Anthropology is the holistic and comparative study of humans through time and space (past and present).

Assumption that your civilization and way of life is the correct way and every other way is false. Come to the realization that the world is diverse. Cultural Anthropology today offers a vital counterpoint to the underlying assumptions of the dominant world order by documenting continuing human diversity and cultural creativity in the face of change. Challenging commonsense notions about our present situation and future possibilities, by documenting cultural alternatives. Culture is NOT biology. Culture is made possible by biology, but differs in that its learned. Its not passed on by genes. Culture is also taught. Overwhelming part of human legacy is culture. Culture is a concept. Its not a thing. There is no one definition of culture. Concept summarizes a collection of different traits. Its a way of bringing our attention of different patterns. Culture is not a thing. Culture -> Codere; to cultivate. Early definition: That complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. Culture is: shared socially learned knowledge and patterns of behavior. Culture is shared: social patterns reveal social conformity -> The range of individual variation -> Culture exists within social environments. Culture refers to the social aspect. Culture is socially learned: What is the basis of social conformity? -> Enculturation; the process of internal learning that you dont even have to think about what youre doing; most of it learned in childhood -> Levels of learning (social vs individual, ex. Gender roles) Knowledge: culture reflects our ability to create, communicate, store and pass on knowledge (this ability is biologicala capacity of our brainsbut the actual construction of knowledge is cultural -> the basic element of knowledge is symbol (symbol = something that represents another) Patterns of behavior: Culture informs commonsense (norms: standards of behavior), (values: moral orientations that sanction standards of behavior)

Culture is Patterned and Innovative: Culture is implied in our actions -> Culture is implied in our reasoning -> Yet culture is continually reinvented as it is performed, because it is based upon human-created symbolic knowledge. Encountering culture: - The 5 isms - Parochialism - Racism -> using biology to appeal to differences - Ethnocentrism -> idea that youre comfortable with your own place and that your place is superior - Romanticism-> reversing ethnocentrism - Cultural relativism -> a technique and tool REMEMBER: The Culture Concept is an Intellectual Tool hat Helps Us Map Out Human Behaviour and Experience in a Variety of Useful Ways. The concept gets used in a variety of ways. The Culture scale: Micro, Local, regional, global. Group culture, local culture, regional culture, global culture. The Cultural Orange: As a concept, we can divide up culture to think about different aspects of human experience across cultural scales. - For instance, Domains: technology, social organization, religion. Processes: socialization, exchange. Relations between cultural systems; articulation, acculturation. Culture is essential for human life. It provides each generation with the skills needed to adapt and survive. It provides individuals with norms, values, and expectations that make it possible to form social groups. It provides symbols, ways of reasoning, and worldviews that allow people to communicate and make sense of their reality. Anthropology is an endeavor that involves: the study of human biological evolution, the study of cultures in the past, the study of language, and the study of culture in the present and recent past. Biological Anthropology: the study of the biological evolution of humans and related primates. Paleoanthropology: the deep past of humankind, study of human and humanoid fossils and remains. Primatology: evolution, adaptation and social characteristics of apes and monkeys. Human biology: studies of human biological variations. Forensic anthropology: scientific study of human remains.

Archaeology: the study of the human past through the analysis of material remains. Linguistic anthropology: the study of world languages. Cultural anthropology: the study of human cultural diversity in the recent past and present. Ethnology: the comparative study of culture. Ethnography: the study of a single culture. Basic idea is that to do ethnography involves slow research. Must give self time to blend into the study community. Tools of the trade: Censuses and surveys Genealogical research Life histories and narratives Formal and informal interviews Documentary research: archives Multi-media research Personal aspects: Cultural shock Making mistakes Fieldwork as encultural Keeping track: Field notes Journals Publications and reports All work involves collaboration. Language Humans are Symbolizing Animals A symbol is something that represents something else. The relationship between a symbol and the thing it represents is arbitrary. Meaning is generated through relationships between symbols and the rules that govern the relationships.

