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Print Save to File Printable View of: Course Content File: THEMES OF ANTH. MAIN THEMES OF ANTHROPOLOGY Anthropology has some major themes or specific patterns of thought that all resonate consistently across its 4 sub fields or disciplines (Cultural Anthropology, Physical Anthropology, Linguistic Anthropology and Archaeology). These major themes or specific patterns of thought are as follows: (1) Sciencism, (2) Evolution (3) Culture deification, (4) Respect for Ethnic Pluralism, Cultural Diversity and Cultural Relativity. (5) Universalism (6) Holism, (7) Ethnocentrism, (8) Cultural Integration, (9) Adaptation, (10) Historical particularism, (11) Uniformitarianism, and (12) Psychic unity. (1) Theme of Sciencism The theme of sciencism emphasizes the use of the Scientific Method in the investigation of social and natural phenomena. - The scientific method, first propounded by Sir Francis Bacon, is a systematic procedure for acquiring knowledge that relies on empirical evidence (i.e. evidence based on observation, experimentation and experience) rather than on conjecture, intuition and common sense. - The Scientific Method consists of 6 steps, organized to ensure maximum objectivity and consistency in the investigation of social problems. These steps are as follows: 1. definition of the problem, 2. review of literature, 3. formulation of hypothesis, 4. selection of the research design, 5. collection and analysis of data, and 6. development of conclusions. - First propounded and used by Sir Francis Bacon, the Scientific Method seeks to assure research objectivity and reduce research bias by calling on scholars investigating social problems to: (1) Systematically collect, classify and analyze data, (2) Formulate and tests hypotheses (a hypothesis is a testable proposition on the relationship of a set of variables), (3) Establish verifiable theories (a theory is a broadbased generalized conclusion that has universal validity and applicability), (4) Use the deductive method (research approach in which scientists formulate hypotheses from the general investigation of a problem) and the inductive method (research approach in which scientists test the validity of hypotheses by collecting and analyzing data), (5) Use ethnographic research. Ethnography is sometimes called naturalistic, idealistic or participant observational research. The latter research technique requires scientists to be participant observers of the cultures of their problem for an extended amount of time, (6) Use the Comparative or Cross-cultural Perspective. Furthermore, the scientific method stresses that problems should be analyzed from a comparative or cross-cultural perspective, and (7) Employ the emic and etic perspectives (the emic perspective views a problem or culture from the point of view of its owners while the etic perspective views a problem or culture from the point of view of an outsider). - For Max Weber, the scientific method implies maintaining ?value neutrality? or ?verstehen,? that is, seeing reality from the emic approach and not imposing one?s personal biases on research outcomes. (2) Theme of Cultural Evolution - The theme of cultural evolution assumes that: - That humans, culture, and human society are not static but change with time from simple states to more complex states, and - that most changes are primarily due to environmental adaptation. (3) Theme of Cultural Deification The theme of sciencism emphasizes respect of the concept of culture. In anthropology the word ?culture? is so important that some anthropologists have raised it almost to the status of a god. Culture deification implies that culture is so important to its owners that it appears as if it were God-given and not man-made. Culture is to anthropology as x and y are to mathematics. Culture forms the core element of anthropology; without it anthropology will die out as an academic discipline. Anthropologists maintain that culture determines the reality of those who own it. Without it human beings cannot interact successfully or meaningfully with their environment or with other human beings. They see it as a survival strategy whose values, beliefs, habits and practices persist because they are functional to its members. Culture to many anthropologists constitutes the medium in which all of human behavior takes place, and shapes the entire behavior of its owners. Culture is to humans as water is to fish. Just as river fish in sea water will be unable to survive because the water is too salty, and just as sea fish in river water will be unable to survive because the water is too flat, so too someone in a culture which is not his or her own will survive with difficulty or may even die altogether. Anthropologists maintain that culture is to humans what road signs are to a driver. Just as road signs give drivers a precise idea of where to go, so too culture indicates to its owners what they must do or must not do in order to interact meaningfully with other peoples, and enjoy life to the fullest. Culture therefore serves as a pair of looking glasses, which highlights to its owners what is true and dims what is false, thus permitting them to see what is real from what is unreal. People without a culture cannot know where they came from, and if you do not know where you came from, you cannot know where you are right now, and if you do not