o Ethnology
- Examines, compares, analyzes and interprets the results of
ethnography
3. Biological studies human biological diversity in time and space
o Focus: human evolution in fossil record, human genetics, biological
plasticity, biology, evolution, behavior and social life of monkeys apes and
other nonhuman primates
4. Linguistic studies language in its social & cultural context, across space and time
HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY
Early Accounts
- Travel accounts and journals of travelers from distant lands
- Chronicle accounts described strange humans
- Herodotus (father of history & anthropology) pioneer observer of customs
Herodotus
- Sought out lands under King Darius empire 5th century
- Herodotus referred to them as barbarians & highlighted cultural variations
- His accounts inspired philosophers to ask who/what are we and how did we get
there?
- During his time, impact of his writings were NOTHING
Pre-Anthropology accounts
- Megasthenes faulted with not verifying reports on locations he did not
physically observe
- Cornelius Tacitus Germania served as propaganda to encourage emperor
Trajan to invade the land
- Travels of Marco Polo not taken seriously by public. His nickname was
Marco Millione million lies the book was believed to be
Effect of Renaissance
- Answers to questions no longer sought from religion/kings (authority)
- Explanations about the world origins no longer are from Bible
- Distancing from religious narratives of the origins of man cause by disruptions in
status quo
Renaissance After-effects
- Disruptions in status quo threw present social order into confusion
- Religious and monarchial authorities were questioned and no longer held to be the
keeper of truth and knowledge
- Thinkers looked closely at society and inquired about mans place within it
New theories
o Thomas hobbes, Adam smith, Jean-jacques Rosseau
o Starting point of inquiry: the nature of man, and his relations with other men
concerns that anthropology soon takes up
CULTURE
Traditions and customs transmitted through learning that form and guide the beliefs and
behavior of the people exposed to them
Learned through a process of enculturation
Produces a degree of consistency in behavior and though among people living in
particular society
*** Culture is about the human need for meaning
***learned sets of ideas which are not only in our heads but also in material
environments that those who came before us had shaped
Cultural traditions
Customs and opinions, developed over generations about proper and improper behavior
Answers: how should we do things? (practices), how do we make sense of the
world> (worldview), what is right and wrong?
Most critical element = TRANSMISSION through learning rather than
through biological inheritance
CULTURE CHANGE
o Culture is always changing
o Consists of learned patterns which can be unlearned and learned as human needs
change
o Causes of culture change:
1. Discovery and Invention
The source of all culture change
Do not necessarily lead to change
Causes change when society accepts and uses it regularly
o Unconscious invention accidental (ex: corn flakes)
o Intended invention attempts to produce new idea (ex:
comp)
2. Diffusion
Process by which cultural elements are borrowed from another
society and incorporated into culture of recipient group
Selective, cultural traits do not need/automatically diffuse. It can be
rejected
Patterns:
o Direct contact elements may be taken up by neighboring
societies and gradually spread farther and farther
o Intermediate contact through 3rd parties (Ex: traders carry
religion, music, language, clothes)
o Stimulus diffusion knowledge of a trait own by another
culture starts the invention or development of a local
equivalent (Ex: Mcdo and Jollibee)
3. Acculturation
Extensive borrowing in the context of superordinate-subordinate
relations
Weaker group in society acquires cultural elements from the
dominant group
4. Revolution
Results in the most drastic and rapid culture change the
replacement, usually violent of a countrys rulers
Ex: EDSA Revolutions ouster of Marcos
5. Globalization
Widespread flow of people, info, technology and capital over the
earth has minimized cultural diversity but not eliminate
Political Organization
- specifically relate to the individuals or groups that manage the affairs of public
policy or seek control the appointment or activities of those individuals (limits to
states)
- Concerns: Decision-making, Social control, Conflict resolution
- Trends:
o Bands small kin-based group. All members related to each other
o Tribes no formal govt or means of enforcing political decisions
Village head = limited authority, leads by example, can influence
The big man = regional figure w supporters, no office, reputation
based on generosity
o Chiefdom intermediate between tribe and state. Differential access to
resources. Permanent political structure.
o State Form of sociopolitical organization based on a formal govt and
socioeconomic stratification. Autonomous political unit encompassing
many communities within its territory, having a centralized government
who can collect taxes, draft men for work/war, and enforce laws.