Humans use many types of symbol systems Spoken and written language Body language (kinesics) Symbolic domains: food, clothing, music, art, body decoration, ritual, etiquette Language is the Basis of Human Culture Communication (basis of social interaction) Symbolic reasoning (basis of planning, invention, tool making) Memory (storage, retrieval and communication of informationthe basis of passing culture on to new generations) Whats so special about human vs non-human language? Productivity: the ability to create an infinite range of understandable expressions from a finite set of linguistic rules Displacement: the ability to refer to events and issues beyond the immediate present (ex. In the past and future) This gives language the characteristics of creativity along with the capability to convey information, which in turn allows planning, and education. Study of language Phonology: sounds Morphology: units of meaning Syntax: structure of utterances Semantics: generation of meaning Phonology: Phonetics: the comparative study of sounds used in human language Phonemics: the study of the relationships between sounds and meaning Phoneme: the smallest meaning-producing unit of sound Syntax Ex. The cat walked into the house. The cat house walked into the. Walked the into cat house the. Language is foundational culture; it shapes society. Language and Perception Humans use language to organize experience within semantic domains (categories of things or properties that are perceived as having fundamental commonalities)

Language and Construction of Reality The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that language shapes human perceptions of reality. Limits of relativity When is something a metaphor or perception? To what degree can languages really be translated into each other? Sociolinguistics: the social uses of language Special words or forms of speech may designate social divisions and hierarchies; terms of address, honourifics Language marks social status. Customary language use reinforces culturally sanctioned behaviours. Franklin polar expedition for the Northwest Passage was the largest expedition. They starved to death and died from scurvy. Expedition failed because of ethnocentrism: Europeans thought Inuits were primitive and therefore refused to live by their customs (ex. Eating seal to prevent scurvy, etc) and then died. Technology and Culture Technology as a tool kit Technology as knowledge Modes of Production The dominant pattern of making a living in a culture Points of comparison: - Means of production (technology) - Organization of production - Productivity (energy in and energy out) Correlations Food productivity and stability Population size and concentration (scale) Social differentiation (complexity) Social inequality (stratification) - If youre in society and everyone is a farmer, youre generally going to be in a society with fairly low populations, etc. Some Cautions The usefulness and dangers of models Exceptions (like the Northwest Coast) Multiplicity of modes of production Reading progressive evolution into a comparative model

These models are simplified.

Foraging societies (hunter-gatherers) Must be extremely aware of their environment to live. They tend to be small, mobile groups based on kinship and tend to have seasonal patterns. One season of the year when groups come together and do rituals, marriages, etc. Mode of Production: Foraging Technology: Hunter-gatherer Scale: Mobile, low density Leadership and inequality: Elders, gender division, relative equality Political Type: Bands Horticulturalists The earliest of cultivators. Horticulture is a basic form of agriculture, cultivation of plants, domestication of animals, usage of hand tools, etc. No irrigation, no fertilizers. A kind of society where everyone is a cultivator and engaged in subsistence. Mode of Production: Horticultural Technology: Slash and burn/rotation Scale: Small settlements Leadership and inequality: Big men, relative equality within own sex Political Type: Tribes Pastoralists Two basic patterns: transhumance -> people have marked areas where they moved from like the wet season to dry season; always same places. Nomadism -> people may have a territory but there is no fixed movement of the group; they move where there is good land and water. Mode of Production: Pastoral Technology: Nomadism/transhumance Scale: Higher populations, low density Leadership and inequality: Chief and elders, male domination Political Type: Tribes, chiefdoms Mode of Production: Small-scale agriculture Technology: Ploughing, irrigation, rotation, fertilization Scale: Large rural population, crop surplus supports dense urban populations Leadership and inequality: Land-holding aristocracies, true stratification based on religious and economic principles Political Type: States

Industrial Agriculture Differs from small-scale agriculture in that industrial has more inputs into distribution of soil, breeding of animals, etc. Based on models of capitalism Mode of Production: Industrial agriculture Technology: High external energy inputs, mass-production techniques, modified crops and animals Scale: Small rural populations, very large urban populations Leadership and inequality: Political offices, various systems of elections, variable economic stratific action Political Type: nation states Confounding Expectations: What is progress? The original affluent societies? Choosing not to cultivate: the case of the Australian Aborigines Foraging in the urban jungle Questions of sustainability Applied Anthropology Studying in the field; living amongst your study subjects. Applying anthropological knowledge to real life situations. Economics as a Cultural System The purpose of food production? -> According to the slow food movement, agriculture is about relationships between humans and between humans and the environment. Industrial agriculture focuses mainly on production of commodities for consumption. Food is about much more than subsistence Rwandans who live in rural areas rarely eat meat. Some families have cattle, but since cattle are considered a status symbol, people seldom slaughter them for meat. Rwandan food is neither spicy nor hot. People eat simple meals made with locally grown ingredients. The Rwandan diet consists mainly of sweet potatoes, beans, corn, peas, millet and fruit. Although Rwanda has a large commercial brewery, many people make their own beer and alcoholic beverages, using sorghum, corn or fermented plantains. Ikigage is a locally brewed alcoholic drink made from dry sorghum and urwarwa is brewed from plantains. Traditionally, people drink beer through straws from a single large container. Perspectives of Economic Systems Economics studies patterns of production, exchange, and consumption. This approach can make economies appear to be naturally occurring systems with their own unique laws and patterns of development.

