Ch. 2- Culture: What We Are

Thursday the world celebrates the 150th birthday of Charles Darwin the author of the Origin of the Species. Do you believe in evolution? Why or why not?

Chapter 3 is about how humans adapt to this world. Culture is our access to adapting to who we are and what we are and can be. Here are the objectives of the chapter:

• Understand the defining attributes of culture. In particular, you should understand what it means that culture is learned, shared, symbolic, all-encompassing, and integrated; the relationship between culture and nature; and how culture can be both adaptive and maladaptive.
• Identify the different levels of culture and why it is important to distinguish between them.
• Understand the relationship between culture and individuals.
• Distinguish between ethnocentrism and cultural relativism and how both relate to human rights and anthropological research.
• Know the differences between cultural universalities, generalities, and particularities, and be able to provide examples of each.
• Understand the mechanisms of cultural change.
• Know what globalization is, the forces that are bringing it about, and its effects on local communities.

This video is a sort of reflexive ethnography of Western society and culture. Irony and humor are often useful in bringing out hidden social constructs. So check it out:

What we are; Dance Monkeys Dance by Ernest Cline - www.ernestcline.com



Many people believe in evolution. Some do not. Perhaps life is not about our beliefs per se but rather about what we can discover about ourselves from such explorations. The humor of Ricky Gervais' Introduction To The Bible (1/2) makes fun on Darwin, if you like.


I'd love to hear what struck you, what thought or ideas from Chapter 3 struck you as new or different from your previous ways of thinking. Everyone should comment on the chapter once a week or blog at least once a week.

PS. Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNF_P281Uu4

Ch. 3: The Culture of Double-Standards: Comedy Reveals Discourses

Each week I will create a post to forward our discussions and the readings by Friday. This post is a bit of overview and mashup of Chapter 3 - Culture. Check for a new post by no later than Friday by 5pm for the coming week. Spend about an hour with the post. Check out the related links and explore beyond the surface of the post. Do you own searches if you like and add new links to your comments.

HOMEWORK FOR THU 9/11: Study of Humankind

In Chapters 1 and 2 of the Kottak we began to distinguish what is anthropology. The word is from the Greek anthropos ("human") and logia ("study") — the study of humankind.

[We watched this video WHAT WE ARE in class on 9-9-08 about who we are as humans.]

Nothing human is alien to anthropological study -- even elections. Though anthropology is easy to define, it is difficult to describe. Its subject matter is both exotic (e.g., star lore of the Australian aborigines) and commonplace (anatomy of the foot). And its focus is both sweeping (the evolution of language) and microscopic (the use-wear of obsidian tools). Anthropologists may study ancient Mayan hieroglyphics, the music of African Pygmies, and the corporate culture of a U.S. oil industry.

But always, the common goal links these vastly different projects: to advance knowledge of who we are, how we came to be that way — and where we may go in the future.

I am a human, and nothing human can be of indifference to me.
--Terence, The Self-Torturer

Someone passed me this video from Jon Stewart's The Daily Show exposing the gender double-standards during the Republican National Convention. It is decidedly democratic in perspective. While it will offend some, it is a great "text" in the discourse of exposing opponents. Why do we have this phenomenon of exposing double-standards? Why do we need it? What role does it play in the long run for groups?

A double-standard is a form of a discourse -- an institutionalized way of thinking, a social boundary defining what can be said about a specific topic, "the limits of acceptable speech" (Butler) like a possible truth--and double-standards are not limited to elections in the US.





POST A COMMENT: Might double-standards be a cultural universal? Or is it a generality or particular to US elections? What do you think and why? [LIMIT 250 word count!]

Curiosity. In a sense, we all "do" anthropology because it is rooted in a universal human trait: curiosity. We are curious about ourselves and about other people, the living as well as the dead, here and around the globe. We ask anthropological questions:

• Do all societies have customs of exposing double-standards in elections or competitions?
• As a species, are human beings innately suspicious or desiring change?
• When did people first begin lying or being political?

Such questions are part of a folk anthropology practiced in school yards, office buildings, neighborhood cafes and comedy shows. But if we are all amateur anthropologists, what do the professionals ("ethnographers") study?

POST A COMMENT: How does the science of anthropology differ from ordinary opinion sharing and "common sense?" What methods distinguish this difference? Give an example from Chapters 1-3 of the Kottak , the essay "Eating Christmas in Kalahari," or of your own. [LIMIT 250 word count!]

Read at least 5 comments every week. Reply once a week. Use the suggested post ideas or post your own questions. A 2-3 lined post is sufficient but it must be more than "I like this post."

Anthropology in Street Fighting

Chapter 8 – Families, Kinship, and Marriage

Posted by ANT1001 4:10 section (Aditi, Adiba, Fahim, and Marija)

We learned about nuclear families in this chapter. It is said that a person lives in at least two nuclear families during his or her lifetime. An American would be surprised to know that how many countries still live in extended family. I [Adiba??] remember living in an extended family when I was in India. Everyone member from the patrilineal side of the family lives in the same house and all the children in the house live as siblings, there are no cousins, its just a one big family. This type of living can be classified as an extended patrilocality.

Talking about the divorce rates in recent years, they have soared unbelievably. It is not only in Canada and the United States that these numbers have gone up, but, also in other nations which are becoming westernized. As a result of these divorces the number of single parents has gone up. There are still debates going on in the eastern world if this right or wrong. It is one of the favorite topics with that psychologists in the East discuss.

Another interesting topic that was discussed in this chapter was about descent and lineages or clans. I belong to a patrilocal culture and it was interesting to know from my fellow group members about the matrilocality descent lineage in their culture. The most interesting topic in the chapter was marriage. I could personally relate to this topic because it mentioned about the complicated marriage system that exists in India. Being a witness to endogamy and caste system, this section of the chapter made the most sense to me. Dowry and plural marriages have also been discussed in this chapter. Dowry has existed in the South Asian community since the civilization started. It still exits. Even though there are oppositions to it, but, still one can hear cases of suicide or murder due to dowry and bride wealth quiet often in India. The question that arises in relation to this chapter is, due to westernization of the world, many cultures are loosing their form of institution of marriage, kinship and parenting, is this the right way to go and what should North America adopt from other cultures in order to drop the soaring divorce rates?

Video on kinship and marriage-
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3590143710531876202&q=family+and+kinship&total=25&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=2
Funny Video of comedian Russell Peters speaking on relationship between immigrant parents and their kids-
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Nn5jlrxcpkI

Sustainable Agriculture: Curing America's Eating Disorder

Chapter 5 – Language and Communication

Many of us do not realize how the development of language has actually affected not only our world and culture, but more specifically shaped our ideas. Since the development of language around 5000BC the human race gained a new form of expression that each culture developed into its own unique form.

What we as a group decided we should further examine is the Sapirwhorf hypothesis. This states that different languages produce different ways of thinking. Therefore each language should have certain aspects that wouldn’t translate into another or wouldn’t convey the same meaning, so consider…

Take an idea like freedom or slavery and questioning the fact of whether these things would exist without the actual word (Freedom) existing. (Let’s say a totalitarian government in America takes control and decides to remove the words rebellion, disloyalty, traitor, coup, and revolution or there exists a culture without these words, would these ideas still exist for the people without language to express them?) After you have responded to this question, then try to think of some words in your language that would be hard to translate and explain why. (If you only speak English, consider English words that would be hard to express in another language.)

Here are some interesting, perhaps even funny videos that could aid you in your thinking process about language.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHQ2756cyD8

George Carlin explains how perception changes with words, but the overall idea or fact is the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h67k9eEw9AY