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. Answer in full sentences, write as much as you cant remember.. If you dont remember the name of someone at least tell other stuff u do remember. Deep understanding questions, explain, compare. Main topics o Personhood/social relationships/kinship term o Anthropology/ethnography o Methods and perspectives: armchair/observation/participant observation
ALWAYS WRIDE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, IF YOU WRITE DOWN WRONG THINGS YOU WONT GET MINUS POINTS. ONLY PLUS POINTS IF YOU WRIDE DOWN THE RIGHT STUFF!
17-09, HOORCOLLEGE 2
Between Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism Sociology is the mother of anthropologyHuman beings are social being. A human being is also a cultural being. Rules of social behavior change between different societies. Culture: Differences in behavior, custom, cognition, belief, values, attitude, art, morals, language Every year new definitions are added. Culture differences between societies, but also within a country. Maori: A lot of tradition People press each other noses. This originates from the very beginning of human kind. The first man came to life by sneezing(sharing each other breath) Meeting house: A lot of rules of behavior People in different societies have different rules of behavior and communication. Goal of anthropology To describe, to interpret and , possible, also to explain the cultural customs and een that have been observed Not to focus on the difference only, but also on similarities. Object o o o o
Custom (actions, behavior, interactions) Events (activities, situations, processes) Concepts (opinions, perspectives, visions) Objects (ethnographic artifacts, documents)
Theres a difference between what people say and what people do. Cultural Anthropology(by Toon Meijl) o The study of the obvious in order to demonstrate that nothing is obvious o by making the strange familiar and the familiar strange. (after Clifford Geertz) May be seen as a cultural exchange during which customs, attitudes, vision, perceptions, norms and values are translated . Ethnographic field research: Ethnos = A group of people Graphic = (writing) A research method used for the description, interpretation and explanation of behavior>>
Participation/observation
From the viewpoint of self: ethnocentrism ( only understand people from your one viewpoint) From the viewpoint of others : Cultural relativism. Ethnocentrism: o The emotional attitude that ones own race, nation, or culture is superior to all others. o From the perspective of Self o Stereotyping o Superiority o Belief in evolutionary differences: from primitive to civilized o Development: from the past to the present Cannibalism The belief that other people are always cannibals, but they had no proof for this. Even in our own societies it happens very rarely Exo cannibalism: from another community (very small scale, very incidental, for example after war) Indo cannibalism: from their own community Characteristics of cultural relativism o From the perspective of Other o Understanding o But approving opproving of the other cultural customs? o Self in second place o Ethical relativism o Should we be willing to abandon our won values? o Universal declaration of human rights. Dialogue o Self other o Ethnocentrism cultural Relativism o Observation participation participant observation is situated in exchanges between self and other
Intercultural competencies o Insight into your own cultural baggage o Insight into other cultural customs o Any sacred cows, you dont have to except it/think its okay, but you have to TRY to understand it. o Changing perspectives o Hidden dimensions
2 cultural variation,
Culture
Nature
Margeret Mead: People are worried about the differences between generation(puberty). Margeret said that there was not so much to worry about. It depends on culture whether you worry about these things. Anthropology divides two kinds of nature: External nature, ecosystem Inner nature, human nature these two concepts are the opposite of culture. Status and role Status: a socially defined aspect of a person which defines a social relationship and entails certain right and duties in relation to others. People also have a certain role, this is your actual behavior. If you break the rules connected with your role and status other actors may react by imposing sanctions. This causes regularity and predictability in society(not total) Power This description of status and roles does deal with power. There are two principal ways of conceptualising power: 1. The actor perspective, an aspect of social relationship, the ability to make someone do something he otherwise would not have done 2. The systematic perspective, how power differences embedded in the fabric of society Why is personhood cultural o Human being: Embodied Conscious
o o o
language and moral agency universal Language, you can interact with people and not with animals I as opposed to others, humans have the ability to develop different kinds of personhood, you can discuss about this Its hard to decide whether someone is a person or not(depends on culture): ancestral spirits, slaves, children
o o o
Social systems: A set of social relations which are maintained through a system of interaction. There are many different levels of interaction. The boundaries of the system lie in the points where interaction decreases dramatically Group and grid: a classification system of persons and society
Ego
01-10, HOORCOLLEGE 4 H 7, 8 EN 9
Relationships and comparisons Kinship systems: how people relate to each other Anthropological comparison: Understanding the differences and similarities About comparing individuals Generalization and generalizations WEIRD people: Western Educated Industrial Rich Democratic Most studies were done with WEIRD people. At some point they realized they should include others as well. How to compare WEIRD people with all the other folks around the world? Successful strategy: Develop a metalanguage For instance for describing kinship. Kinship may not matter so much to WEIRD people but it does for the rest of humanity. Kinship has a lot of influence in non WEIRD societies. Kinship: May be biological and/or constructed Its broader than just family: kinsmen lead common lives, they partake each others sufferings, joys etc. Constituted nattily and/or post-nattily, not just birth, but also thing that come after Not pure biology or pure performance, its a combination Within kinship systems many rules exist about whom to marry, incest, exogamy, how to interact with others and whether the society is matri- or patrilineal. These rules are not always followed correctly!
