I Evolutionists
vs Boas (19th century)
Unilenear views and determinism:
Morgan (1818-1881)
Tylor: (1832-1917)
Durkheim (1858-1917)
Historic Particularism:
Boas (1858-1942)
EDWARD TYLOR: (1832-1917) Primitive Culture (1871) - British
Father of British Anthropology
Main theory:
Human history is progression. The study of Anthropology must follow the scientific method.
Main theoretical ideas:
Definition of Culture: “Complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, laws, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by a man as a member of society.”
Unilinear evolution: Only one line of evolution which all societies follow in their development towards civilization. Linked to determinism
Survivals: Processes, customs, opinions which have been carried by force of habit into a new state of society (even if the meaning has been lost). Examples: Shake hands, military salute, folklore, Shakespearean quotes.
Uniformitarianism: Processes of culture are the same now and in the past. Influenced Lyell (geology), who assumed that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now, have always been applied. It goes against the idea of catastrophism, the earth was shaped by a series of sudden, short-lived, violent events.
Comparative method: (plus Morgan) Compare all societies in the planet affirming that similar processes are historically related (attacked by Boas because societies are not comparable). Compare with Durkheim.
Animism - Belief in the human soul that survives bodily death and belief in other spirits, including deities.Tylor hypothesized that animism was the foundation of all religions. Compare with Durkheim and religion.
Independent invention vs Diffusion: Cultural change arises spontaneously from within a culture vs cultural change is the result of intercultural interaction. Tylor said, culture probably "originated independently more than once (..) but that actual historical development involved numerous instances of cultural diffusion.”
Background: Quaker
Contemporaries: Lyell
LEWIS HENRY MORGAN (1818-1881) Ancient Society (1877)- American
Main theory:
There are no different cultures, only stages of cultural evolution.
Main theoretical ideas:
Unilinear evolution: Only one line of evolution which all societies follow in their development towards civilization. The three different cultures are Savagery, Barbarism and Civilization, and are distinguished by their technological advancement. Linked to determinism.
Kinship system: Divided into descriptive and classificatory. When a descriptive term is used, it can only represent one type of relationship between two people, while a classificatory term represents one of many different types of relationships. For example, the word brother in English-speaking societies indicates a son of the same parent; thus, English-speaking societies use the word brother as a descriptive term. But a person's male first cousin could be the mother's brother's son, mother's sister's son, father's brother's son, father's sister's son, and so on; English-speaking societies therefore use the word cousin as a classificatory term. According to Morgan, descriptive systems are present in civilized societies, while classificatory in undeveloped.
Social structure and economy: they are closely linked to each other, for once someone develops property rights, the family structure changes.
Independent invention vs Diffusion: Social change involved both diffusion and independent invention.
Background: Raised on the frontier of W. NY with the ideas of Manifest Destiny, economic expanse and collapse, American Civil War, eventually funded by the gov. and Smithsonian inst.
Major debates/issues: paired against Boas on basis of historical particularism (historical circumstances) vs. unilineal evolution. Boas believed Morgan’s work was not based on scientific findings, that it was unprovable, that he had made up or conjectured stories.
Contemporaries: Marx and Engels
FRANZ BOAS (1858-1942) The Mind of Primitive Man (1911) - German - Columbia University
Father of American Anthropology
Main theory:
Cultural History/Historic Particularism: Rejects Morgan’s view of unilinear evolution. Culture can only be explained within its specific cultural contexts (not evolutionary stages), and change happens through diffusion, invention and migration.Emphasized the importance of studying the laws which govern each culture in itself (small-scale societies) applying the scientific method to human cultures (induction). Anti-race and anti-categories.
Cultural Relativism: each society creates its own values that don’t apply cross culturally.There is not an absolute truth or set of values through all cultures.
3 flaws of evolutionism: Unilineal evolution, notion of survivals and classification of societies based on weak data, comparative method (very similar practices may arise from different causes).
Background: Born in NW Germany, into a Jewish family, influenced by the German Revolution, joined expedition to the Arctic: Inuits (extensive field work). Became American Citizen and a physicist, trained in many disciplines (Renaissance man). Leading teacher at major universities. Covered more subjects than his predecessors.