know where you are now, you cannot know where you are going to, and if you do not know to where you are going, you cannot reach there. Put in another way, culture enable us to know where we have been and what we have been, where we are now and what we are, and most importantly, where we still must go and what we still must be. (4) Theme of Ethnic Diversity, Cultural Pluralism And Cultural Relativity The themes of Ethnic Diversity, Cultural Pluralism and Cultural Relativity emphasizes that because human ethnic and racial groups are different from one another, all people should be treated in respect to their cultures. Anthropologists, generally, value and are committed to maintaining and promoting ethnic diversity, cultural pluralism and cultural relativity. They generally regret the decline and extinction of some cultures, make efforts to preserve ethnic diversity and cultural pluralism by describing cultures as they have existed, the way they are now, and the way they change. Many of them are activists in the area of cultural survival. The theme of cultural relativity presupposes that cultural elements are diverse, interconnected, and interrelated, and make sense only to those who belong to the culture. - Cultural relativity, therefore, implies that what is accepted as right in one society may be very wrong in another society and that the behavior of people must be understood or evaluated in terms of their own culture. - Below are examples of behaviors that are accepted by people in other societies but considered shocking or unacceptable by people in U.S. culture: (a) The practice of wife lending to guests, among some traditional Eskimos and the Chuckchee of Siberia (Howard 1993), so that they can entertain their wives by giving them ?eyes sparkles and blowing cheeks? (having sex with them). (b) The Gurangara, a practice among some Australian aboriginal tribes in which mother-in-laws are required by custom to have sex with their son-in-laws as a way of fostering family solidarity (Berndt 1951). (c) Contest sexual intercourse, a practice found among the Truskese of Micronesia in which the first partner to have orgasm is considered the failure of the contest. In such a contest, it is self control that matters. (d) The belief in some traditional African societies that being fat (obese) is synonymous to being pretty or handsome. In some traditional African cultures people make conscious efforts to fatten up as an effort to look more pretty or handsome. However, in the U.S. culture obesity is looked upon with ridicule and scorn. Most Americans, to enhance their looks, do just the reverse; they go to the fitness center and work out and lose some of that ugly weight. (e) The practices of clitoridectomy (removing all or part of the clitoris) and infibulation (sewing together part or all of the lips of the vagina) among the people of some traditional societies as a means of preparing a girl or boy for adulthood. (f) The Egyptian and Arabic practice of standing very close to someone during conversations. Such a practice irritates U.S. individuals who are used to maintaining several feet of interpersonal space. (g) The practice of human sacrifice and cannibalism believed to be still existent in a few parts of the world. (h) The practice of eating of dogs and cats by some traditional Japanese. Here in the U.S. dogs and cat are considered pets and not eaten. - Correspondingly, below are examples of behaviors that are accepted in U.S. culture but pose as culture shock (psychological stress experienced by people because they are experiencing behavior that does not belong to their own culture) to people from other cultures: (a) The eating of ?grass? by Americans: - The Bororo?s, a pastoral tribe in West Africa, have questioned why Americans prefer eating ?grass? like cattle even though they have a lot of money. For Americans, however, they eat salad and not ?grass.? (b) The wearing make-up and jewelry by some American males: - Some people from traditional societies sometimes question why American males wear jewelry (chains and earrings) like women, and why Americans generally prefer to ?stink like perfume? rather to smell like human beings? For Americans, however, they do not stink like perfumes, they use perfumes to ?smell good? and eliminate body ordure. (c) The eating beef or cow meat among Americans: - Traditional Hindu from India wonder why Americans savagely kill and eat the ?holy animal.? (d) The keeping senior citizens in Old Age Retirement Institutions by Americans: - Some people from traditional societies have criticized such an American practice describing it as ?dumping the elderly.? (e) The practice of having youths choose their own spouses in America: - People from some kin-based traditional societies wonder why Americans allow youths to take independent decisions in such a very important matter. (5) Theme of Universalism - The theme of universalism emphasizes that all human beings, regardless of color, sex and class, are fully and equally human. - Universalism also implies that all human species belong to the same biological family type called Homo sapiens. - Homo sapiens are primates characterized by: bipedal locomotion, upright posture, a high-vaulted skull, vertical forehead, pronounced chin, grasping fingers, and an average brain size of 1450 cubic centimeters. - The theme of universalism further suggests: - That no human race or