Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Anthropology
Culture as the Central Concept
So How Do We Define
Anthropology?
Your syllabus: The Holistic and Comparative Study of
Humankind
Holistic: Asks two questions:
Ethnographic Holism: Asks whether, and if so how, all
parts of a culture fit together
This has already been covered under Culture is
Patterned or Integrated
Disciplinary Holism: Asks how all the four subfields of
anthropology fit together; this, we cover next.
Comparative Method: Tries to answer the questions of
why cultures are both diverse and similar
We cover both the disciplinary holistic and comparative
strategies in turn
Defining Cultural
Anthropology: Topics
Central concern is kinship, because
marriage and family are our first institutions
Reflected by this three generations of
Native American females (upper left)
Also includes technology, from hunting to
housebuilding
Economic Anthropology: how goods and
services are produced and distributed
Political Anthropology: The study of
power and social control (lower left)
Other areas: supernatural beliefs,
psychology, culture change, arts and oral
tradition
Defining Linguistics
The study of spoken language
around the world
Focuses on phones (speech
sounds) and phonemes
(sound units that carry
language)
Looks at word and sentence
formation
Examines how children learn
to speakin one-word
sentences! (See cartoon)
Relates language to culture
Defining Archaeology
Reconstruction of past
cultures: focus is on
techniques analyzing remains
of material culture
Looks at artifacts: portable
objects from tools to Venus
sculptures
Looks at structures: Huts to
pyramids
Excavations destroy
everything: Objects have to
be measured exactly where
found before removal
Second, Anthropology is
Comparative