Major debates/issues: Boas rejected Morgan and Tylor’s cultural evolutionary theories. Lifelong opponent of cultural evolution (Tylor & Morgan), rejected orthogenesis (a determinate or teleological process of evolution in which change occurs progressively regardless of natural selection, or that societies progress through the same stages and in the same sequence),
Contemporaries: Durkheim
Students: Alfred Kroeber, Ruth Benedict, Edward Sapir, and Margaret Mead
ÉMILE DURKHEIM (1858-1917) The Division of Labor in Society (1893) - French
Father of Sociology
Main theory:
What keeps culture together is our cultural consciousness, mainly based on religion.
Main theoretical ideas:
Cohesion in a society comes from: Mechanical (culture is hold together by homogeneity of individuals, same background and aspirations, small societies) and organic (culture is hold together by interdependence that arises from specialization and complementarity, large societies) solidarity.
Collective/social conscience: The shared beliefs and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society.
Religion: Is a source of camaraderie and solidarity, keeps society together. A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things,
Comparative method: Compare the society itself to distinguish its solidarity.
Background Born in France to Jewish family. Framed by conflicts between Germany and France. Educated at Univ. of Bordeaux. Formally established anthropology as an academic discipline, and presented holistic structural functionalism theories. However, he was ignored by his contemporaries due to his lack of fieldwork and ethnographic details.
Contemporaries: Boas.
Students: Marcel Mauss.
II Boas et alia (in America) (1900-40’s):
1900’s (First PHD’s):
Alfred Kroeber (1876-1960)
Edward Sapir (1884-1939)
1920’s:
Ruth Benedict (1887-1948)
Mergaret Mead (1901-1978)
Alfred Kroeber: (1876-1960) - Handbook of the Indians of California (1925) - Berckley
Main theory:
Culture is superorganic (called collective consciousness by Durkheim): separate from society, individual and organism. It is learned, shared, nongenetic, anonymous, patterned knowledge, variable, super personal, and dominant over the individual. Holistic view of culture.
Main theoretical ideas:
Culture is stronger than genius and genetics.
Culture climax: Cultural changes are visible in several faces of culture.
Society vs Culture: Society: occurs whenever there is group life (bees, ants). Culture: consists of learned and shared elements of custom and belief.
Background: Born in upstate New Jersey. Bilingual, spoke German, known as a cultural anthro. Work in archaeol, and anthro linguistics, Excavated In NM, Mex, and Peru. Worked with Ish, (claimed to be last CA Yahi Indian).
Edward Sapir (1884-1939) - Language: An introduction to the Study of Speech (1921) - Chicago, Yale.
Main theoretical ideas:
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis : (language shapes thought, perception) (example of Eskimos have many words for ice) linguistic categories structure and transmit culturally learned perceptions of existence. Central concept of cultural relativism. Shifted focus of linguist analysis from word to its meaning.
Background: Born in Prussia, arrived in NY at age 5, Columbia college.
Ruth Benedict: (1887-1948) - Patterns of Culture (1934) American
Main theoretical ideas:
Cultural relativism: Society defines moral standards of right and wrong and culture is stronger than biology. Racial differences minimal compared to cultural differences.
“Gestalt”: Perception of the whole is different from the perception of its parts.
Patterns of culture: (values) Patterned occurrences of cultural traits that marked different cultural groups. Argued that all patterns of culture are equally valid.
Deviant: one who does not fit the pattern of his/her culture.
Background: Born in NY, studied core values of Japanese society, compared three different studies.
Contemporaries: Mead.
Margaret Mead: (1901-1978) Coming of Age in Samoa, (1928) - American
Main theoretical ideas:
Culture and personality:Differences between peoples are usually cultural differences imparted in childhood. Cultural knowledge transmitted since birth. Childhood, parenthood and sex define our personality. We need to give more freedoms to passions.
Specific child rearing practices shape personalities that in turn give specific societies their essential natures.
Background: Born in PA, Episcopal church, studied with Boas and Benedict. Ideas evolved directly from field investigations in Samoa.
Contemporaries: Benedict - approach similar to Benedict. Saw relation between individual and society as based on values: very specific values transmitted during child rearing. Concerned with specific sets of cultural values as food shared or hoarded.
