Ch.4 Language: Does Your Culture's Language Shape How You Perceive the World

Language: As Kottak discusses, it is based on "arbitrary, learned associations between words and the things they stand for." Humans, not other animals as far as we can tell, have the linguistic capacity to discuss the past and future, share their unique or cultural view of their experiences, and benefit from their experiences.

My cat Delilah seems to know the difference between night and day but she can't discuss what happened two days ago with me (or it seems to another cat) to share me how much she loved the petting session we had or hated that I was away all day long.

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis claims that a culture's language has a significant impact on how the members of the culture perceive things. For example, in American English we use a lot of metaphors about battle and war. What is we replaced them with metaphors of dance? Would we perceive our interactions differently?

"I shot down all your points" vs. "I'm tired of dancing to those points"
"You're always attacking my points" vs. "You're always dancing around my points"
"I win." vs. "What a great dance!"

What about the metaphors we use to talk about love?

Below, I offer 3 examples to bring your into the anthropological world of language, into the study of linguistics. First, language change in English literature, then two quotes and finally a TED Talk video that I love. All is followed by a suggestion for comments.

Language Changes in Bible: (taken from Wesch lecture notes):

English 11th Century:
Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum; Si þin nama gehalgod
English about 1400 CE:
Oure fader that art in heuenis halowid be thi name ...
English 1611 (King James):
Our father which art in heauen, hallowed be thy name.
English 1963 (Phillips):
Our Heavenly Father, may your name be honored;
English 1970 (K. Condon):
Our Father in Heaven, let your holy name be known

On the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (or the "linguistic relativity hypothesis"):

[Language] diversity is a diversity not of sounds and signs but of ways of looking at the world (Karl Kerenyi, 1976).

From a TED talk by anthropologist Wade Davis:

Language is not just a body of vocabulary or set of grammatical rules. A language is the flash of the human spirit. It is vehicle through which the soul of each particular culture comes into the material world. Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind; a watershed of thought; an ecosystem of spiritual possibilities....fully half [of 6000] are no longer whispered into the ears of children.

[22 mins TED TALK]

TRY IT ON (suggestion for comments): What kinds of metaphors do you notice yourself speaking as part of being male or female, Black, Caribbean, or Asian, as part of your student club, or your home country/nation? How have those metaphors or other uses of language shaped the way you perceive yourself and the world around you?

Kottak Ch. 5 - Making A Living (Subsistence)

HERE ARE SOME OF THE CHAPTER OBJECTIVES Know what an adaptive strategy is. In addition, you should be familiar with Cohen's typology of societies based on their adaptive strategies. Understand examples of how today's globalizing world and state policies are altering the ways of life of many communities that traditionally practiced different adaptive strategies. Distinguish between modes and means of production Understand how industrialism leads to the alienation of producers from their products. Distinguish between the various forms of distribution and exchange, including the market principle, redistribution, and generalized, balanced, and negative reciprocity. Click here to read the previous posts on the potlatch and watch two brief videos of the ritual. Specifically, you should know what it is, where it has been practiced, and how it relates to local and regional patterns of resource abundance and shortage. What role do religious and social ceremonies play in an economy? Answer: The potlatch of the native groups of the North Pacific coast of North America is a good example of the integral role a festival can play in a group's economy. The sponsors of a potlatch traditionally gave away food, blankets, pieces of copper, and other material goods. In return, they gained social prestige, and the more they gave away, the more their prestige increased. Like most regions of the world, the North Pacific coast of North America is subject to local fluctuations in resource abundance. One village might have a good year while another experienced a bad one. A village enjoying a good year would take advantage of its surplus to increase its prestige by hosting a potlatch and inviting the members of the surrounding villages to attend. In this way, the potlatch created and maintained a regional economy in which a series of villages pooled their resources. The needy villages would receive the surplus from the wealthy villages, which in turn gained prestige.

Kottak Ch. 3, Culture: Is Shared, Learned, Adaptive, Maladaptive....

