UNDERSTANDING

CULTURE,
SOCIETY
AND
POLITICS

MRS. LERAH MAHUSAY

LESSON 1:
MAKING SENSE
OF OUR
EVERYDAY
EXPERIENCES
ON CULTURE
ACTIVITY 1. PINPOINT

USING THE PICTURES

BEING SHOWN,
IDENTIFY THE
CONCEPTS THAT YOU
CAN ASSOCIATE WITH
CULTURE, SOCIETY AND
POLITICS
 FROM YOUR
ANSWERS,
GIVE YOUR OWN
DEFINITION OF
CULTURE,
SOCIETY AND
POLITICS
 The group of
ON CULTURE conditions that
Similarities exist where and
and when something
differences hapen
Introduction: Comparison and Context
by: THOMAS HYLAND ERIKSEN

“ANTHROPOLOGY IS PHILOSOPHY
WITH THE PEOPLE IN”

Tim Ingold
 SOCIAL AND CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
TRIES TO UNDERSTAND THE
CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE
VARIOUS ASPECTS OF EXISTENCE.

EXAMPLE:
the tradaitional economic system of
TIV OF CENTRAL NIGERIA
 ANTHROPOLOGY
 tries to account for the
social and cultural
variation in the world.
conceptualising and
understanding similarities
between social systems and
human relationships.
 ANTHROPOLOGY
HAS HUMANITY AS ITSOBJECTS of RESEARCH.

Claude Levi-Strauss

ITS OBJECT THROUGH ITS MOST

DIVERSE MANIFESTATION.

IS ABOUT HOW DIFFERENT PEOPLE CAN BE

OR
ALL HUMANS HAVE SOMETHING IN
COMMON.
DEALS WITH DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HUMANS AND ANIMALS
Clifford Geertz

WHAT MEN ARE:

AND WHAT MEN ARE ,
ABOVE ALL OTHER THINGS,
IS VARIOUS.

VARIOUSNESS
its range, nature, basis and
implications.
 ANTHROPOLOGIST
have wide -ranging and frequently
highly specialised interests, they all
share a common concern and try to
understand both connections within
the societies and connections
between societies.
the AZANDE OF CENTRAL AFRICA believe in
witches.
the greater social inequality in Brazil than
Sweden
the inhabitants of Mauritius avoid violent
ethnic conflict.
the traditional way of life of Inuit(Eskimos)
the study of religion, child raising political
power, economic life or the relationship
between men and women
the professional antropological literature for
inspiration and knowledge.
ANTHROPOLOGY
• concerned with accounting for the
interrelationship(investigate these
as their point of departure) between
different aspects of human
existence.
• asks large questions and draws most
important insights from small
places.
• its traditional focus on small-scale
to non-industrial societies.
 WHAT IS
ANTHROPOLOGY?
REASON OR KNOWLEDGE ABOUT HUMANS
is a compound of two greek word,
'ANTHROPOS' and 'LOGOS' -

human reason/knowledge
SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY
means
KNOWLEDGE ABOUT HUMANS IN
SOCITIES.
WHAT IS CULTURE ?
is also crucial to DISCIPLINE

originates from the Latin Word

'Colere' which means cultivate

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
means
KNOWLEDGE ABOUT CULTIVATED
HUMANS.
 CLYDE KLUCKHOHN and ALDFRED KROEBER
CULTURE - is as those abilities, notions and
forms of behavior persons have acquired as
members of society.
CULTURE refers to the acquired,
cognitive and symbolic aspects of
existence
SOCIETY refers to the social organization
of human life, patterns of interaction
and power relationships

ANTHROPOLOGY is the comparative

study of CULTURAL and SOCIAL LIFE.
• EVERY HUMAN IS EQUALLY CULTURAL- (BASIC
SIMILARITY WITHIN HUMANITY)

PEOPLE HAVE ACQUIRED

DIFFERENT ABILITIES,
NOTIONS AND ETC.
ARE HEREBY DIFFERENT
BECAUSE OF CULTURE
 The central problem of
Anthropology
• is the diversity of human social life
• similarities ancd differences
To what extent do all humans ,
cultures and societies in common and
unique?
IT IS IMPLICITLY ACKNOWLEDGED
THAT ALL NEARLY
ALL SOCIETIES
HAVE SEVERAL FEATURES IN COMMON.
 EHTNOCENTRISM
ETHNOS - means PEOPLE
-evaluating other people from
one's own vaantage point and describing
them in one's own terms.
ONE'S OWN ethnos including one's
cultural values, is literally place at the
centre(as inferior imitations of oneself.

Ethnocentrism attitude which fails to

allow peaople to be different from
ourselves on their terms can be serious
obstacle to understanding.
 cultural relativism
• is the doctrine that societies or
cultures are qualitatively different and
have their own unique inner logic and
scientifically absurd to rank them on
scale.
• the opposite of ethnocentrism.
• investigate and compare socities
without relating them to an
intellectually irrelevant moral scale.
why are there great variations
in the way people around the
world live?
Amid these variations, why do we
see similarities among societies?
 In what way can the study
of the different and
common aspects of human
existence contribute to our
understanding of culture,
society and politics?
 QUIZ TIME
INSTRUCTION:
IDENTIFY THE CONCEPT
BEING PRESENTED BY
EXAMINING THE PICTURE
AND EXPLAIN (BRIEFLY)
THAT CONCEPT ATLEAST 1-2
SENTENCES.
 COGNITVE
1. CULTURE
2 cultural
relativism
3. ethnocentrism
4.
ethnocentrism
5
6. Compare
7. Compare
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
 14.1
14
14.3

14.2

14.4

14.6

14.5
15.