III Britain and France (1900-40’s)
Unilenear views and determinism:
Morgan (1818-1881)
Tylor: (1832-1917)
Durkheim (1858-1917)
Historic Particularism:
Boas (1858-1942)
EDWARD TYLOR: (1832-1917) Primitive Culture (1871) - British
Father of British Anthropology
Main theory:
Human history is progression. The study of Anthropology must follow the scientific method.
Main theoretical ideas:
Definition of Culture: “Complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, laws, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by a man as a member of society.”
Unilinear evolution: Only one line of evolution which all societies follow in their development towards civilization. Linked to determinism
Survivals: Processes, customs, opinions which have been carried by force of habit into a new state of society (even if the meaning has been lost). Examples: Shake hands, military salute, folklore, Shakespearean quotes.
Uniformitarianism: Processes of culture are the same now and in the past. Influenced Lyell (geology), who assumed that the same natural laws and processes that operate in the universe now, have always been applied. It goes against the idea of catastrophism, the earth was shaped by a series of sudden, short-lived, violent events.
Comparative method: (plus Morgan) Compare all societies in the planet affirming that similar processes are historically related (attacked by Boas because societies are not comparable). Compare with Durkheim.
Animism - Belief in the human soul that survives bodily death and belief in other spirits, including deities.Tylor hypothesized that animism was the foundation of all religions. Compare with Durkheim and religion.
Independent invention vs Diffusion: Cultural change arises spontaneously from within a culture vs cultural change is the result of intercultural interaction. Tylor said, culture probably "originated independently more than once (..) but that actual historical development involved numerous instances of cultural diffusion.”
Background: Quaker
Contemporaries: Lyell
LEWIS HENRY MORGAN (1818-1881) Ancient Society (1877)- American
Main theory:
There are no different cultures, only stages of cultural evolution.
Main theoretical ideas:
Unilinear evolution: Only one line of evolution which all societies follow in their development towards civilization. The three different cultures are Savagery, Barbarism and Civilization, and are distinguished by their technological advancement. Linked to determinism.
Kinship system: Divided into descriptive and classificatory. When a descriptive term is used, it can only represent one type of relationship between two people, while a classificatory term represents one of many different types of relationships. For example, the word brother in English-speaking societies indicates a son of the same parent; thus, English-speaking societies use the word brother as a descriptive term. But a person's male first cousin could be the mother's brother's son, mother's sister's son, father's brother's son, father's sister's son, and so on; English-speaking societies therefore use the word cousin as a classificatory term. According to Morgan, descriptive systems are present in civilized societies, while classificatory in undeveloped.
Social structure and economy: they are closely linked to each other, for once someone develops property rights, the family structure changes.
Independent invention vs Diffusion: Social change involved both diffusion and independent invention.
Background: Raised on the frontier of W. NY with the ideas of Manifest Destiny, economic expanse and collapse, American Civil War, eventually funded by the gov. and Smithsonian inst.
Major debates/issues: paired against Boas on basis of historical particularism (historical circumstances) vs. unilineal evolution. Boas believed Morgan’s work was not based on scientific findings, that it was unprovable, that he had made up or conjectured stories.
Contemporaries: Marx and Engels
FRANZ BOAS (1858-1942) The Mind of Primitive Man (1911) - German - Columbia University
Father of American Anthropology
Main theory:
Cultural History/Historic Particularism: Rejects Morgan’s view of unilinear evolution. Culture can only be explained within its specific cultural contexts (not evolutionary stages), and change happens through diffusion, invention and migration.Emphasized the importance of studying the laws which govern each culture in itself (small-scale societies) applying the scientific method to human cultures (induction). Anti-race and anti-categories.
Cultural Relativism: each society creates its own values that don’t apply cross culturally.There is not an absolute truth or set of values through all cultures.
3 flaws of evolutionism: Unilineal evolution, notion of survivals and classification of societies based on weak data, comparative method (very similar practices may arise from different causes).
Background: Born in NW Germany, into a Jewish family, influenced by the German Revolution, joined expedition to the Arctic: Inuits (extensive field work). Became American Citizen and a physicist, trained in many disciplines (Renaissance man). Leading teacher at major universities. Covered more subjects than his predecessors.