o o o o o
Descent: Reference to an ancestor only in some societies recognized connects only one side/a limited set Status is absolute as member of group Lineages and clans Lineages: people who are related by shared ancesters and can proof this. Clan: people who assume they are related to each other but cant proof it.
Principles for the transmission of kin group membership and other resources:
Patrilineal: Everyone becomes a member of their fathers kin group and transmission of resources take place through the fathers lineage Matrilineal: Everyone becomes a member of their mothers kin group and transmission of resources take place through the mothers lineage. Society is often still dominated by man. Double: Some resources are transmitted through the fathers lineage, others through the mothers lineage. The two lineages are kept separate. Bilaterally/Cognatic: No difference between the two sides. Resources van be transmitted though kin of both mothers and fathers side Parallel: Man transmit to their sons and woman to their daughters(rare) Crossing or alternating: Man transit to their daughters and woman to their sons this doesnt mean that in patrilineal society, people are not related to their mothers relatives. Practically all kinships organise kin relations on both mothers and fathers side. Being part of a group is not the end of the system. Its very dynamic and there are many different levels. Difference between patrilineal and matrilineal descent In both systems man usually dominate politics and inheritance often follows man. In patrilineal societies these right are transmitted from father to child(most of the times son) In matrilineal societies these right are transmitted from mother brother to daughters son(van oom naar neefje)
Kin do not come not come naturally; they must be crated socially, and this at least partly fashioned so as to facilitate tasks to be solved and to create order in an otherwise chaotic social world
Participant observation Getting some basic information can also be important but it isnt ethnography. Malinowski was not the first one doing field work, but he was one of the first one making it into a policy. It wasnt normal to interact with the locals, Malinowski was one of the first ones doing this.
You have to be right there where action happens. Locals most of the times are okay with doing interviews and come over for short times. But if you re staying for a longer time, people are aware you get more insight and you might report stuff. Everyone is just doing what is economically good for them. Malinowski showed that its not money or productive items society drives on. For example shells from the aborigines in new guinea. Nobody is only driven by every day needs. Lvi Strauss(1908 2009) Structuralism: o Emerged after second world war o Social and cultural phenomena are functional and can be contributed to the maintenance of the overall social structure. o Formal way of thinking about kinship, with particular reference to systems of marriage o Big influence o Criticism that it is improvable Holistic view Instead of looking at different subjects separately, you should get a view of how things hang together.
o o o
Gender bias Ones main informant fails to be representative Time intensive(not capital- of labour-intensive)
In the present societies are often studied from within, do anthropologists will have to join the debate. They are not the only researchers anymore.
15-10, HOORCOLLEGE 6
Anthropology, History, change and Traditions Proto-anthropology, from when originates anthropology? Certain very important proto-anthropologists Herodotos, a greek 5th century He wrote about the people as barbarian traveler Before Christ. Iban Khaldun, Tunisian 14th century Anticipated social sciences, wrote about law, history, anthropology etc. He wrote about different societies and customs. He developed a theoretical framework, about cultural variation and how this developed. He was the first one who wrote about doing fieldwork. Michel de Montaigne 16th, 17th, These people are all important thinkers in the 16th 17th and 18th century. (They are Thomas Hobbes and 18th not really anthropologists, but they did have some important theories.) Giambattista Vico century Jean-jacques Rousseau His influence on the emergence of anthropology is very significant. He used the stories from travellers to create some sort of utopia as an reaction on the modernization. In other word, he looked at other societies to create an idea of what he thinks would be an utopia(perfect world) Each society has his own soul, and there for has its own rights to develop rules and customs. He was one of the first people he was against ethnocentrism.
There are two ways of looking at societies: Universalism: accounting the similarities between societies Relativisme: accounting on the differences between societies
19th century
o 1859 Evolution theory by Charles Darwin. No matter how different people are, they must have one ancestor in common. He argued that biological development was more important than cultural development. Biological development was universal en cultural development wasnt.
Sociocultural evolution From savagery to barbarism to civilization Leading anthropologists Edward Taylor(1832 tot 1917) o cultural evolutionism. o He defined the context of the scientific study of anthropology, based on the evolutionary theories. o He believed that there was a functional basis for the development of society and religion, which he determined was universal
He believed that "research into the history and prehistory of man could be used as a basis for the reform of British society."