Kin Types basic relationships anthropologists use to describe the contents of kinship categories
1. Kin types are supposedly culture-free (ETIC) elements: how outsiders refer to
members of kin
2. Kin types are based upon biological relationships
3. Used to designate each individual relationship
4. EXAMPLE: Mother =M, Mothers sister=MZ
Kin Terms the labels for categories of kin that contain one or more kin types (EMIC)
1. How insiders refer to one another
2. Specific to particular cultures
3. EXAMPLE: Uncle, cousin, grandfather (peculiar to English terminology)
Family
- group of people considered to be related through blood or marriage
- forms:
1. Family of orientation you were born into and grow up (critical: parents,
siblings)
2. Family of procreation you form when you marry and have children
(Critical: spouse and children)
- Types:
a) Nuclear family parents & children living in same house (not universal)
a. Conjugal nuclear married couples and offspring
b. Non conjugal nuclear unmarried with children
b) Extended family 2 or more nuclear families of 3 gens or more (no need
to be living same house)
c) Descent groups people claiming common ancestry (basic units in social
organization of nonindustrial food producers)
a. Patrilineage children of groups men join group but not children
of female members
b. Matrilineage people join mothers group automatically at birth
and stay members throughout life
c. Ambilineage does not automatically exclude children of either
sons or daughters
d. Clans related lineages with common ancestor, bounded by
certain social and moral obligations
RELIGION
- any set of attitudes, beliefs and practices pertaining to supernatural power
- such beliefs may vary within a culture as well as among societies and may change
overtime
- Material evidence: artifacts
- Theory: humans create religion in response to universal needs/conditions, like a
need for understanding, reversion to childhood feelings, anxiety and need for
community
Variations:
- Impersonal forces mana = swerte, taboo = malas
- Supernatural beings of nonhuman origin (Gods and spirits)
- Supernatural beings of human origin (ghosts and ancestor spirits)
Expressions of religion
1. Animism belief in spiritual beings (earliest form of religion)
o 2 entities inhabit the body. One active on day and one is during sleep
o death is departure of soul
2. Monotheistic religion
o There is one high god, as creator of universe and/or director of events
3. Polytheism
o Belief in multiple gods
Intervention by the gods
o Faced with pain and injustice, people explain events by claiming this
o Also sought out by people who hope this will help achieve their goals
o Communication: prayer, drugs, sacrifices
Magic beliefs and practices people engage in to compel the supernatural to act in a
particular way. Sorcery and witchcraft attempt to work harm against people.
o Magical techniques can dispel doubts that arise when outcomes are
beyond human control.
Rites of Passage
1. Individual/collective boyhood to manhood, trainee to employee
2. Contemporary forms baptisms, marriage (involve change in social status)
3. Three phases: Separation, Liminality, Incorporation
a) Phase 1 people withdraw from ordinary society
b) Phase 2 limbo or time out when people have left one status but havent
entered the next
c) Phase 3 reentrance to society (having completed a rite that changes their
status)
Passage rites: often collective (sorority initiates), liminality basic to all passage rights
EMILY DURKHEIM
The sacred and the profane
o Sacred what is set off from the ordinary or profane
o Every society had its scared which was socially constructed
o Sacred varied
o Native Australians societies most sacred = plants (not supernatural but
real entities that acquired special meaning for social groups that made
them worship it as sacred)
Nature of Religion
o Durkheim
o Collective, social, shared, enacted nature
o Generates emotions and meanings it embodies
o Lambeck
o Real, vivid, and significant to those who make and inhabit them
Effervescence
o The bubbling up of collective emotional intensity generated by worship
Communitas
o Intense community spirit
o A feeling of great social solidarity, equality and togetherness
Studying cross-culturally
o Religion as a social phenomenon
o Meaning of religious doctrines, settings, acts, and events
o Verbal manifestations of religious beliefs
o Notions about purity and pollution
Studying religion
o Religion associated with social divisions between societies and nations
o Religion both units and divides
o Participation in common rites may affirm, and maintain, solidarity of a group
of adherents
o A religion vs. religion
o A religion = formally organized religion (Christianity, Islam)
o Religion = universal, religious beliefs and behaviors existing in all
societies
Material evidence religious beliefs are evident in all known cultures and are inferred
from artifacts associated with Homosapiens.
ETHNOGRAPHY
o A research process anthropologists use to closely observe the daily life of another
culture
o Key method: participant observation taking part in events one is observing
and analyzing
o Used in societies with ess social differentiation
o Adopt a free-ranging strategy for getting information
o Provides a foundation for generalizations about human behavior and society
Techniques:
1. Direct, first hand observation, including participant observation
2. Conversation with varying degrees of formality from chitchat to interviews
3. The genealogical method
4. Detailed work with key consultants, informants and particular areas of community
life
5. In-depth interviewing, often leading to the collection of life histories of particular
people
6. Discovery of local beliefs which may be compared w one observation
7. Problem-oriented research
8. Longitudinal research longterm, continuous
9. Team research coordinated research by multiple ethnographers
10. Multisited research
ETIC
o focus on the ethnographers, he emphasizes what he/she notices and considers
important
o members of a culture are involved in what they are doing to interpret their
cultures impartially
Cant study things just cos they are interesting, ethical issues must be considered.
Anthropologists must be sensitive to cultural differences and aware of procedures and
standards in host country.