Major debates/issues: Boas rejected Morgan and Tylor’s cultural evolutionary theories. Lifelong opponent of cultural evolution (Tylor & Morgan), rejected orthogenesis (a determinate or teleological process of evolution in which change occurs progressively regardless of natural selection, or that societies progress through the same stages and in the same sequence),
Contemporaries: Durkheim
Students: Alfred Kroeber, Ruth Benedict, Edward Sapir, and Margaret Mead
ÉMILE DURKHEIM (1858-1917) The Division of Labor in Society (1893) - French
Father of Sociology
Main theory:
What keeps culture together is our cultural consciousness, mainly based on religion.
Main theoretical ideas:
Cohesion in a society comes from: Mechanical (culture is hold together by homogeneity of individuals, same background and aspirations, small societies) and organic (culture is hold together by interdependence that arises from specialization and complementarity, large societies) solidarity.
Collective/social conscience: The shared beliefs and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society.
Religion: Is a source of camaraderie and solidarity, keeps society together. A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things,
Comparative method: Compare the society itself to distinguish its solidarity.
Background Born in France to Jewish family. Framed by conflicts between Germany and France. Educated at Univ. of Bordeaux. Formally established anthropology as an academic discipline, and presented holistic structural functionalism theories. However, he was ignored by his contemporaries due to his lack of fieldwork and ethnographic details.
Contemporaries: Boas.
Students: Marcel Mauss.
II Boas et alia (in America) (1900-40’s):
1900’s (First PHD’s):
Alfred Kroeber (1876-1960)
Edward Sapir (1884-1939)
1920’s:
Ruth Benedict (1887-1948)
Mergaret Mead (1901-1978)
Alfred Kroeber: (1876-1960) - Handbook of the Indians of California (1925) - Berckley
Main theory:
Culture is superorganic (called collective consciousness by Durkheim): separate from society, individual and organism. It is learned, shared, nongenetic, anonymous, patterned knowledge, variable, super personal, and dominant over the individual. Holistic view of culture.
Main theoretical ideas:
Culture is stronger than genius and genetics.
Culture climax: Cultural changes are visible in several faces of culture.
Society vs Culture: Society: occurs whenever there is group life (bees, ants). Culture: consists of learned and shared elements of custom and belief.
Background: Born in upstate New Jersey. Bilingual, spoke German, known as a cultural anthro. Work in archaeol, and anthro linguistics, Excavated In NM, Mex, and Peru. Worked with Ish, (claimed to be last CA Yahi Indian).
Edward Sapir (1884-1939) - Language: An introduction to the Study of Speech (1921) - Chicago, Yale.
Main theoretical ideas:
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis : (language shapes thought, perception) (example of Eskimos have many words for ice) linguistic categories structure and transmit culturally learned perceptions of existence. Central concept of cultural relativism. Shifted focus of linguist analysis from word to its meaning.
Background: Born in Prussia, arrived in NY at age 5, Columbia college.
Ruth Benedict: (1887-1948) - Patterns of Culture (1934) American
Main theoretical ideas:
Cultural relativism: Society defines moral standards of right and wrong and culture is stronger than biology. Racial differences minimal compared to cultural differences.
“Gestalt”: Perception of the whole is different from the perception of its parts.
Patterns of culture: (values) Patterned occurrences of cultural traits that marked different cultural groups. Argued that all patterns of culture are equally valid.
Deviant: one who does not fit the pattern of his/her culture.
Background: Born in NY, studied core values of Japanese society, compared three different studies.
Contemporaries: Mead.
Margaret Mead: (1901-1978) Coming of Age in Samoa, (1928) - American
Main theoretical ideas:
Culture and personality:Differences between peoples are usually cultural differences imparted in childhood. Cultural knowledge transmitted since birth. Childhood, parenthood and sex define our personality. We need to give more freedoms to passions.
Specific child rearing practices shape personalities that in turn give specific societies their essential natures.
Background: Born in PA, Episcopal church, studied with Boas and Benedict. Ideas evolved directly from field investigations in Samoa.
Contemporaries: Benedict - approach similar to Benedict. Saw relation between individual and society as based on values: very specific values transmitted during child rearing. Concerned with specific sets of cultural values as food shared or hoarded.