species is nearer the ape or farther away from the ape than another human species, - That to be different does not mean to be less, neither does it mean to be more, it only means to be different, and - That all human beings deserve to be studied, and treated with honor, dignity and respect. (6) Theme of Holism The theme of holism emphasizes the objective reasoning and studying problems from a multifaceted or multidimensional perspective. - A multifaceted perspective calls on anthropologists to do the following: - Use the scientific approach, - Employ data from many other disciplines (the reason why anthropology is sometimes called the ?integrated science?), - Avoid armchair research (research deficient of fieldwork), - Avoid making speculative assumptions not based on research, - Avoid scientific reductionism (tendency for scientists to focus on the big picture rather than the detailed image), - Employ the emic and etic approaches of problem solving (the emic approach sees situation from the point of view of insiders while etic approach see them from the point of view of outsiders), - Employ the formalist and substantivist approaches of problem-solving (the formalist approach calls on scientists to treat similar cases of a problem in the same way while the substantivist approach calls on scientists to resolve problems in respect to their own unique circumstances), and - View culture as a systemic or an organismic whole whose parts are interconnected and interrelated. (7) Theme of Ethnocentrism Ethnocentrism is the belief that one?s cultural values, items and behavioral traits are better than those of others. Ethnocentrism is also the tendency to evaluate others from one?s own cultural frames of reference. The theme of ethnocentrism is therefore the opposite of the theme of cultural relativity. All human beings are ethnocentric. Even anthropologists and other scientists find it difficult to avoid ethnocentrism or to avoid imposing their own cultural biases on the cultures they study. - Moderate ethnocentrism is good because it makes individuals feel secure and gives them a sense of high self-esteem. - However, extreme ethnocentrism or what some scholars have called Chauvinism or Jingoism is dangerous because it leads to the development of negative attitudes such as stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination, conflict, and even genocide towards non-group members. Realizing the ethnocentric impact of culture on the behavior of human beings, Edgar Hewett, a multicultural educator stated as follows: ?In every normal individual in any stage of culture there exists the feeling that the activities which yield him the greatest satisfaction are those which involve the interests of his fellow men. He finds no happiness in habitual isolation . . . . A sound, commonplace aim to keep in mind when educating Americans is to make better Americans; in educating Indians is to make better Indians; in educating Filipinos is to make better Filipinos; . . . ? (Edgar 1905). (8) Theme of Cultural Integration - The theme of cultural integration insists that scientists studying cultures must know that all the elements of a culture are integrated and interrelated to one another, and must all be studied as a totality. (9) Theme of Adaptation The theme of adaptation stresses that human behavior is largely related or influenced by environmental factors. For example, some research reveals that where the environment is rich people tend to be lazy, and where the environment is poor people tend to be more hardworking and more inventive. - The theme of adaptation distinguishes three types of environments: a) the physical environment (consisting of the terrain, physical features, climate, rainfall patterns, sunshine, etc), b) the cultural environment (consisting of other members of the human species), and c) the biotic environment (consisting of animals and plants). (10) Theme of Historical Particularism The theme of historical particularism presupposes that much of human behavior is the product of past particular historical events. Franz Boas, considered the father of American Anthropology, is generally considered the profounder and greatest advocate of historical particularism. Boas?s notion of historical particularism always went hand in hand with his notion of cultural relativity (the notion that human behavior should be understood or evaluated in respect to its own cultural context. Franz Boas and Branislaw Malinowski (considered by anthropologists as the Father of Fieldwork or ethnography) strongly recommended examining the role of historicity in human behavior, and intense ethnographic fieldwork for all anthropologists. The two were most uncomfortable with the theories of Unilineal Evolutionism and Diffusionism as propounded by the European anthropologists of the 19th century. Boas condemned the practice of ?armchair anthropology? by pioneer European anthropologists, arguing that anthropological data on non-European societies which was collected by European scholars from second-hand sources such as European overseas traders, missionaries, soldiers, and colonial administrator was distorted and highly unreliable. (11) Theme of Uniformitarianism - The theme of uniformitarianism states that given the same conditions or circumstances all human beings will behave in the same manner. This implies that if Australian aboriginals, the Eskimos of the North