From an anthropological perspective, economies are fundamentally cultural: Learned, shared, meaningful, systematic, and innovative. How can we study and make sense of the differences of the different economic ways people live? Economies are human created.

Production, Distribution, and Consumption in Cross-Cultural Perspective While there are commonalities across cultures, we deal with them in very different ways. This draws the questions about human nature. Across every culture, when people eat food they will occasionally share that food in a party. People like partying at life transitions (marriage, birth, etc.). The nature, activities, and etiquette of the feast is different. In this way there is commonality but diversity. Basic Patterns of Distribution Reciprocity: giving with the obligation to return equal value. Redistribution: collective giving to one person or group with later return of some or all. Market exchange: buying and selling of goods via a centralized market. Exchange type: Reciprocity Object type: Gift Return: Gift of equal value Associated with: Foraging, horticulture Political form: Bands, tribes Redistribution Tribute Form of feast or ceremonial Pastoralism, agriculture Chiefdoms, early states Market Exchange Commodity Immediate payment with money Industrial agriculture Global system Reciprocity Generalized generalized expectation that people are going to help each other Balanced If you lend someone something, youre going to remember what youve done and you WILL be ticked off if they dont give something back. Negative (unbalanced)

Redistribution Potlatch: the giving away of stuff. Market Exchange Other two systems all involve giving things back. However, things move through an abstract central market, which devalues the object. Money: An idea that changes everything Many cultures use various forms of ceremonial wealth limited forms of currency allowing the exchange of certain items, usually on ceremonial occasions. Even in hunter-gatherer societies theres a form of wealth; ex. Large animals brought back from the hunt Not value so much of the intrinsic worth, but what it symbolizes. Ex. A $20 bill is not actually WORTH its price in quality, but symbolizes twenty dollars of currency. True money acts as a universal medium of exchange. It allows a value to be placed on anything without reference to its source or use. Because of this symbolic quality, money is highly portable whether as currency or abstract figures in a spreadsheet. Markets: from barter to capital Historically, reciprocity: you give to me I give to you. When classes get larger and people dont grow their own food anymore, more bartering grows on and the market is a place to do that. Year 1000, revolutionary international markets appear. There is the idea that money can be used to by things far away; no more need for face-to-face relationship. This new system of capital is new to humans because for most of our history we have shared things Capitol refers to something that is invested for the purpose of making profit for the investor (capitalist) Capitalized markets are driven by goal of making profits (surpluses) through the exchange of goods. Part of the surplus gets consumed, in the forms of payments to workers or for raw materials and directly by the investors. Another part of the surplus becomes capital that is in turn invested to increase profits. Main driver of economy is taking that portion away and making more profit off of it by reinvesting it. Capitalism has a built in bias towards growth (= more capital, more investment, more profits). Growth in capital markets follows tow strategies, which often are in tension: increasing consumption and decreasing the costs of production, particularly that of labour and raw materials.

With birth if capitalism, there is the largest migration of people in human history.