What a great conversation and inquiry in the 4:10 section today! The 2:30 Section wasn't bad either but 4:10 rocked my world with their questions. Come on, great ones! Do it up!

Questions like:

• What is cultural and what is not?
  
• Is hunger cultural or biological?
  
• Is hearing cultural and/or biological? Is seeing cultural?? Thanks Liping for your inquiry with me after class ended.

So let's keep it going? If you are not the symbol of your name (Kyra) and that name is not intrinsic or natural to you? What does that information make available to you about who you are, could be or want to be??

What could you then play with about who you are?? What cultural processes that we are reading about could you use to play with??

Welcome Fall 2009 Sections of ANT1001 with Prof. G

Hello and Welcome to our Group Blog!
Both sections of ANT1001 meet here. One is a learning community. The other is not -- but we will share the same things. Each of you will be sharing this blog as a community of about 60+ students from dozens of countries, a lesson in itself. Maybe we are the real text to be studied.

HOMEWORK: You should read Kottak's Mirror for Humanity, Chap. #1 for a quiz in class Sep 3rd.

HOW TO INTRODUCE YOURSELF IN YOUR FIRST POST
Please introduce yourself to the group.

1. Share your name and/or the name you'd like to be called.
2. Share where you are from originally and where you live in the Metro area.
3. What train do you ride to Baruch College?
4. What's your favorite food when eating out?
   
5. Why drew you to choosing Baruch?
   
6. How do you greet someone your age in your native culture? What do you say and/or do, if anything, that differs from the generic "Hello, how are ya?" with or without a handshake here in the city?
   

Ch. 8 Gender, pt 2: Sex vs. Gender Identity

Check out this National Geographic Video on women in Samoa. How can all these varieties of what defines women co-exist in the world? Should they? Why or why not?

For more on the Etoro read here.

Here's another video of eunuchs in India also from NG.

Life Without Fathers: The Mosuo People or the Kingdom of Women in China

VIDEO LINK: China's "Kingdom of Women"

If you think the Na people's practice is not contemporary watch this National Geographic video of a similar group in China. The Mosuo peoples.

Why do you think we resist thinking this is normal, contemporary or modern, and natural? Why do we always make it different and distant?

Here is another video of the Mosuo where they have no word for father:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoTrARDa8BU

As of 10/2009 this link is not working.

Visit
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2005/07/introduction_to.html#

or Read article in Slate magazine. China's "Kingdom of Women" by Cynthia Barnes
Posted Monday, Nov. 13, 2006, at 1:03 PM ET

Ch. 8 Gender: Mindblowing TED Talks on Women & Gender Roles

The author of this week's ethnography in C&C Nancy Scheper-Hughes writes "I argue that a high expectancy of child death is a powerful shaper of maternal thinking and practice." in "Mother Love" an article appearing in New Internationalist in 1994. This quote makes sense if you have read Chap. 5 in C&C already.

I am not arguing that mother love [in Alto do Cruziero/Brazil], as we understand it, is deficient or absent in the threatened little human community of Bom Jesus. Rather, the course of mother love is different, shaped by overwhelming economic and cultural constraints. The discussion attempts to overcome the distinctions between ‘natural’ and ‘socialized’ affects, between ‘deep’ private feelings and ‘superficial’ public sentiments – to show how emotion is shaped by political and economic context as well as by culture. It can be understood as a ‘political economy’ of the emotions.

Although gender has tended to be discussed relative to women only it really is a dynamic shaped in relationship to the other sex. Male to female and female to male.

For instance, while the United States still lacks gender equality, women's roles are no longer restricted to the domestic sphere in many places around the world. But women are still vulnerable esp in economic downturns according to representatives of the UN in a report on International Women's Day (March 6):

Yakin Ertürk, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, its Causes and Consequences, ... marked the Day with a statement underscoring the importance for men and women to join forces in this time of economic turmoil.