III Britain and France (1900-40’s)
Mauss (1872-1950)
Malinowski (1884-1942)
Radcliffe-Brown (1881-1955)
Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973)
Marcel Mauss (1872-1950) The Gift 1923 - French
Main Theoretical ideas:
Theory of the gift: reciprocity (obligation to give back) is the main mechanism for social solidarity (what keeps society together, influenced by Durkheim). Argued that gifts are never “free”, and the power which resides in the object given causes its recipient to pay it back. The gift is a “total social fact”.
Background: Students: Claude Lévi-Strauss
Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) - Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922) - Polish - London School of Economics, Yale
Father of participant observation (Originated social anthropology known as functionalism).
Main Theoretical ideas:
Functionalism: What society can do for the individual (very particular), culture functions to meet the needs of individuals rather than society as a whole, and social practices can be directly explained by their ability to satisfy basic biological needs. Diachronic focus (concerned with history and evolution). Concerned about function. Balance between sub-systems (if one fails, they all fail) and how they adapt to the environment. (when needs of indiv.who comprise society are met, then needs of society are met).
Theory of needs: Every culture must satisfy the biological system of needs, and that determines cultural responses. They are:
- Metabolism (food)
- Reproduction
- Bodily Comforts (shelter?)
- Safety
- Movement
- Growth
- Health
Example: Function of magic, Trobriand Islands,(kill enemies,
protection, ease birth, enhance beauty, protect fishermen, ensure harvest).
Culture: is adaptive (cultural responses to basic
needs create new conditions, new cultural responses and environment),
functionally integrated.
Background: Polish PhD in Physics and Math. Attempt to create a scientific study of culture. Promoted intense observer-participant method. Set new standards for ethnographic research. Renowned as most skilled ethnographer, stated goal of ethnographer/anthropologist is “to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of the world”.
Major debate: Malinowski and Radcliffe-brown: Both are functionalists and present system theories (work with subsystems of a whole, either individual or group), however, they work on different scales. Malinowski argued that culture functioned to meet the needs of individual rather than society as a whole.
Contemporaries: Radcliffe-Brown
A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (1881-1955) The Andaman Islanders (1922), The Social Organization of Australian Tribes (1930) - English - Univ. of Capeton, Univ. Chicago
Main Theoretical ideas:
Structural functionalism: What groups of individuals can do for society (make generalizations). Social practices (culture) are explained by the urge for stability, put simply the function of these practices is merely to sustain the social structure. Concerned with society. Culture viewed as impossible or uninteresting subject of study. Form/structure is empirical and the whole system is integrated and harmonious. Distinguish between “form,” “structure,” and “function”.
Ethnology vs Social anthropology: the reconstruction of history vs the study of “discoverable regularities in the development of human society”. (how society works right now).
Background: Born in Birmingham, England. Educated at Cambridge. Unpopular with American anthropologists. Conducted fieldwork on Andaman Islands off coast of Myanmar, Australia.
Major debate: Opponent of Malinowski’s theory of functionalism. Both are functionalists and present system theories (work with subsystems of a whole, either individual or group) to explain why and how culture exists, however, they work on different scales.
Edward Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973) Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Amonth the Azande (1937) - English - Univ. of Cairo, Cambridge, Oxford.
Main Theoretical ideas:
Theory of accountability: Pritchard theorized that by following the threads of where blame and accountability lie in a culture, an anthropologist could identify major themes of cultural life without resorting to functionalism. “By focusing on the ways different segments of a society hold each other accountable, the structures linking individuals and institutions can be discerned” (Moore 169).
Phenomenology: understand the someone elses reasons for action.
Background: Born in England, educated at Winchester college, Oxford. Greatly respected.
US and British anthropology divided:
US focused on culture as a set of ideas; emphasis on culture, values led to a greater interest in individuals, particularly how cultural practices served to shape individual character: psychology; Freud. US had diachronic (through time, historical) perspective.
United Kingdom focused on society as the consequence of action, focused on behavior. Origins in France, Durkheim’s discussion of mechanical and organic solidarity. Ethnography of societies. British social anthropology had synchronic (structural functionalism, how do all the parts work now) studies.
Background: Polish PhD in Physics and Math. Attempt to create a scientific study of culture. Promoted intense observer-participant method. Set new standards for ethnographic research. Renowned as most skilled ethnographer, stated goal of ethnographer/anthropologist is “to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of the world”.
