It is the study of:

Human nature

Human society

Human Past

1. Anthro = human beings  logy = study of
2. Concerned with all people, globally

 Interested in everything that has to do with humans

Study why people do what the do

Learn about other people and cultures

1. It is holistic
2. It is field-based
3. It is comparative
4. It is evolutionary

 the study of the biology of the human species and other primate species

Brain sizes justifies racism - uses the idea that races are social groups

20th century - fought against racism - no such thing as race - race cultural word

Culture - The study of the ways in which culture shapes the beliefs and behaviors of members of different human groups

1.  
   1.  beliefs, values, morals, and behaviors of a group of like peoples, influenced by elders
   2. Michael Herzfeld - study of common sense in a given society

1. Interests how ideas shape practices

 The sets of learned behaviors and ideas that humans acquire as members of society

Shared amongst participants in a social group, in a society.

Learned as one grows up from people and situations surrounding them

Patterned - show up repeatedly across time and space (Diet, fashion, religion)

Symbolic - relies on the existence of symbols  (represents something else)

Adaptive Not static but fluid - exposure to other cultures can change culture and it promotes human biological survival

 Viewpoint that our way of life is correct and others are not

Judging other cultures

Leads to war, and genocide

 Understanding of each culture in its own terms without being ethnocentric EX: Foot binding, femal gentinal cutting

• Does not require us to abandon own cultural values
• Allows us to be objective about what we study
• Allows us to understand without automatically accepting a practice

 Developed in order to understand better how a society works

• Unilateral Cultural evolution
  • Ex: Society evolved from Primitive to civilized

• Hypologies cause prejudice

Economic system based on the idea of commodity (everything has a price, and is regulated by supply and demand)

Way of life that grew in response to the economic system

•  Cultural domination with enforced social change
• Ex: Native Americans, Mexicans, Africa
• Ex: Taxes in Africa was a change b/c they didn't use money, they could only work in mines for wages
• Colonialism differs from capitalism because colonialism organizes society around material interests and uses power to protect these interests.

 Social values changed (People became materialistic and greedy)

Religious Conversion

Western Languages imposed

Class system, social inequalities

Inter-dependency, emergence of globalization

Competition of resources on a larger scale

Laid bases for colonialism

 Original study of Africa,Cultural Relativism,Pushed field work, Participant observation,Emphasized Particularities (Pushed Anthropologists away from finding universal laws of humanity),Taking a wider historical perspective,Explained witchcraft,Respected it as a system of philosophical thought or as a religion,Tried to explain why it made sense, Explained why it was important - explains the unexplainable, Looked at culture in its entirety, Anthropologists were interpreters not scientists,Inspir ed questions in other disciplines, Novels about African Tribes

 Cattle was important for the Nuer because it was the idiom in which they thought.

Cattle = currency = life source

People emotionally attached to cattle - write songs, stories etc.

Only cattle bombarded and EP realized that killing cattle was = to killing people

Lack of centralized government, Equality amongst peoples,Sophisticated society

Need it to communicate

(Language and communication are not one and the same thing)

1. 1. Communication - transfer of information between two or more people

1. Encode experiences

 Sets human language apart from other forms of communication

Understands messages made by others

Communicate thoughts and ideas (Displacement)

Relates to the ability to discuss objects not present and events not in the now (Arbitrariness)

Absence of a link between sound and a meaning

Ex: my<- in english possession <- in japan silk

Patterned on 2 levels : Phonemes  and Morphemes 

 Relativity Principle

 or

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

 The language that we use (mother tongue) effects  the ways we think

No superior or inferior languages exist - all languages are accurate in their reflection of reality

• "trendy words"
• very informal usage in vocabulary and idiom that is characteristically more metaphorical, playful, elliptical, vivid, and ephemeral than ordinary language

he way people phrase things influenced by the environment and others around them

a provincial, rural, or socially distinct variety of a language that differs from the standard language, esp. when considered as substandard.

• The tone and inflection used as you speak
• prominence of a syllable in terms of differential loudness, or of pitch, or length, or of a combination of these.

• A group of terms used by a specific group
• the language, esp. the vocabulary, peculiar to a particular trade, profession, or group

• Creates social bonds
• (Learning tool)
• (Communicate knowledge)
• Insinuates critique of power
• (Establishes a class system/hierarchy)
• Strengthens existing social bonds
• Allows for innovation

Art

Shelly Erington

1. Criteria an object needs to fulfill in order to be art:

Exhibition value

Useless for practical purposes in the west

Represent humans or animals

Mona Lisa is considered art by intention vs art by appropriation

• Intention - intended to be art
• Appropriation - intended for a functional purpose but turned into art

 A story that is about a self-evident truth

Accept as truth without questions

• Malinowski - Important because they justify why society is the way it is and cannot be changed
• Levi-Strauss - Myth is not in conjunction with uses and should be seen as tools not explanations

• Anthropologists pay attention to the symbols and how they are used and how the ritual is performed

Association between words and the world Ex: descriptions, names, etc. Experiences and background influence semanticity

Prevarication

1. Ability to ask questions or make statements to challenge convention

smallest unit of sound

Tree = t-r-i

Tray = t-r-ei

Represented by one letter or a combination of letters

41 phonemes in English

Smalest unit of meaning

ex: class-room

1. Environment
2. Culture
3. Personal Views
4. How people perceive space and direction

• Emphasized different aspects of social life

Euro-American understandings of art