“The scale and impact of the current crisis is still largely unknown, but it is expected that women and girls in both developed and developing countries will be particularly affected by job cuts, loss of livelihoods, increased responsibilities in all spheres of their life, and an increased risk of societal and domestic violence,” said Ms. Ertürk.

She highlighted the World Bank’s prediction of 53 million more people being driven into poverty in developing countries this year, bringing the total number of those living on less than $2 a day to over 1.5 billion.

“Studies have shown that violence against women intensifies when men experience displacement and dispossession related to economic crises, migration, war, foreign occupation or other situations where masculinities compete and power relations are altered in society,” added Ms. Ertürk.

Ms. Pillay noted, however, that there is a new generation of powerful women growing up around the world with a strong sense of their identity and strength.

“They say ‘no’ to harmful practices such as early marriage, female genital mutilation and sexual harassment. They want to go to school and get an education. They want to be lawyers, doctors, judges and members of parliament. They want to change the world.

These two recently released TED Talks feature two remarkable women transforming ordinary conversations about who women are, what is possible from both disability and ability, and what strange and unpredictable things they can inspire.

ASSIGNMENT: Watch BOTH videos and write a comment. ALSO read other people's comments.

Kottak Ch. 7 - Families, Kinship and Marriage

NEXT CHAPTER is on Families, Kinship and Marriage (Oct 21, 23)

Watch the Rick Smolan TED Talk on an Amerasian adoption (25 mins) BEFORE class Tue Oct 21 in addition to your assignment to take the online quiz. For the following Thursday, read "Life without Fathers" in Conformity & Conflict. We will discuss the implications of the photographer's intentions and impact in international adoption.

Questions to consider about Natasha's Story: If Natasha had been Amerasian, but looked more Asian than American, how would her enculturation have been different or how might her acculturation into an American family have differed? Would this story of adoption been as compelling? Why or why not? Consider these questions from several points of view: Rick the photographer, Natasha's grandmother, Natasha, Natasha's uncle, and Natasha's adoptive parents.

Group #3 Presents - Kottak, Political Systems

Each group will be required to create a post around the chapter theme and their presentation.

Kottak Political Systems - Check Tag Cloud for Key Words

This week comment on one of the previous posts on the topic of Political Systems. Check out the keywords from the chapter in the tag cloud in addition to Political Systems which has several posts. Try power, prestige, big men, etc. You choose and post a comment. Read at least 5-6 other comments AND try to say something that's never been said before or that hasn't been noticed by previous comments.

PS. Witness a spectacular photography highlight a shocking and underreported global crisis at the TED event on Oct 3 and Oct 4th in Union Square

James Nachtwey, one of the world’s greatest photojournalists and winner of the 2007 TEDPrize, received “one wish to change the world”:

“I’m working on a story that the world needs to know about. I wish for you to help me break it, in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digital age.”

http://www.tedprize.org/nachtwey/eventlocation.html

Ch. 5 MAKING A LIVING: A Brief History of the Ban on the Potlatch

POTLATCH Pt. 1 1:27"
INFO FROM YOUTUBE: This video shows scenes of Kwakiutl potlatch.One of the first acts in the first 72 hours of the Bush Administration was to strip the Duwamish Tribe of Federal Recognition.It was from them that I learned about potlatch.Without them the City of Seattle would not exist;
On 13 September 2007, the UN passed its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

While the term "indigenous" is not defined, its 46 articles affirm the right to self-determination including the pursuits of economic, social and cultural development (Article 3). Other rights include: * Maintaining distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions while participating in those of the state (Article 5), * Not being forcibly assimilated (Article 8, * Revitalizing and developing their language and educate in their language (Articles 13-14), * Redress for past injustices (Article 28), * Access across international borders (Article 36), and * Financial and technical assistance from the state to achieve these rights (Article 39)

With Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States voting against, and 11 countries abstaining, the Declaration passed with 144 countries in favor. Licence: CreativeCommons NonCommercial

Potlatch Pt. 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpXNS-ZnKoQ (2:38")

Ch.5 MAKING A LIVING: Adaptive Strategies, Permaculture & Economic Racism

This chapter Making A Living may seem boring if you don't get the context. How humans evolved in their food production is the basis of our economic strategies and systems. Human societies, how they are organized, and what they need and work towards, they are defined by how they create and maintain their food production, generally speaking. Jason GOdesky writes that

A given a society’s mode of subsistence, accurate predictions could often be made about their level of political complexity, their kinship patterns, their population size and density, their modes of warfare, and even their religious beliefs.

