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Understanding Human Self-Identity in Anthropology

• Anthropology Definitions and Key Concepts
  • The study of what makes us human
  • Emergence from European imperial ambitions in the 18th and 19th centuries
  • Early focus on identifying weaknesses of other cultures for exploitation
  • Emphasis on the significance of group living and institutions in shaping self-identity

Marcel Mauss

• French anthropologist
• Two faces of self: Personne and Moi
  • Moi: Person’s identity, sense of self, biological givenness
  • Personne: Social concepts of identity
• Essai sur le don (1925; The Gift)

• Language
  • Salient part of culture and has a tremendous effect in creating "Self"
  • Interacting with another language means interacting with the culture

Clifford Geertz

• American Cultural anthropologist
• Defined culture as “a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towards life”
• Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man
  • Look for what makes people/cultures different, not the same. Better to focus on the differences of culture that rose over time and space
  • Culture reveals the link between human nature and behavior
  • Culture is the "accumulated" of symbolic patterns that appear