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This chapter introduces students to the anthropological definition and use of the concept of culture. It focuses on all of the aspects of culture and concludes with a discussion of culture change.
• Kottak uses Tylor's definition of culture: that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.
• Ethnocentrism is the tendency to view one’s own cultural beliefs as superior and to apply one’s own values in judging the behavior and beliefs of people raised in other cultures.
• Enculturation is the process by which a child learns his or her culture.
• The human ability to use symbols is the basis of culture (a symbol is something verbal or nonverbal within a particular language or culture that comes to stand for something else).
• While human symbol use is overwhelmingly linguistic, a symbol is anything that is used to represent any other thing, when the relationship between the two is arbitrary (e.g., a flag).
• Other primates have demonstrated rudimentary ability to use symbols, but only humans have elaborated cultural abilities – to learn, to communicate, to store, to process, and to use symbols.
– Culture is an adaptive strategy employed by hominids.
– Because cultural behavior is motivated by cultural factors, and not by environmental constraints, cultural behavior can be maladaptive.
– Determining whether a cultural practice is adaptive or maladaptive frequently requires viewing the results of that practice from several perspectives (from the point of view of a different culture, species, or time frame, for example).
• National culture refers to the experiences, beliefs, learned behavior patterns, and values shared by citizens of the same nation.
• International culture refers to cultural practices that are common to an identifiable group extending beyond the boundaries of one culture.
• Subcultures are identifiable cultural patterns existing within a larger culture.
• Cultural practices and artifacts are transmitted through diffusion.– Direct diffusion occurs when members of two or more previously distinct
cultures interact with each other.
– Indirect diffusion occurs when cultural artifacts or practices are transmitted from one culture to another through an intermediate third (or more) culture.
12Ethnocentrism, Cultural Relativism, and Human Rights• Ethnocentrism is the use of values, ideals, and mores from one’s own
culture to judge the behavior of someone from another culture.– Ethnocentrism contributes to social solidarity.– Ethnocentrism is a cultural universal.
• Cultural relativism asserts that cultural values are arbitrary, and therefore the values of one culture should not be used as standards to evaluate the behavior of persons from outside that culture.
– The idea of universal, unalienable, individual human rights challenges cultural relativism by invoking a moral and ethical code that is superior to any country, culture, or religion.
• Cultural rights are vested in groups and include a group’s ability to preserve its cultural tradition.
• Kottak argues that cultural relativism does not preclude an anthropologist from respecting “international standards of justice and morality.”
• Cultural universals are those traits that distinguish Homo sapiens from other species.
• Some biological universals include a long period of infant dependency, year-round sexuality, and a complex brain that enables us to use symbols, languages, and tools.
• Some psychological universals include the common ways in which humans think, feel, and process information.
• Some social universals include incest taboos, life in groups, families (of some kind), and food sharing.
• Diffusion--defined as the spread of culture traits through borrowing from one culture to another--has been a source of culture change throughout human history.
• Diffusion can be direct (between to adjacent cultures) or indirect (across one or more intervening cultures or through some long-distance medium).
• Diffusion can be forced (through warfare, colonization, or some other kind of domination) or unforced (e.g., intermarriage, trade, and the like).
• Acculturation is the exchange of features that results when groups come into continuous firsthand contact.
• Acculturation may occur in any or all groups engaged in such contact.
• A pidgin is an example of acculturation, because it is a language form that develops by borrowing language elements from two linguistically different populations in order to facilitate communication between the two.
• Globalization encompasses a series of processes that work to make modern nations and people increasingly interlinked and mutually dependent.
• Economic and political forces take advantage of modern systems of communication and transportation to promote globalization.
• Globalization allows for the domination of local peoples by larger (these may be based regionally, nationally, and worldwide) economic and political systems.