Major debate: Malinowski and Radcliffe-brown: Both are functionalists and present system theories (work with subsystems of a whole, either individual or group), however, they work on different scales. Malinowski argued that culture functioned to meet the needs of individual rather than society as a whole.
Contemporaries: Radcliffe-Brown
A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (1881-1955) The Andaman Islanders (1922), The Social Organization of Australian Tribes (1930) - English - Univ. of Capeton, Univ. Chicago
Main Theoretical ideas:
Structural functionalism: What groups of individuals can do for society (make generalizations). Social practices (culture) are explained by the urge for stability, put simply the function of these practices is merely to sustain the social structure. Concerned with society. Culture viewed as impossible or uninteresting subject of study. Form/structure is empirical and the whole system is integrated and harmonious. Distinguish between “form,” “structure,” and “function”.
Ethnology vs Social anthropology: the reconstruction of history vs the study of “discoverable regularities in the development of human society”. (how society works right now).
Background: Born in Birmingham, England. Educated at Cambridge. Unpopular with American anthropologists. Conducted fieldwork on Andaman Islands off coast of Myanmar, Australia.
Major debate: Opponent of Malinowski’s theory of functionalism. Both are functionalists and present system theories (work with subsystems of a whole, either individual or group) to explain why and how culture exists, however, they work on different scales.
Edward Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973) Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Amonth the Azande (1937) - English - Univ. of Cairo, Cambridge, Oxford.
Main Theoretical ideas:
Theory of accountability: Pritchard theorized that by following the threads of where blame and accountability lie in a culture, an anthropologist could identify major themes of cultural life without resorting to functionalism. “By focusing on the ways different segments of a society hold each other accountable, the structures linking individuals and institutions can be discerned” (Moore 169).
Phenomenology: understand the someone elses reasons for action.
Background: Born in England, educated at Winchester college, Oxford. Greatly respected.
US and British anthropology divided:
US focused on culture as a set of ideas; emphasis on culture, values led to a greater interest in individuals, particularly how cultural practices served to shape individual character: psychology; Freud. US had diachronic (through time, historical) perspective.
United Kingdom focused on society as the consequence of action, focused on behavior. Origins in France, Durkheim’s discussion of mechanical and organic solidarity. Ethnography of societies. British social anthropology had synchronic (structural functionalism, how do all the parts work now) studies.
IV
Neo-evolutionists
Neo-evolutionists emphasized the importance of providing causal explanations rather than historical reconstructions.
Multilinear views, materialists, free will, cultural evolution:
White (1900-1970)
Steward
Harris
Leacock
Leslie White: (1900-1970) The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome 1959 - University of Michigan, UCSB
Main Theoretical Ideas:
Theory of cultural evolution: Culture meets needs of species (relationship between man and the environment). Cultures became more advanced as they became more efficient at harnessing energy , which is primarily done by technology. Societies that are more efficient using technology are more advanced and can progress to the upper subsystems: sociological and ideological.
Neo-evolutionists emphasized the importance of providing causal explanations rather than historical reconstructions.
Multilinear views, materialists, free will, cultural evolution:
White (1900-1970)
Steward
Harris
Leacock
Leslie White: (1900-1970) The Evolution of Culture: The Development of Civilization to the Fall of Rome 1959 - University of Michigan, UCSB
Main Theoretical Ideas:
Theory of cultural evolution: Culture meets needs of species (relationship between man and the environment). Cultures became more advanced as they became more efficient at harnessing energy , which is primarily done by technology. Societies that are more efficient using technology are more advanced and can progress to the upper subsystems: sociological and ideological.
Ideology
|
Sociology
|
Technology
|
Culture: Culture is all that we know, do and use. Culture is man’s extrasomatic (beyond the body) means to adapt to the environment. It’s not inherited, it is learned. Division of culture into three subsystems: technological, sociological, ideological.
Background: born in CO, studied at Columbia, committed to socialism.
Major debate: Against Boas, (Boas against stages of progression, each culture was unique and didn’t have go through stages of evolution).
White vs. Steward: (White rejected the opposition between "primitive"
and "modern" societies but did argue that societies could be
distinguished based on the amount of energy they harnessed, and that increased
energy allowed for greater social differentiation. Steward on the other hand
rejected the 19th-century notion of progress, and instead called attention to
the Darwinian notion of "adaptation", arguing that all societies had
to adapt to their environment in some way).
