"scientific study of the physical, social, and cultural development
of man" (101).
Cultural (or social) Anthropology
analysis of social life and the relationship between culture and personality
"cultural turn"
"not as much a set of things...as a process, a set
of practices" (102).
Meaning
"It is by our use of things, and what we say,
think and feel about them-how we represent
them-that we them a meaning" (102).
Linguistic Anthropology
focuses upon language
Archeology
studies the past, very distant past, by
using very ancient artifacts and other
materials
Clotaire Ropaille
"culture can be thought of as a series of codes that we
learn while we grow up and that shape our behavior in
many different areas" (103).
"imprints"
combination of experiences and accompanying emotions
imprint and its code are like a lock and its combination= reference system
Cheese Example
French
cheese is alive and is stored in cloche
which has holes for air
Americans
cheese is dead and is stored in plastic
bags in a refrigerator
"every artifact reflects certain national, cultural, or
subcultural attitudes and values that have been
imprinted on young children" (104).
Mary Douglas
grid-group theory
"objects and services that we buy and possess are culturally defined
and best understood as being tied to our lifestyles" (105).
hostile lifestyles
elitist
individualist
egalitarian
fatalist
Aaron Wildavsky
"political cultures"
individuals in all societies have to decide who they are
and what they should do
Culture
"result of myriads of individual choices,
not primarily between commodities but
between kinds of relationships" (108).
Artefacts
selected to demonstrate the choice
"a struggle to demonstrate not what one is but what one is not" (108).
"expression of our cultural alignments" (109).
Songs
Elitists: "God Save the Queen"
Individualists: "I Did It My Way"
Egalitarians: "We Are the World"
Fatalists: "Que Sera, Sera"
Mark Gottdiener
Analysis of mass culture involves three-way relationship
1) cultural objects are produced by the
industrial process
2) set of institutions that produce and
distribute such objects on a relatively
large scale
3) a collectivity(ies) or social groups of those
who use such objects in contexts that can
include use within a creator connotatively
polysemic setting
Myths
sacred narratives that shape cultural values and behavior
Raphael Patai
"traditional religious charter...explaining sociocultural
situations and natural phenomena, taking form of
stories, believed to be true, about divine beings and
heroes" (110).
"narrative theories"
"Not only do myths pervade our
media and popular culture, of
particular interest...but they are
found in advertisements for
products" (111).
Mircea Eliade
"a primordial event that took place at the beginning of time" (112).
myths help shape culture, unrecognized myths that inform
many of our behaviors and that are behind many of the things
we purchase (112).