Pole, the so-called South African Bushmen and pygmies of the Central African forest, and the Native American Indians were suddenly converted into industrial peoples or industrial people were suddenly converted to the latter groups, they will behave exactly as each other. File: CHAPTER 1 (12) Theme of Psychic Unity The theme of psychic unity stresses that all human beings have the same reasoning capacity or potentiality. - This therefore means that all human beings are educable, and that are no human beings that are more educable than others. - It also implies that popular labels such as ?educationally disadvantaged,? ?educationally deficient? and ?at-risk? attributed to some members of the society constitute socially imposed rather than biologically/genetically imposed reality. REFERENCES Berndt, Ronald M. 1951 Kunapipi. Melbourne: Chesire Hewett, Edgar L. 1905 Ethnic factors In Education. American Anthropologists: No. 1, Vol. 7, January to March. CHAPTER 1 WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY AND WHY SHOULD I CARE? ETYMOLOGY The word ?anthropology comes from the Greek word ?anthropologia:? - ?anthropo? meaning ?humankind? or ?human beings? and ?Logia? meaning ?science? or ?studies.? Therefore, ?anthropology? literarily means ?humankind science? or ?humankind studies.? - However, most anthropologists define ?anthropology? as the scientific or systematic study of humankind. SUMMARY - Nanda and Warms, in Chapter 1 of Culture Counts, suggest that Anthropology is the scientific or systematic study of human diversity. - It cites Horace Miner?s classic article ?Body Ritual Among the Nacirema? (1956) to show the level of human diversity found in America. - The word ?Nacirema? is the word ?American? spelled backwards. - The Naciremas live in a highly developed market economy, and spend most of their day in body ritual activities, aimed at beautifying their faces, mouths, breasts, and bodies as a whole. - The Naciremas seem to believe that the human body is naturally urgly and must be made right. - Every Nacireman household has a mysterious beauty shrine and charm box built into the wall, and introduced to children only when they become of age. - Entering Nacirema is like entering a temple. At the door of the temple: - There is rigid scrutiny, - People are rigorously inspected, - Made to strip their cloths and shoes, - To present gifts to the guardians of the temple, and - To undergo numerous expensive rituals. - In Nacirema or the temple itself, there is general dissatisfaction with body size and breast size. - People seem to be working all the time to have the best body and breast size, even though there does not seem to be general agreement on the ideal body or breast size. - There are numerous beauty rituals aimed at: - making fat people thin, - thin people fat, - large breasts thin, and - thin breasts large. - These numerous beauty rituals make the Nacirema an extremely exotic group of people, suffering under the weight of what seems like self-imposed burdens. MAIN GOALS OF ANTHROPOLOGY - The 4 major goals of contemporary anthropology are: (1) To make students aware of global human diversity, (2) To make students aware of global human similarities, (3) To make students aware of globalization (the growing interconnectedness of humans and societies all over the world), and its consequences. UNIQUE NATURE OF ANTHROPOLOGY - Defining anthropology as the systematic study of humankind does not seem to make anthropology different in any significant way from other disciplines. After all, other disciplines also systematically study one or more aspects of the humankind. - Therefore, what is it that Anthropology does, which the other disciplines do not do? - Compared to the other disciplines, anthropology is very unique in the way it studies the humankind, because: (1) It Uses Participant Observation - Anthropology uses a research technique called Participant Observation. - Fieldwork is also called participant observational research, naturalistic research, or idealistic research or ethnological research. - The main purpose of fieldwork is to understand people/societies/problems objectively, from the emic or insider perspective, i.e. to understand peoples the way they understand themselves. (2) It is Holistic Anthropology?s multi-disciplinary nature suggests that anthropology is a holistic discipline. Holism here also implies that anthropology provides a broad, comprehensive account on humans drawn from 5 main sub-fields as follows: biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and applied anthropology. - Holism also implies that anthropology studies all aspects of the human condition, or studies all what it means to be human. - It also means that anthropology studies human beings of all times and in all places. (3) It Upholds and Promotes Ethnicity - Anthropology upholds and preserves the ethnic group and multiculturalism. This is because one?s ethnic group is one?s original cultural group, and anthropologists consider culture as exceedingly critical to people?s development. (4) It is Integrated or Multi-disciplinary - The subject content of anthropology straddles or incorporates the other social science disciplines, including the humanities and the natural or physical sciences. - This in other words means that anthropology synthesizes or combines knowledge from all the other disciplines (for example: biology, paleontology, geology, economics, linguistics, sociology, psychology, history, political science, and religion) into itself. As a result of its multidisciplinary perspective, anthropology is sometimes called the ?integrated discipline.? (5) It is Comparative - Anthropology comparatively examines societies across space and across time. - Unlike other disciplines, anthropology is interested in looking for the differences and similarities across different societies in order to establish testable cross-cultural theories or generalities. It?s aim is to find out what all human societies have in common and how they differ from one another. (6) It is Bio-social - Anthropology studies both human origins and evolution, and social or cultural behavior. It is therefore a bio-social science, or a biological or natural science discipline and a social science discipline. (7) It is Humanistic Anthropology is a discipline which has a very powerful humanistic orientation. Anthropology emphasizes humanistic concepts such as: cultural relativity, human equality, ethics, equity, liberty, justice, democracy, constitutionalism, and objectivity. AGE AND THE REASONS WHY ANTHROPOLOGY EMERGED AS AN ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE - Anthropology, as we know it today, is a relatively new discipline. - Unlike other disciplines, anthropology emerged as late as the 19th and 20th centuries, mainly: - As an aid to European colonization, and - As a reaction against European colonization. MAIN QUESTIONS ANTHROPOLOGY SEEKS TO ANSWER - Anthropology seeks to answer the following fundamental questions of human existence: (1) Where and when did human beings originate? (2) Which evolutionary stages has the human species passed through since its origin? (3) What are human beings like today? (4) Where are human beings going to? MAIN APPROACH USED IN THE STUDY OF ANTHROPOLOGY The Scientific Approach Definition - The Scientific Approach is a logical or systematic way of studying societies and cultures that was first proposed and used by an English scientist called Francis Bacon. Main Goal - The main goal of the Scientific Approach is to understand the world from an objective perspective. Reasoning Patterns in the Scientific Method - The Scientific Approach makes use of the following kinds of reasoning patterns: Empirical Reasoning, Inductive Reasoning and Deductive Reasoning. (a) Empirical Reasoning - This is a reasoning pattern that emphasizes observation, experience, and experimentation. (b) Inductive Reasoning - This is a reasoning method that emphasizes theory testing. - In inductive reasoning, anthropologists formulate and test hypotheses (broad logical speculations, propositions or generalizations), to see if they will be supported or refuted. (c) The Deductive Reasoning - This is a reasoning pattern that emphasizes theory building. - In deductive reasoning anthropologists building up testable hypotheses from general investigation. Limitations of the Scientific Approach - Despite thoroughness and verification that characterize the scientific method, objectivity in Anthropology is illusive. - Ideally, the scientific method is objective, but practically it is not. - Like all other scientists, anthropologists have their own personal or individual beliefs or biases that influence their research. - Moreover, anthropologists, as all other scientists, have specific paradigms (shared sets of beliefs, assumptions, ideals, techniques, and research strategies) that shape their research observations and conclusions and limit their objectivity (Lett 1978). MAIN SUB-FIELDS OF ANTHROPOLOGY & REPRESENTATIVES The 4 major sub-fields, or subdivisions of Anthropology as an academic discipline are as follows: (1) Biological or Physical Anthropology - This is represented by C. Loring Brace, a Harvard University physical anthropologist or paleoanthropologist who in the 1950s studied the evolution of teeth in the various types of ancient fossil), (2) Archaeology - This is represented by Patty Watson who carried out research in exploring Native American caves in Kentucky, especially in the Mammoth Cave System, the longest network of caves in the world, - Linguistic Anthropology (represented in the Chapter by Bambi Schieffelin), and (3) Cultural Anthropology - This is represented by Napoleon Chagnon, who studied the Yanomamo Indians of South America. (4) Linguistic Anthropology - This is represented by Noam Chomsky. (1) BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY Synonym: - Biological Anthropology was previously known as Physical Anthropology. Definition - It can be defined as a study of humans that emphasizes: - human fossils, - human diseases - human nutrition, - human health, - human skeleton, and - their physical characteristics. Main areas - Biological anthropology focuses on: (1) Human physiology and Diseases, (2) Human adaptation, especially to the social and ecological environment, (3) Human Variation in different social and ecological contexts, in both living and deceased cultures, (4) Human evolution (by analyzing human or prehuman fossil remains), and (5) Primatology (in order to see the relationship in the behavior of humans and that of nonhuman primates such as chimpanzees or macaques). Subdivisions (a) Descriptive Morphology - Descriptive Morphology formerly involved the measuring of bones and other artifacts (noting normalities and adnormalities) in an attempt