This blog by Jason Godesky explains why this chapter on Making a Living is so vital and relevant to the study of anthropology. Take a moment to read the first seven paragraphs through the following sentence:

"Cohen’s typology may be slightly ethnocentrically flawed. in breaking out more types within our own adaptive strategy, the traditional typology tends to give pride of place to our own culture that may not be entirely deserved".

SOME VIDEOS TO FURTHER THIS CHAPTER
I found a few videos that brought new strategies, i.e., permaculture, and a new insight into how anthropology students might find Cohen's strategies useful and how other aspects of the chapter namely various forms of distribution and exchange, including the market principle, redistribution, and generalized, balanced, and negative reciprocity, can be applied to contexts right in NYC.

VIDEO #1: Permaculture 101
Permaculture expert Penny Livingston-Stark shows how natural systems can teach us better design practices. Learning to work with the earth not only creates a healthier environment, it also nourishes the people who live in it.




VIDEO #2: Joel Salatin - Virginia 1:37"
Joel Salatin writes in his website that he is "in the redemption business: healing the land, healing the food, healing the economy, and healing the culture." And if you visited his farm, you'd know he means it & lives it!
He produces beef, chicken, eggs, turkey, rabbits, and forestry product. Yet, Joel calls himself a grass-farmer, for it is the grass that transform the sun into energy that his animals can then feed on. By closely observing nature, Joel created a rotational grazing system that not only allows the land to heal but also allows the animals to behave the way the were meant to -- as in expressing their "chicken-ness" or "pig-ness", as Joel would say. www.polyfacefarms.com



VIDEO #3: Witness - Forty Acres and a Dream - Part 1 10:36"
Oddly this video was produced for AlJazeeraEnglishTV rather than regular broadcast TV or cable.Photographer John Ficara captures the plight of black farmers in the United States. THe title refers to Forty Acres and a Mule - a term for compensation that was promised to be awarded to freed African American slaves after the Civil War— 40 acres (16 ha) of land to farm, and a mule with which to drag a plow so the land could be cultivated. This was their entrance into the industrial economy from which they were once the tools and machinery of the production as chattel slaves.

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."

Quiz every Tues on Kottak chapter assigned

Check the Blackboard site at least twice a week. We will elect 5-6 blog moderators so you each can post to the blog.

Remember you have your first quiz on Tue. The quiz is on Chap 1 & 2 of the Kottak's Mirror for Humanity.

The first two quizzes are practice (Chaps 1/2 + Chap 3). Do all the work to prepare as it was meant to be done, do complete and impeccable work, and then take the quiz to see what it's like to improve without penalty right away.

Added 9/3/08: Visit http://mhhe.com/kottakmfh6 for the CHAPTER OBJECTIVES for preparing for each chapter's quiz.

Ch. 6 Politcal Systems: Wealth, Power and Prestige (Max Weber's Theory)

Max Weber formulated a three-component theory of social stratification--wealth (property), power (political power or party class), and prestige (social status and honor).

The three constitute the three sides of a triangle, so to speak, regarding a person's status in society or the "life chances." How do these slides suggest the malleability, the shifting status and integration of these elements?

The man in with the Dairy Queen ice cream is Warren Buffet. He is once again the world's richest man.

Last Call for You To Blog by Mon Dec 17th

I said AMNESTY ends this Thursday, but I will extend it to Monday December 17th. By posting 6 (six) responses to six different posts (either the original post or a comment by another student), you will fulfill your requirement to post on this blog for the semester.

