Module 8 - Symbol, Myth and Meaning Flashcards
What is the definition of Culture?
the complex whole that includes knowledge, belief, art, morals,
law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by
humans as a member of society
Culture is…
○ Learned, practiced, performed, embodied - so much we are experts at our own culture - feels normal and natural - common sense
Claud Levi-Strauss + CRIT
structuralism, sees cultures as systems - that mental processes in culture are the same, and exist in binary oppositions (boy/girl)
○ Today, these binaries are over simplifications - humans are more fluid and complex than a binary model - danger in binary perpetuate inequalities
§ What can we learn: can appreciate that society is a universal natural for humans, need soc to operate to full potential
Arjun Appadurai
work interested in poverty reduction and everyday life within contemp capitalism with focus on urban life + poor in Mumbai - new global cultural economy
has to be seen as a complex, overlapping,
disjunctive order” and includes cultural flows,
referred to as ‘scapes’
○ Dissensus: a part of culture too, people don’t agree all the time - people push back against hegemonic aspects of their culture
○ Culture is dynamic + leaky - cultural exchange has always existed
○ Is a dialogue between aspirations and sedimented traditions
what are ‘scapes’
§ Ethnoscapes, Technoscapes, Financescapes, Mediascapes, Ideoscapes -
○ Culture is relation, elements of a cultural system make sense only in relation to one another
Cultural anthropology
looks at culture as its object of inquiry -> through studying culture anthropology we engage with what it means to be human in dynamic holistic manner
Habitus
the meaningful yet unconscious activity that pervades our daily live - normalized, mundane aspects of cult life, often shared by people w similar backgrounds, opportunities + cult experience
Pierre Bourdieu + Habitus
Habitus is internalized as second nature - acquired by us via experience etc as embodies dispositions - predisposes us to act in improv way in constraints of particular systems - agency is defined by systems
§ Unconscious rules + how individuals display these logics of a culture
§ Practice (what we do), technique (how you do it), taste (how we like to do it), belief (what we think about it)
Example of Habitus
The stair in the NYC subway where everyone trips as they all are accustomed to a specific height for stairs
Practice Theory
f ocuses on the idea that people are not only influenced by their social structure, but influence their social structure as well.
○ We practice culture, but not simply passively, we do have agency
○ Analyzing relation b/w existing structures of cult + how people act w/I this structure
○ Feedback loop between people + society
ppt ob in anth, crucial to understand what people acc do, say, and believe rather than what they say they do, say, and believe
Clifford Geertz
Known for his work on symbolic anthropology and
interpretation.
Known for his “thick description”, as featured in Deep
Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight
- emphasis on culture and takes a semiotic
approach - interpretation of cultural symbols
- religious symbols and rituals
- emphasis placed on symbols
- culture as a collection of symbolic systems
- symbols as vehicles of “culture”
- properties of symbolic representation
‘Thick description’
Clifford Geertz, the deep contextual engagements and explanations that we might recognize in contemp cult analysis - an attempt to desc the reality and context of peoples lives through a symbolic reading of culture - v interpretive, more literary
an attempt to describe the reality and context of
people’s lives through a symbolic reading of culture
Symbols
anything that stands for something else - stop sign - they referent, agreement made by social groups
○ Concept ref to phys object - semantic triangle - word also symbolizes the concept
Rituals to Geertz
any object act event quality or relation as a potential symbol - rituals as codes that point to deeper systems of shared meaning
Geertz + Balineese Cockfights
- it often serves as a metaphor for other spheres of social life
Geertz on Rituals
any “object, act,
event, quality, or relation”
as a potential symbol
* rituals as codes that
point to deeper systems of
shared meaning
religion
symbolic cultural systems
* establish powerful,
pervasive, and long- lasting
moods and motivations
* sacred symbols function to
interpret reality and shape
behavior
* rituals support and confirm
the “unseen order” of things
Symbolic anthropology
role of symbols in the
everyday life of a group of
people
* views culture in terms of
symbols and mental
constructs
* focus on religion,
cosmology, ritual activity,
and expressive customs
such as mythology and the
performing arts
Why do people engage in highly
painful, even dangerous, ritual
behaviors?
serve to develop strong
emotional bonds among
participants and those who are
closest to them
reinforce social cohesion
Belief
omething that is accepted, considered to be true, or held as an opinion
* : something believed an individual’s religious or political beliefs
Empistemology
the study or a theory of the
nature and grounds of knowledge
especially with reference to its
limits and validity
* The theory of the scope and
nature of knowledge
Ontology
Is concerned with the nature of
being, of existence
to anthropologists, We recognize that ontologies are
shaped by intersections of power,
and histories, and are informed by
the dynamics of culture
Ethnology
a branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationship between them
Mana
The distinguishing characteristic of any sacred being
