ATR 220: Cultural Anthropology

Marc Healy

Chapter 12: Theory In Cultural Anthropology

1.1 Anthropological as Science • A 19th Century Idea • Victorian Era • 1807-1901

• Victorian Ideals • Moralism, propriety • Progress • Industry

• Culture: Not just a good idea- it’s THE LAW!

• – E. B. Tylor (1832-1917)

• Primitive Culture 1871 • “Survivals” - religion

What do we mean by “Natural Laws”? How does it apply to humans, or “human nature”?

• Theory – Reductionism (Complex

phenomena reduced to simple causes)

– determinism

• Empirical • Fact

• Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) “Survival of the Fittest”

• Material phenomena • (measureable, tangible)

• Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) - Sociology - Solidarity

(mechanical or organic)

- Cultures evolve in a predictable pattern

1.2 Nineteenth Century Approaches • Unilineal Cultural Evolutionism

– Charles Darwin 1809-1882 • Lewis Henry Morgan

(1818-1881)

• biological determinism and races

1877

12.3 Early Twentieth-Century Approaches • Diffusion • Culture Traits • Culture Areas

• Franz Boas – Historical particularism

• Emile Durkheim •Bronislaw Malinowski

– functionalism

•A.R. Radcliffe-Brown – Structural functionalism – Heavily Influenced by Durkheim – SOCIETY as basic unit (material) – Antagonism with North

Americans – More “Laws”

• Social determinism • Cultural determinism

•Alfred Kroeber “Superorganic”

•Configurations of entire cultures • Culture and personality school

12.4 Mid-Twentieth-Century Approaches

• Ethnoscience (linguistic taxonomies) – ex: American university departments – Emic and etic categories

• French Structuralism • Claude Levi-Strauss • Bricolage

• Criticisms − Post-structuralists − Grand theorizing − Meta narratives, privileged views − Culture as monolithic

Mid-Twentieth-Century Approaches: Symbolic Anthropology

• Interpretive Anthropology – Mary Douglas

• Symbolic functionalism • “Purity and Danger”

– Victor (and Edith) Turner- social dramas • ritual, pilgrimage, theater

– Clifford Geertz- “Thick Description” – • objects and

actions (cockfights)

Mid-20th Century : Ecological Anthropology and Neoevolutionism

•Cultural adaptation, not biological determinism • Julian Steward- Cultural ecology •Multilineal evolution •Behavioral ecology

• Leslie White

Marshall Sahlins- Neoevolutionism

Mid-Twentieth-Century Approaches: Materialism

•Marvin Harris 1. Cultural Materialism •Utilitarian 2. Historical (dialectical) Materialism 3. Political ecology (post-Marxist)

Cultural Materialism

12.5 Late-20th Century Debates • 20th century- Attempt to establish “science of culture”

•21st Century- 2 camps

1) “Traditional” science

- Truth is universal and objective

- Discovered by rational, empirical means

- Complex effects reducible to simple, determining causes

- Search for unified “Theory of everything”

12.5 Late-20th Century Debates • 20th century- Attempt to establish “science of culture”

•21st Century- 2 camps

1) “Traditional” science

- Truth is universal and objective

- Discovered by rational, empirical means

- Complex effects reducible to simple, determining causes

- Search for unified “Theory of everything”

2) Postmodernism (humanistic)

- Culture cannot be studied scientifically

- Interpretive, reflexive, subjective

- “Grand Theory” does not apply to particular cultures

- What about human rights? Are they not universal?

12.5 Late-20th Century Debates • Donna Haraway situated knowledge (parallax?) – located at

a standpoint • People understand society

from their own vantage point (social status)

• How do you view “The system” (law enforcement?) depending upon your race, gender, class, etc?

• Perceptions (knowledge) contradict

• Cultures are not smoothly functioning, neatly bounded, harmonious

12.6 New Directions in the Twenty-first Century

•Walking the line between extreme determinism and extreme relativism

• Eclecticism •Globalization, localization, political economy

– “follow the money” – movement between groups, immigration, homelessness – Historical (vs. ahistorical) perspectives – Postcolonial studies – “Native” anthropologies – “studying up”

• distributive agency (eg, science, civil rights movement)- “heterogeneous assemblages” and interest groups

Fin