Henry Maine(1822-1888) Ancient Law(1861) o Status societies, operate mainly on bases of kinship and myth. Your status is ascribed by birth. o Contract societies, they operate more on the basis of achievement. The individual achievement gives you your status. in this you see the difference between traditional and modern. Lewis Henry Morgan(1818-1882) Ancient society: o Evolutionary scheme o Seven stages, from lower savagery to civilization. Based on technological development. Arm Chair anthropology The first anthropologists never travelled. They used the writings from other travellers to compare and contrast and tried to explain the evolutionary o Evolutionairy anthropology, From the lower stage of life to civilisation. o Comparartive, search for universal regularities o Objectivistst, they were not interested in the differentiation between groups they researched.(generaliserend) o Quantitive o Top Down ... Cross-cultural comparitive research o ...? o Holocultural analysis? You are looking for common features in different societies. Advanteges: Overview of cultural variation Disadventages: Limited to small-scale societies Disregarding cultural diversity within societies Deductive rather than inductive - Inductive: theories made behind the desk(arm chair anthropology) - Deductive: theories created by field work o ...? From the evolutionary approach How is it possible that there is (very big) difference in cultural, even if the other aspects influencing societys, like climat, are the same.
20th century
Malinowski is the founder of ethnographic research. Difference between old-fashioned culture and the contemporary concept of culture o Old fashioned culture Bounded, small scale You can describe culture by a checklist of features Kinship, politics, world view, society ... Unchanging, the belief that culture doesnt change. Society reproduces itself with every generation. Underlying system of shared meanings People from the same culture have the same opinions Identical, homogeneous individuals People still look at culture this way(not within anthropology) o New concept of culture Culture is an active process of meaning making We realize that culture involves multi vocality, so different people have different opinions about their culture (There is a debate about what Dutch culture is.) People might say they do certain thing which are important for their culture, but saying you do something is not the same as doing something. Culture and power and interconnected Cultural sites are not bounded: global linkages Cultural discourses are historically specific and never coherent Distinction between cultural ideology and practice Most anthropologists would agree with the new concept of culture, but some are still hanging between the new and the old! Besides that there are many different description of culture. Not only these two. And there is not 1 definition on culture that everybody agrees on. (Holistic: you have to see a culture in its context and not just look at features from a checklist) Paradox of globalisation Globalisation: The process of increasing integration from societies around the world. Homogenization: cultures are becoming more and more the same. 30 years ago people believed that within a few years all cultures would be the same. As a result of globalisation people didnt want to become the same so they started to point out the differences in culture an revive traditions. So globalisation did not cause homogenization. Paradox : there is more and more contact but as response culture and identity has become more important. Globalisation didnt cause homogenization but cultural renaissance(de heropleving van verschillende culturen). Tradition modernity In the past tradition was seen as a bad thing. In order to become modern you had to get rid of tradition. This was caused by the belief that you could only change in one direction. Changing in this direction would make you lose your traditions, because traditions cant change.
Dichotomy between tradition and modernity??? Powerpoint Filtering out the modern Anthropologists are known for filtering out the modern aspects of culture. They were looking for the traditional culture, which they expect to be the same as hundreds of years ago. Invention or reinvention of tradition Traditions are not just passed on from generation to generation but people also invent and reinvent tradition. But it is said that you cant invent tradition, because you van only change it, so you should say reinvention of tradition. Conclusion Traditions have acquired more meanings/people look at it in different ways. Negative and positive ways. Traditions cannot only be lost, but they can also change.
problems you can have many identities and have many cultures People use the notion of culture itself, for example to discriminate of to keep power away from certain groups Culture was only used in
of people
Culture of this, culture of that. So everything is shaped by humans with their culture,
singular. Only later it became a culture. So not just what is shared but also what is not shared Temporal delimitation. Ideas about thing always change. People try to make one version that might work for a longer time We dont know what human culture is. We can only say what it is true at this moment. This makes it more complicated
Conclusie op pp How, (why) to use the term culture as a tool People use culture as a short hand for summarising ways of life. Vraag die waarschijnlijk op het tentamen komt For which purpose is the word culture in this sense used? Answer this question like this: Its culture in the sense of and than why you think it is culture
The household is the smallest and most easily accessibly social system where intensive and important interaction takes place. The consistence of a household can change and whom are part of the household is different in many societies. Village The household is not self sufficient. A number of problems have to be solved outside of the household. The household is always related to other households and to social institutions. There are many different ways in which villages exist. Social integration in villages Kinship has a privileged place in the social institutions. The role of the village council often consists of mediating between kin groups with opposing interests.