General Anthropology

What is anthropology?

Also known as four field anthro

o Sociocultural
Studies human society and culture
Studies social and cultural similarities and differences
Uses enthnography
Provides an account of a particular a community,
society and culture.
Gathers data then organizes, describes, analyzes,
and interprets to build and present the account
Descriptive
Group or community specific
Requires field work
Uses ethnology
Studies results of ethnography
Compare and contrast data to make generalizations
about society and culture
Follows the scientific method
o Archeological
Reconstructs, describes, and interpret human behavior and
cultural patterns through material remains
Artifacts
Observing, excavating
o Biological
Aka physical anthro
Studies human biological diversity in time and space
5 interests:
Human evolution revealed by fossil record
(paleoanthropology)
Human genetics
Human growth and development
Human biological plasticity (bodys ability to change
as it copes with stresses such as heat, cold, and
altitude)
The biology, evolution, and social life of monkeys,
apes, and other nonhuman primates
o Linguistic
Reconstructing basics of ancient languages by studying
modern ones

Studies language in its social cultural context, across space

and over time.
Study linguistic differences to discover varied perceptions
and patterns of thought in diff. cultures.
Historical linguistics- considers variation(grammar, sounds,
and vocab) in time
Sociolinguistics investigates relationships between social
and linguistic variation.
o Other fields:
Psychological anthropology
Cross-cultural variation in psychological traits
Applied anthropology
Application of anthropological data, perspectives,
theory, and methods to identify, assess, and solve
contemporary social problems
Applied in public health, family planning, business,
economic development, and cultural resource
management
Originated from north America
o American anthropologist were concerned about the history,
cultures, origins, and diversity of the native people
o They studied customs, social life, language, and physical traits
o Questions:
Where did Native Americans come from?
How many waves of migration brought them to the New World?
What are the linguistic, cultural, and biological links among Native Americans and

between them and Asia?

Explores human biology, society and cultures, and the interrelations

o Human nature cannot be derived from studying a single nation,
society, or cultural tradition. A comparative, cross-cultural
approach is essential

Scientific method

Perspectives in anthropology
Evolutionism
o Morgan
o Unilinear evolutionism
o There was one line or path through which societies had to evolve
o Savagery
o Lower fruits and nuts
o Middle fishingand fire
o Upper bow and arrow
o Barbarism
o Lower pottery
o Middle- domestication of plants and animals, irrigated agriculture
o Upper iron tools and iron smelting
o Civilization invention of writing
o Tylor
o Unilinear path of religion
o Animism to polytheism
o Monotheism
o Science
Boasians
o Boas
o Father of 4 field anthro
o Human biology was plastic
o Could be changed by environment and cultural forces

o Biology did not determine culture

o Historical particularism
o Disproved evolutionism
o Different histories
o Diffusion borrowing from other cultures
o Develop particular histories as they entered and moved through
different societies
o Each element of culture had its own distinctive history
Functionalism
o Malinowski
o All customs and institutions in society were integrated and
interrelated
If one changed, others would change as weel
o Each were a function of one another
o Needs functionalism
Customs develop to fulfill universal needs
o Radcliffe-brown
o Conjectural history
All history was conjectural formed on the basis of
incomplete info
Anthro is a synchronic science
o Structural functionalism
o Radcliffe-brown and Edward evan evans-pitchard
o Customs function to preserve the social culture
o The system function to maintain the system of which it is a part
of, and has a structure whose parts or work functions to
maintain the whole
o Pangloss
o Panglossian functionalism
o Tendency to see things as functioning not to just maintain the
system but to do so in the most optimal way possible.
o Any deviation from the norm would only damage the system
Configurationalism
o Benedict and mead
o Culture traits are uniquely patterned and or integrated
o Traits might not spread if they met environmental barriers, ot if they
were not accepted by a particular culture
o There had to be a fit between the culture and the trait diffusing in, and
borrowed traits would be reworked to fit the culture adopting them

Neoevolutionism

Leslie white and Julian Steward

White
o General evolution
o Overtime, we can see the evolution of culture as a whole
o Particular cultures might not evolve in the same direction
Steward
o Multilinear evolution
o Culture core

Cultural Materialism

Marvin harris
All societies had an infrastructure consisting of technology, economics,
and demography- production and reproduction
From infrastructure, arises structure
o social relations, and patterns of distribution and consumption
Superstructure
o Religion and ideology
Infrastructure determines structure
Max weber
o Religion
Marx
o Economic determinism
Mead
o Human nature is a blank slate that culture could write in it

Culturology

Cultural anthro
Cultural forces etc

Superorganic

Alfred Kroeber
Origin converted ape into a hominin
Show power pf culture over individual

Durkheim

Conscience colectif
Collective consciousness
Based on the study of social facts

Symbolic and interpretative anthropology

Victor Turner
o Symbolic anthro
Clifford Geertz
o Interpretative anthro
o Cultures as ideas based on cultural learning and symbols
o Cultures as texts whose forms and meanings must be deciphered
in particular cultural and historical contexts

Structuralism

Claude Levi Strauss

Human minds have certain universal characteristics, which originate in
common features of the brain
People everywhere think similarly
To impose order on aspects of nature and on relations between people
Classification
o Opposition or contrast
o Use of binary opposition
Good and evil
Black and white
Low and high