chapter 4 Flashcards
Evolutionism
all societies go through 3 distinct evolutionary phases: savagery, barbarianism, civilization
founder of evolutionism
E. B Tylor
survivals
items of culture that had survived earlier times and seem out of place in contemporary society
5 main assumption of evolutionism
- culture is governed by laws just like science
- cultural laws are uniformitarian (don’t change)
- cultural progress is from simple to complex
- cultural progress is stimulated by interactions with the environment
- cultures are order in a hierarchical manner
critiques of evolutionism
- is the central tenet valid?
- it’s ethnocentric- and sees civilization as superior
- there is no data to support the theory, assumptions from notes and observations from other anthropologists.
- is the doctrine of survivals valid
sociological theory
science of society is based on the same principles as those of the natural science; there are objective social facts
who did the sociological theory?
Emile Durkhiem
functionalism
theory that social institutions function to fulfill biological needs of individuals
Durhiem’s theory on what held societies together?
mechanical solidarity- members of a society think and act similarly because the small-scale societies are integrated
organic solidarity- large-scale societies are held together because of their dependence on each other to survive
father of structuralist functionalism
Radcliffe Brown
structuralist functionalism
the society has a structure that must be maintained and upheld by social institutions that mold and form people who will fit into this structure- focus on the function of instution on the organism of society as a whole
critiques of functionalism
- don’t look at the history/origin of such institutions
- views humans as puppets who cannot come into conflict with each other
- institutions are assumed to be static, don’t account for change
- who decides what is good for society
- do all institutions have a function
historical particularism
to understand any culture you have to look at that culture’s particular history
father of historical particularism
Frank Boas
approach of historical particularism
- ethnographic facts precede cultural theories
- every culture is unique
- cultural diffusion
- fieldwork
Boaz’s view on evolutionism
- it assumes what it wants to prove
- categorizing ignores each culture’s uniqueness
- doesn’t focus on cultural history
- rational psychological explanations to culture are not correct because people do not reason out of a primitive culture, it is automatic and unconscious
culture is super organic
the product of a group but individual effects the product
Alfred Louis Kroeber
super organic culture- individual has very little effect on the group
Ruth Benedict
theory that cultures dictate the personalities of the individuals that inhabit their culture by enforcing them through cultural and daily practices.
Boasian concept of culture
- superorganic
- unconscious
- adaptive
Margaret Mead
gender roles are not biologically determined but socially constructed
critiques of culture and personality relationship
- history is not taken into account
- circular, using personality traits identify personality traits
- does culture cause individual personality
- what accounts of individual behaviour patterns (evidence)
neo-evolutionism
there are many stages and processes societies go through to develop, but cultures do evolve from simple to complex
founder of cultural ecology
Julian Steward
cultural ecology
study of how society adapts to it’s environment
cultural core
a collection of traits and activities that directly lead ot the exploitation of the resources and obtaining of basic needs
culture types
cultures that have a similar cultural core
cultural hierarchy complexity
band-tribe-chiefdom-state
materialist view of culture
culture is influenced by material ideas, natural resources, and human biology
idealist view of culture
culture is influenced by values and the way we view the world- etic perspective
Marvin Harris
materialist view; culture is a system of energy transfer and distribution
symbolic anthropology
a theoretical school of thought in anthropology that views the goal of anthropology as the interpretation of symbols
father of interpretive anthropology
Clifford Geetz
interpretative anthropology
culture is a tangled web of symbols and meanings and an anthropologist’s job is to interprete them
Geetz’s revolutionary ideas
anthropologists were forced to become more aware of the cultural context of things, because they had to interpret how people see themselves- etic perspective
Feminist anthropology
giving women a voice in anthropology not just as subject topics but main focuses, and an alternative analysis of women in societies
political economy
study of conflict, ideology and power and how they impact a society (a connection between economic power and political progress)
focuses of political economy
inequality, marginalizing effects on groups, labour force, war, violence… (focuses on areas of conflict and power struggle)
political ecology
study of how unequal relations among society affect the use of the natural environment and its resources.
political ecology and marginalized people
focus on how environmental degradation can be a source of marginalization, relocating people for industrial purposes
post modern anth.
challenging the idea that anthropology can be objective
postmodernism labels these things as subjective forms of information
fieldwork, ethnography
postmodernist on power relations in anthropology
colonialism- anthropologist were part of the dominant group, working for colonialists, conflict of interest
reflexive anthropology
recognizing one’s biases and subjective approach when engaging in research, by disclosing the terms and conditions of the fieldwork, discussion of interpersonal relations with informants, discussing situations and knowledge presented, in terms of how the ethnographer collected it.
critiques of post-modernism
- anthropology into literature by discounting all data as subjective and based on interpretation
- no conclusions can be reached on anything
central tenets
evolutionist view that conditions of savages and barbarous tribes often more or less represent stages of culture through which our own ancestors passed along
survivals
E.B Taylor used that as evidence for evolutionism to trace the course history that civilization has gone through
John Fergurson McLennan Primitive Marriages
Scottish evolutionist who discovers that early marriages had to do with the capturing of women