The Commodity as a key symbol Karl Marx: Analysis [of the commodity] shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. A key symbol is an idea that serves both to condense and to organize the central values and worldview of cultural system. The commodity is a key symbol of capitalism and thus of the emerging global system. The Global and the Local: Ethnographic Perspectives One Global Culture or Many? The whole world is slowly becoming the same. The global system enormously enhances the movement of people, ideas and products and thus local exposure to different cultures. The need to consider alternatives Peasant farms in Rwanda produce less food per acre and require far more human labour than those in industrialized countries. They do not require inputs of mass manufactured fertilizers, insecticides and machinery, lowering the energy costs of producing food considerably while preserving the soil. This comparison raises questions about how we think of efficiency as well as progress. Gender Sexual differences versus gender: Sexual differences are biological Gender refers to the cultural construction of characteristics attributed to sexual differences (ex. Masculinity, femininity, etc.). Sexual Dimorphism Differences in female and male biology such as: Genitalia and secondary sexual features Average weight, height, strength and longevity Nature vs nurture: how far does genetically and physiologically determined differences go in affecting the ways males and females act and are treated? Cross-cultural Variations The trouble with normaltwo gender vs: Serial gender identities: Sambia (Papua New Guinea) Third gender: Two-spirits Native Americansmales start showing an interest in female activities and become two-spirits. Gender pluralism: hirajas of India

Rites of passage are periods in ones life when one is moving from one stage to another stage; ex. Manhood, birth, death, etc. This has to happen because humans have to be involved in making that gender difference or else that person cannot become a man/woman. Losing personality is associated with a lot of pain. Comparative vs Ethnographic Explanations of Divisions of Labour Comparative factors (primary): Physical strength Fertility maintenance Child care compatibility Variability: social scale and opportunity. Gender is good to organize with #2: Social Stratification Ethnological factors of variation: Contributions to material welfare Control over key resources Descent and post-marital residence Has there ever been a matriarchy? Iroquois confederacy The roles played by elder women in settling disputes, guiding tradition in many Indigenous cultures. What is kinship and why is it important? A human universal that takes cultural variant forms. In many industrialized societies, biological birth is considered absolutely natural. Therefore adoption is seen as a kind of secondary resource. There is also assumption if people are adopted, then at some point they want to know who their parents are. The Formative Role of Kinship Commitment to nurture and pass culture to children Creation of bonds between people for purposes of reproduction and economic security. Creation of in-group, outgroup boundaries for purposes of marriage and other alliances. Kinship as a Symbolic System Ex. In Trobriand Islands, descent is matriarchal. Everything (inheritance, etc.) is passed through women.

Kinship and Social Organization Nuclear and extended families Descent & the making of social groups Descent determined through time, ancestry. Provides a useful way of organizing societies. Descent also tells you who you can marry and who you cant marry, what groups you can and cannot belong to. Descent Systems Unilineal: - Patrilineal - Matrilineal Cognatic - Ambilineal - Double descent Bilateral What descent groups do Provide security Secure the inheritance of property and rights Regulate marriage Contribution to a sense of identity Kindreds Kindreds include all of ones possible relatives. Kinship terminologies organize kindreds into categories. All kinship terminologies recognize gender and generation, but: 1. Inuit distinguishes between inner and outer family 2. Iroquoian merges generations, making distinctions based upon relative gender and age. Kinship is given as well as performed Close and distant kin The power of sharing The expansiveness of kindreds Fictive kin What is marriage? You would assume this to be universal, but there is actually tons of variation by what people mean by marriage. Very difficult to come up with a general definition.

Sex, love, and marriage Lots of people confuse marriage with sex, love, and affection Marriage is not just about sex and love Social Functions of Marriage Political: establishing alliances Legal: - Rights of inheritance - Rights of sexual access - Rights to spouses labour - Economic partnership (household and/or between marrying groups) Incest Incest taboo: idea that youre not allowed marrying blood kin. In Roman times, elite families married amongst themselves because of religious system where those people were considered so sacred that if anyone besides their family touched them the would die. Biological: not enough genes get spread out between offspring, leading to deformities and mental illness. Rules Governing Marriage Partners Exogamy and endogamy rules Exogamy: cant marry with the group you belong to (may not include groups you can have sexual activity with). Endogamy rules: rules about whom you must marry. Traditional notion that marriage is an alliance between groups Marital Exchanges Bride or groom service Sibling exchange Fostering children Bride price (bride wealth) Dowry Post-Marital Residence Rules and the Life Cycle of Households Patrilocality -> rule that you must live in the place of the husband (in the fathers place). Matrilocality -> Husband goes to the wifes place (mothers place). Neolocality -> Couple goes to their own household. Plural Marriages Polygamy: - Polygyny -> husband has more than one wife. - Polyandry -> wife has more than one husband.

Serial monogamy