White vs Tylor definition of culture
Contemporaries: Boas
Julian Steward: 1902-1972 - Theory of Culture Change: The Methodology of Multilinear Evolution (1955) University of Michigan and Utah
Main Theoretical Ideas:
Cultural ecology: The study of how societies adapt to the environment and whether these adaptations initiate evolutionary changes (man as an animal).
Cultural core: The base that allows us to make a living, helps us adapt to our existence and is part of the cycle of nature.
Multilinear evolution: Parallels of form, function and sequence which are established not by defined stages, but by the original environment and its conditions. Form and function develop in historically independent, parallel sequences (two things can have the same cause but different effects, same form, but different functions). All Societies had to adapt to their environment in some way. Identify similarities between societies without assuming that all societies passed through identical processes.
Major debate: White vs. Steward: (White rejected the opposition between "primitive" and "modern" societies but did argue that societies could be distinguished based on the amount of energy they harnessed, and that increased energy allowed for greater social differentiation. Steward on the other hand rejected the 19th-century notion of progress, and instead called attention to the Darwinian notion of "adaptation", arguing that all societies had to adapt to their environment in some way).
Julian Steward: 1902-1972 - Theory of Culture Change: The Methodology of Multilinear Evolution (1955) University of Michigan and Utah
Main Theoretical Ideas:
Cultural ecology: The study of how societies adapt to the environment and whether these adaptations initiate evolutionary changes (man as an animal).
Cultural core: The base that allows us to make a living, helps us adapt to our existence and is part of the cycle of nature.
Multilinear evolution: Parallels of form, function and sequence which are established not by defined stages, but by the original environment and its conditions. Form and function develop in historically independent, parallel sequences (two things can have the same cause but different effects, same form, but different functions). All Societies had to adapt to their environment in some way. Identify similarities between societies without assuming that all societies passed through identical processes.
Major debate: White vs. Steward: (White rejected the opposition between "primitive" and "modern" societies but did argue that societies could be distinguished based on the amount of energy they harnessed, and that increased energy allowed for greater social differentiation. Steward on the other hand rejected the 19th-century notion of progress, and instead called attention to the Darwinian notion of "adaptation", arguing that all societies had to adapt to their environment in some way).
Marvin Harris (1927-2001) - The Rise of Anthropological Theory (1968)
Main Theoretical Ideas:
Cultural materialism: Human social life is a response to practical problems, patterns of cultural behavior developed based on essential needs. Explains cultural patterns in terms of three sets of human life —
infrastructure, (modes of production and reproduction, essential for the
economic survival of the society)
structure, (domestic and political economy,
ie, organized patterns of social behavior such as the family system, gender
roles, ed. System org. leisure activities.) and
superstructure, (the aesthetic component of society, art, rituals, science, ideologies, religion, etc.) Influenced by writings of Marx and Engels, Spencer, Tylor, and Morgan.
superstructure, (the aesthetic component of society, art, rituals, science, ideologies, religion, etc.) Influenced by writings of Marx and Engels, Spencer, Tylor, and Morgan.
Technoenvironmental
determinism: (as opposed to
Steward) Similar technologies applied to similar environments tend to produce
similar outcomes.
Etic/Emic: asserted that both the emic (participants perspective) and etic (observers perspective) were necessary for an explanation of human thought and behavior.
Influences: Strong Marx influence
Eleanor Burke Leacock: 1922-1987 - Essay "Interpreting the Origins of Gender Inequality: Conceptual and Historical Problems" (1983)
Main Theoretical Ideas: Feminism, Marxism, history. Most explicitly Marxist. Argued that capitalism is largely responsible for female subordination.
Etic/Emic: asserted that both the emic (participants perspective) and etic (observers perspective) were necessary for an explanation of human thought and behavior.
Influences: Strong Marx influence
Eleanor Burke Leacock: 1922-1987 - Essay "Interpreting the Origins of Gender Inequality: Conceptual and Historical Problems" (1983)
Main Theoretical Ideas: Feminism, Marxism, history. Most explicitly Marxist. Argued that capitalism is largely responsible for female subordination.
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