Description
Introductory Lecture:
Over the world, there are so numerous cultures such as those found in the First World, Second World and Developing Nations, Third World, and in the Fourth World. The ways of life of these cultures are diverse. But how can we understand culture? How can we organize our research design to begin studying a culture? To aid cultural anthropologists in studying cultures, they reflect on the anthropological theoretical approaches used by anthropologists of the early twentieth century, to gather ideas and to critique these theories, or to use to underpin their own anthropological research. Often the products of anthropological research are ethnographies and monographs both of which are guided and informed by theory. This means that an ethnographer collects data, then uses one of anthropology’s major perspectives or theory to analyze the data.
Anthropologists do not agree that there is only one approach or few specific fundamental anthropological approaches to apply or use in the study of culture and society. The three major reasons are: (1) human beings are the subject of anthropology and are dynamic, self-conscious, willful beings; (2) anthropologists cannot experiment (control condition) using peoples lives; and (3) the diversity of the human experience is the focus of anthropology and thus, it would be impossible to have one theoretical framework that would encompass all of human behavior. However, students can reflect on several anthropological approaches held firmly by anthropologists in their study of culture and its people.
Instructions:
1. Read and see if you agree with one of anthropologist and why you disagree with the two anthropologists Write your Discussion Question 3 answers below.
a. Unilineal perspective is a study is based on progress of culture. It is authored by E.B. Tylor He believed that there was a functional basis for the development of society and religion, which he determined was universal. Tylor maintained that all societies passed through three basic stages of development: from savagery, through barbarism to civilization. Tylor reintroduced the term animism (faith in the individual soul or anima of all things and natural manifestations) into common use. He regarded animism as the first phase in the development of religions. Religion can affect more than a particular person’s habits. These beliefs and practices can influence an entire community, nation, or region. Religious practices shape, and are shaped by, the culture around them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Burnett_Tylor
b. Historical particularism by Franz Boas.This approach/theory claims that each society has its own unique historical development and must be understood based on its own specific cultural and environmental context (place), and especially, its historical process. To build a database for his ethnography, he and his students collected a vast amount of first-hand cultural data by conducting ethnographic fieldwork. Based on these raw data, they described particular cultures instead of trying to establish general theories that apply to all societies.
Historical Particularism | Cultural Anthropology (lumenlearning.com)
c. Malinowskis biocultural (or psychological) functionalism Malinowski argued that consistent psychological responses are correlates of physiological needs. He asserts that individuals have physiological needs (reproduction, food, shelter) and that social institutions (nuclear family, nonkin groups, fictive kin, religious groups, political groups, subsistence groups) exist to meet these needs. Also, but importantly, he argued that satisfaction of these needs transformed the specific and applicable cultural activity into an acquired drive (motivation) in fulfilling and meeting these needs. https://anthropology.ua.edu/theory/functionalism/
Supplemental Reading:
