• Culture: Not just a good idea- it’s THE LAW!
• – E. B. Tylor (1832-1917)
• Primitive Culture 1871 • “Survivals” - religion
What do we mean by “Natural Laws”? How does it apply to humans, or “human nature”?
• Theory – Reductionism (Complex
phenomena reduced to simple causes)
– determinism
• Empirical • Fact
• Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) “Survival of the Fittest”
• Material phenomena • (measureable, tangible)
• Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) - Sociology - Solidarity
(mechanical or organic)
- Cultures evolve in a predictable pattern
1.2 Nineteenth Century Approaches • Unilineal Cultural Evolutionism
– Charles Darwin 1809-1882 • Lewis Henry Morgan
(1818-1881)
• biological determinism and races
1877
12.3 Early Twentieth-Century Approaches • Diffusion • Culture Traits • Culture Areas
• Franz Boas – Historical particularism
•A.R. Radcliffe-Brown – Structural functionalism – Heavily Influenced by Durkheim – SOCIETY as basic unit (material) – Antagonism with North
Americans – More “Laws”
• Social determinism • Cultural determinism
12.4 Mid-Twentieth-Century Approaches
• Ethnoscience (linguistic taxonomies) – ex: American university departments – Emic and etic categories
• French Structuralism • Claude Levi-Strauss • Bricolage
• Criticisms − Post-structuralists − Grand theorizing − Meta narratives, privileged views − Culture as monolithic
Mid-Twentieth-Century Approaches: Symbolic Anthropology
• Interpretive Anthropology – Mary Douglas
• Symbolic functionalism • “Purity and Danger”
– Victor (and Edith) Turner- social dramas • ritual, pilgrimage, theater
– Clifford Geertz- “Thick Description” – • objects and
actions (cockfights)
Mid-20th Century : Ecological Anthropology and Neoevolutionism
•Cultural adaptation, not biological determinism • Julian Steward- Cultural ecology •Multilineal evolution •Behavioral ecology
• Leslie White
Mid-Twentieth-Century Approaches: Materialism
•Marvin Harris 1. Cultural Materialism •Utilitarian 2. Historical (dialectical) Materialism 3. Political ecology (post-Marxist)
12.5 Late-20th Century Debates • 20th century- Attempt to establish “science of culture”
•21st Century- 2 camps
1) “Traditional” science
- Truth is universal and objective
- Discovered by rational, empirical means
- Complex effects reducible to simple, determining causes
- Search for unified “Theory of everything”
12.5 Late-20th Century Debates • 20th century- Attempt to establish “science of culture”
•21st Century- 2 camps
1) “Traditional” science
- Truth is universal and objective
- Discovered by rational, empirical means
- Complex effects reducible to simple, determining causes
- Search for unified “Theory of everything”
2) Postmodernism (humanistic)
- Culture cannot be studied scientifically
- Interpretive, reflexive, subjective
- “Grand Theory” does not apply to particular cultures
- What about human rights? Are they not universal?
12.5 Late-20th Century Debates • Donna Haraway situated knowledge (parallax?) – located at
a standpoint • People understand society
from their own vantage point (social status)
• How do you view “The system” (law enforcement?) depending upon your race, gender, class, etc?
• Perceptions (knowledge) contradict
• Cultures are not smoothly functioning, neatly bounded, harmonious
12.6 New Directions in the Twenty-first Century
•Walking the line between extreme determinism and extreme relativism
• Eclecticism •Globalization, localization, political economy
– “follow the money” – movement between groups, immigration, homelessness – Historical (vs. ahistorical) perspectives – Postcolonial studies – “Native” anthropologies – “studying up”
• distributive agency (eg, science, civil rights movement)- “heterogeneous assemblages” and interest groups