I see all the posts (the program sends them to my email). I will not reply. This is a space for dialogue among you all and the blog will continue next term. So feel free to come visit.

BEFORE YOU POST, CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING:

Which, do you think, is more powerful?

1. Reading the posts below and sharing whether you think it's right or wrong, or
2. Reading the posts and considering what etic (or scientist's) view of the subject you can discover

Which is more useful to the other readers of a blog about anthropology?

1. Sharing your view based on emic (insider) experience, sharing a firsthand account, or etic (scientist's) interpretations, or
2. Sharing your personal opinion without asking if it has any bearing on the new insights and knowledge you gained from the Kottak chapters, our discussions or your newfound power as an experienced "mini" ethnographer.
   

You be the judge and let that inform your responses as you read back over the posts below.

In the upper right column of the blog,
you can click the arrow next to the dates
under BLOG ARCHIVE to view the previous topics.

Chap 11 The Modern World System

DID YOU ALREADY READ CHAPTER 11?

• Show your comprehension and apply the new anthropological terms in a thoughtful response.
• Cite pages of the terms you discuss and write ideas in your own words (avoid quoting).
• Your post will count in the AMNESTY period as extra credit towards your blog/blackboard grade.
• If you continue through December consistently, you could make up all the points you missed.

I want to offer some contemporary issues about the world system that are relevant to your future as prospective elites. Read the entire post and then respond to one of the two (2) questions posed below. Reading at least 5 other comments will augment the thinking in your post.

On page 237, Kottak states:

The modern world system is cross-cut by collective identities based on ethnicity, religion, and nationality (Shannon 1996). Class conflicts tend to occur within nations, and nationalism has prevented global class solidarity, particularly of proletarians....The current world stratification system features substantial contrast between both capitalists and workers in the core nations and workers on the periphery.

In 1999, the proletariat from around the world banded together in Seattle at the international meeting of the World Trade Organization (the WTO).


World Trade Organization(WTO) the truth

Where we are today: For a glimpse of how intertwined the US economy is with other countries including core, periphery and semiperiphery nations take a look at this Fact Sheet on the WTO from the Office of the United States Trade Representive. The two page document shows the results of cases filed against other countries and the results of cases filed against the U.S. regarding free trade agreements.

QUESTION #1: Given the stratification of classes within the US and the seeming separation of those in the US from the working classes in other nations, how might global class solidarity become a reality given new technologies, new classes of US educated international students, and the desire to resist global corporate power? How might anthropological methods assist us in learning solutions that benefit everyone involved?

In a journal article published in Human Organization by Weaver, Thomas Summer 2001 we get an interesting analysis of how the modern world system works:

The world economy is made up of "commodity chains"-forward and backward connections in the processing of a commodity within and across these regions. These commodity chains encompass the exploitation of raw materials, labor, its reproduction, levels of processing, transportation, and consumption. The capitalist world-system in this context forces unequal exchange that simultaneously promotes core development and peripheral poverty and dependence (Grimes 2000:34). The collaboration of elite classes between and within core and periphery supports this transformation [italics added for emphasis].

QUESTION #2: First, determine if the country in which you were born is a core, periphery or semiperiphery nation and according to what source? As a prospective "collaborator," as a future member of the elite class, what do you imagine you will do about the "unequal exchange" between the elite and the proletarian classes? How might anthropological methods assist us in learning solutions that benefit everyone involved?

Remember: The impossible is possible. Think Paul Farmer. Think William McDonough (Ted Talkster architect who is building new cities in China). “The impossible - what nobody can do until somebody does” Could you be that somebody in your small or large way? Will you?

Chap 10-Religion: How do superstitions work as a form of social control?

In Chapter 10 on Religion (Kottak, Mirror for Humanity), the notion of witch hunts is raised as a powerful means of social control "creating a climate of danger and insecurity that affects everyone, not just the people who are likely targets." These accusations are often targeted towards the socially marginal and the anomalous (those who deviate from the norm) as a "leveling mechanism" bringing them back in line with the status quo. See Big Religion Chart for broader view of religion.

