Power, Religion,Art and Cultural Change

Lolita Nikolova

Reference:

Haviland et al. 2005

Web version

(no illustrations)

IndividualSocial personality/ Social actor

Household

Work

Associations

Religious organizations

Political organizations

Cultural and other kinds of clubs and organizations

Leader/Head vs. member

Famous vs. non-famous

Talent vs. not develop specific talent

Sport

Art

Science

etc.

Religion

Organized belief in the supernatural. Fulfill numerous social and

psychological needs. No known group of people anywhere on

the face of the earth, at any time over the past 100,000 years, have been without religion.

Supernatural Beings

Major deities (gods and goddesses) Ancestral spirits Other sorts of spirit beings

Animism A belief in spirit beings, other than ancestors,

who are believed to animate all of nature. These spirit beings are closer to humans than

gods and goddesses and are concerned with human activities.

Animism is typical of peoples who see themselves as a part of nature rather than superior to it.

How A Belief in Supernatural Beings Is Perpetuated Through what are interpreted as

manifestations of power. Supernatural beings possess attributes

familiar to people. Myths serve to rationalize religious

beliefs and practices.

Shamans Skilled at contacting and manipulating

supernatural beings and powers through altered states of consciousness.

Provides a focal point of attention for society and can help maintain social control.

Benefits for the shaman are prestige, wealth, and an outlet for artistic self-expression.

Rites of Passage

Arnold Van Gennep rites of passage into the following: Rites of separationRites of transitionRites of incorporation

Rites of Intensification

Rituals to mark occasions of crisis in the life of the group.

Functions:Unite people.Allay fear of the crisis.Prompt collective action.

Functions of Witchcraft

Effective way for people to explain away personal misfortune without having to shoulder any of the blame themselves.

Provides an outlet for feelings of hostility and frustration without disturbing the norms of the larger group.

Functions of Religion

Sanctions a wide range of conduct by providing notions of right and wrong.

Sets standards for acceptable behavior and helps perpetuate an existing social order.

Lifts burden of decision making from individuals and places responsibility with god.

Plays a role in maintaining social solidarity.

What Is Art?

The creative use of the human imagination to interpret, express, and enjoy life.

From the uniquely human ability to use symbols to give shape and significance to the physical world for more than just a utilitarian purpose.

Verbal Arts

Oral traditions denote a culture’s unwritten stories, beliefs, and customs.

Include narrative, drama, poetry, incantations, proverbs, riddles, and word games.

3 Categories of Narratives

Myths - sacred narratives that explain how the world came to be as it is.

Legends - stories told as if true that recount the exploits of heroes.

Tales are fictional, secular, and nonhistorical narratives that instruct as they entertain.

Music

Study of music in specific cultural settings has developed into the specialized field of ethnomusicology.

Almost everywhere human music is perceived in terms of a scale.

Traditional European music is measured into recurrent patterns of two, three, and four beats.

Social Functions of Music

Express a group’s concerns. Serves as a powerful way for a social or

ethnic group to assert a distinctive identity.

It may be used to advance political, economic, and social agendas.

Pictorial Art

Three ways to approach the study of art: 1. Aesthetic approach focuses on how

things are depicted.2. Narrative approach focuses on what

things are depicted.3. Interpretive approach can reveal the

meaning of another people’s art.

Causes of Cultural Change

Accidents, including the unexpected outcome of existing events.

People’s deliberate attempt to solve some perceived problem.

Change may be forced upon one group in the course of especially intense contact between two societies.

Mechanisms of Cultural Change Innovation Diffusion Cultural loss Acculturation

Innovation

The ultimate source of change: some new practice, tool, or principle.

Other individuals adopt the innovation, and it becomes socially shared.

Primary innovations are chance discoveries of new principles.

Secondary innovations are improvements made by applying known principles.

Acceptance of Innovation

Depends partly on its perceived superiority to the method or object it replaces.

Also connected with the prestige of the innovator and recipient groups.

Are Human Practices Always Adaptive?

In the U.S. it is not adaptive to deplete groundwater in regions of fast-growing populations.

Conditions for Rebellion and Revolution1. Loss of prestige of established

authority.2. Threat to recent economic

improvement. 3. Indecisiveness of government.

Conditions for Rebellion and Revolution4. Loss of support of the intellectual

class. 5. A leader or group of leaders with

enough charisma or popular appeal to mobilize the population against the establishment.

Applied Anthropology

Arose as anthropologists sought to provide colonial administrators with more understanding of native cultures.

Later, anthropologists tried to help indigenous people cope with outside threats to their interests.

Process of Modernization

4 Subprocesses Technological development Agricultural development Industrialization Urbanization

Anthropologists Contribution to the Study of the Future of Humanity Anthropologists see things in context. They have a long-term historical

perspective and recognize culture bound biases.

Anthropologists are concerned with the tendency to treat traditional societies as obsolete when they appear to stand in the way of “development.”

Multiculturalism An policy of mutual respect and tolerance for

cultural differences. Ethnic tension, common in pluralistic

societies, sometimes turns violent, leading to formal separation.

To manage cultural diversity within such societies, some countries have adopted multiculturalism as an official public policy.

Global Corporations Their power and wealth, often exceeding that

of national governments, has increased dramatically through media expansion.

Megacorporations have enormous influence on the ideas and behavior of hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

States and corporations compete for scarce natural resources, cheap labor, new commercial markets, and ever-larger profits in a political arena that spans the entire globe.

Structural power The global forces that direct economic and

political institutions and shape public ideas and values.

Hard power is backed up by economic and military force.

Soft power is ideological persuasion. The world’s largest corporations are almost all

based in a small group of wealthy states, which dominate international trade and finance organizations.

Globalization and Corporations Globalization provides megaprofits for large

corporations but wreaks havoc in traditional cultures.

Globalization is marketed as positive for everyone, but the poor are becoming poorer and the rich richer.

Globalization engenders worldwide resistance against superpower domination. For this reason, the emerging world system is

unstable, vulnerable, and unpredictable.

Results of Globalization

Worldwide and growing structural violence-physical and/or psychological harm: Repression cultural and environmental destruction Poverty hunger and obesity illness, and premature death

Caused by exploitative and unjust social, political, and economical systems.

A Sustainable Future

Dramatic changes in cultural values and motivations, as well as in social institutions and the types of technologies we employ, are required if humans are going to realize a sustainable future.

Shortsighted emphasis on consumerism and individual self-interest needs to be abandoned in favor of a more balanced social and environmental ethic.

Pollution and Over Population A direct threat to humanity. Western societies have protected their

environment only when a crisis warranted. Many of the world’s developing countries

have policies for population growth that conflict with other policies.

Even with replacement reproduction, the population would continue to grow for 50 years.

Questions What is religion? What are religion’s identifying features? What functions does religion serve? What is art? Why do anthropologists study art? What are the functions of the arts? Why do cultures change? How do cultures change? What is modernization?

Questions

What can anthropologists tell us of the future?

What are today’s cultural trends? What problems must be solved for

humans to have a viable future?