You might be interested in seeing a real-life crucifixion in contemporary Phillipines for a man who made an oath to be cruxified to save his daughter. This video is provided by National Geographic.

How might common superstitions work as a form of social control, as leveling mechanisms where social differences stand out? Which individuals or groups in our society might be affected by these superstitions (Remember the experiment 3rd grade teacher Jane Elliot did with the brown and blue eyes)?

Common Superstitions

* Friday the thirteenth is an unlucky day
* If you walk under a ladder, you will have bad luck
* To break a mirror will bring you seven years bad luck
* To open an umbrella in the house is to bring bad luck
* Step on a crack, break your mother's back
* If you blow out all of the candles on your birthday cake with the first breath you will get whatever you wish for
* An itchy palm means money will come your way
* A beginner will always have good luck: beginner's luck
* Crossing your fingers helps to avoid bad luck and helps a wish come true
* After receiving a container of food, the container should never be returned empty
* A sailor wearing an earring cannot drown
* To find a penny heads up, brings good luck
* To make a happy marriage, the bride must wear: something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue
* Washing a car will bring rain
* You must get out of bed on the same side you got in on or you will have bad luck

Chapter 9: Gender

Each person found ways of expressing gender roles or stereotypes:

This video shows typical stereotypes:

Here are two different societies and how they work:

The Irish Society:

• The role of men is to complete tasks that involve fixing and lifting things and are usually more of a disciplinarian to their children than their mother.
• Women are more likely to take up chores such as cooking and are usually more affectionate to their children than their father.
• However, there seems to be less of an opportunity for women to advance in the workforce when compared to the United States.
• The media portray all Irish men as alcoholics who come home after a night at the bar to abuse their wives.

The Dominican Society:

• The Dominican culture is more acceptance of a patriarchy system.
• Men are usually viewed to tend to public matter of working, politics and social events.
• Women are inferior in those aspects and are responsible for extra domestic activities.
• All women does is cook, clean, attend their sons and cater to her husband when he comes home.
• When going out, men are the ones who drive, chose the venue and had control over all household activities and decisions.
• Society views men control normal, the husband would be viewed as less of a man and criticized in the community.
• Along with sexual behaviors, society allows men to have more than one partner; in some instances it is praised.
• Yet if a female was to have more than one partner she is instantly a hoe.
• Most Latin cultures view men superior over women socially, politically and economically.

Here are pictures from Senegal:

All cultures are different, view the culture you came from and share how different your culture is. Also think about this, what is the difference between gender stereotypes and gender roles?

Chapter 8: Families, Kinship, and Marriage

What is the perfect Family?

Here is an experiment. What characters do you think make up the perfect family? Gather a group of people and have them create their ideal family, there is no limit on how many people there can be in the family.


Is this how your family looks?
In American society, a high value is placed on family life.
Americans believe there is a special bond between parent and child,
grandparent and grandchild, and this creates a unique atmosphere,
which allows for certain behaviors and disallows for others.

For example, within a family, in the comfort of a home, one may feel free to be
more laid-back at the dinner table. One may be permitted to put their
elbows on the table, talk with one’s mouth full or watch TV while one eats.
Conversations can be held about things which would not be polite to say in
public. There is an understanding that it's alright to be yourself when
you're with family. These types of behaviors are tolerated because of the
closeness of the family atmosphere. But is this the only version or behaviors of a family?

Can a family consist of two parents of the same sex, or of different
ethnic backgrounds? Can family be made up of two parents who are
divorced, and remarried to new spouses? Can families be extended beyond
the nuclear family and have aunts, uncles, and cousins in the same house. How
and why are these families? They are not made up of a mother and father and
two children? Why is it illegal to have more than one wife or husband in most
states, and does the government have the power to determine that marriage
or a family can only be between men and women and not two partners of the same sex?