to divide ancient populations in racial categories. - Today it also involves measuring of bones and other artifacts in order to discover their cultural context. - A typical example of a descriptive morphologist is Debra Martin (1998) who recently compared skeletal remains from 2 prehistoric Pueblo sites in the American Southwest. (b) Paleontology or Paleoanthropology: - Paleontology or Paleoanthropology studies fossils in an effort to understand human origins and evolution. - Fossils are the remains of past early human and nonhuman life forms that bear evidence of human origins and development. - Paleoanthropology tries to answer the following questions: - Where did humans come from? - Which evolutionary stages has the human species passed through before reaching the present stage? - Where are we now? - Where shall we be when we die? (c) Human Variation: - Human variation studies the physiological differences among modern humans, and attempts to explain the reason of such variation of diversity. - Human variationists, generally, explain physiological differences in terms of historical, cultural and biological factors. - Some of them have attempted to classify world populations into various racial categories. - A race is a group of people who share a greater statistical frequency of genetic and physical traits with one another than with people outside their group. - Ethnicity - A racial group is different from an ethnic group which is a group of people who the same behavioral traits with one another than with people outside their group. - Because early human populations were hunters and gatherers, human variationists sometimes study contemporary foraging or hunting-gathering societies to see the way they differ from prehistoric hunter-gatherers. (d) Primatology Primatology is the study of living non-human primates, or animals with human related features (such as monkeys, apes, and prosceniums). - Primatologists attempt to discover the relationship between primates and the human species since the chemistry, physiology, morphology and behavior of primates are very similar to that of human beings. (e) Ethology - Ethology (which is the study primates in their natural settings in the wild where primates do not remodel their behavior. Formerly primates were mainly studied in the artificial settings of laboratories and zoos. Today, however, many biological anthropologists called ethologists study them in forests which form their natural habitats. - Examples of two well known ethologists include Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey. Dian Fossey (who died in 1985) studied gorillas in Rwanda while Goodall works with chimpanzees in Tanzania. Disciplines related or allied to biological anthropology: - To help answer questions related to human development, human variationists draw on the following three allied disciplines: - Genetics (the study of inherited physical traits), - Population Biology (the study of the relationship between population and environment), - Epidemiology (the study of the differential effects of diseases on human populations), and - Human Osteology (the dtudy of bones, for a wide variety of reasons). (2) ARCHAEOLOGY Definition - Archaeology is the study of past societies through an analysis of artifacts or man?s material remains, such as tools, artifacts, house remains, bones, and the like. - Archeologists generally study past societies by carefully recovering and analyzing artifacts (the material remains of former societies) which provide tangible clues to the lifestyles of extinct societies. The artifact themselves are recovered from Middens which are garbage mounds, heaps or dumpsters in archeological sites. Palaeontology - Some archaeologists are called paleoanthropologists. These cross over into paleontology (the study of fossils as an attempt to understand early hominids and human evolution). Main Raw Data Of Archaeologists - The main raw data of archaeology consists of artifacts. - Artifacts are the material culture of past human societies, or those things made by past humans. - The most strategic artifacts include: - stone, bone and iron tools, - house foundations or remains, - middens or dumpsters, - tombs or graves, and - hearths or fire places. How Archaeological Artifacts Are Recovered And Treated - Archaeological artifacts are: - excavated, - classified, - described, and - analyzed for what they reveal about the people of the past. Contemporary Archaeological Trends - Earlier archaeologists focused on the study of refined and exotic tools such as arrowheads, buildings and other dug up remains. - They made precise descriptive categorizations of artifact, spoke in terms of artifact assemblages, and treated artifacts as end in themselves. - Today?s archeologists, however, archaeologists view artifacts differently; they focus on the behavioral contexts of artifacts, and treat artifacts not as ends in themselves but as objects that can help them reconstruct the lives of the people who made and used them. - Such archaeologists are in a sense considered cultural anthropologists. However, from a traditional point of view the expression ?cultural anthropologists? is generally reserved for anthropologists studying living people or cultures. What Do Archaeologists Do? - Archaeologists try to reconstruct past cultures by carrying out: (a) They Prospect; - Prospection relates to searching for sites and middens (areas with past human remains) for excavation; (b) They Test Excavate; (c) They Carry Out Full-scale Digs (in an effort to recover artifacts); (d) They Preserve, Code, Classification, and Analysis Recovered Artifacts; and (e) They Write Descriptive of Reports or Ethnographies. Sensitivities of Archeologists When Writing Ethnographies - In writing ethnographies or reports, archaeologists pay particular attention on 2 things: (a) Archaeological context of artifacts: - The archaeological context of artifacts relates to the: - Location of the sites, - Density and types of artifacts on sites, - Spatial distribution of artifacts on sites, and - Stratigraphic distribution of artifacts on sites. (b) Behavioral or cultural context of artifacts: - The behavioral or cultural context of artifacts relates to how artifacts were discarded or entered the archaeological context (garbagology), how they were produced, and what they were used for. Types of Archaeologists - Anthropologists distinguish three types of archaeologists, as follows: (a) Prehistoric archaeologists (who study past societies without written records); (b) Classical archaeologists (who study ancient civilizations, such as Greece, Rome and Egypt; (c) Historical archaeologists (who study societies of the recent past, for example, archaeologists who study plantation remains in the southern United States); and (d) Ethno-archaeologists (who study living peoples to obtain hints on how past people might have lived and how particular tools might have been produced or used. - Even though the analogies made from ethnographic research cannot be used too literally, ethnographic analogy remains a valuable tool for archaeologists. (3) LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY - Linguistic anthropologists study language that is an essential cultural element which distinguishes humans from other creatures. - They use glottochronology (a technique which can reveal when two languages started diverging from each other) to investigate the relationship between languages. Subfields of linguistic anthropology - There are four categories or subfields of linguistic anthropologists, as follows: (a) Descriptive Linguistics - which deals with the description of aspects of language such as structure, vocabulary, sounds, grammar, and syntax; (b) Historical Linguistics - which focuses on the origins and the growth and change or evolution of language; and (c) Ethnolinguistics - which examines the relationship between language and cultural subsystems; (d) Sociolinguistics - which studies language use in various social settings in order to explore the links between language and social behavior. (4) CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY Definition - Cultural anthropology is the study of contemporary human cultures and societies. - Cultural anthropology examines: - different cultures, - i. e. different patterns o learned ideas, behaviors and material objects, and - different ways of life, - different systems of meaning, and - different people living in today?s societies. - It focuses on environmental factors rather on biological factors that shape human behavior. Beliefs of cultural Anthropologists - Cultural anthropologists believe that there are two kinds of births, biological birth and cultural or social birth, and that to fully understand what it means to be human, it is important to study the impact of culture on human behavior. - For them being born human alone is not sufficient in determining one?s personality, for biological birth only provides the human package while it is the environment or cultural birth that completes the package and makes it truly human. Goals of Cultural Anthropology - The main goals of Cultural anthropology are to: (1) To gathers information on different cultures, (2) To looks for cross-cultural similarities, (3) To look for cross cultural differences, and (4) To develop cross-cultural theories and explanations. Polarizing Names of Cultural Anthropoology - Even though cultural anthropologists is sometimes called Social Anthropology, - Ethnography and - Ethnology. (1) Social Anthropology - Social Anthropology usually refers to studies that focus on social organizations, and on systems or structures that are strongly shaped by kinship relations. (2) Social Anthropology - Social Anthropology is particularly associated with British scholars. However, it has been associated with some American scholars as well. (3) Ethnography - Ethnography is the intensive study of a single culture. - It usually involves fieldwork or firsthand immersion in a culture. - Traditionally, many ethnographers study distant nonindustrial societies and describe these groups in the ethnographic present. - However, there are some ethnographers who study their own cultures or some cultures of the industrial world, such as: - industrial communities, - peasant communities, - immigrant groups, - occupational groups, and so on. - These anthropologists are more concern with discovering cultural change and cultural interactions. Ethnology - Ethnography is the study of the rules that shape social behavior. It can also be considered a science that investigates theories relating to human behavior. - Ethnography involves cross-cultural studies or a comparison of human cultures. It leads to the establishment of cross-cultural commonalities or generalizations COMMENTS ON THE 4 LEADING SUBFIELDS OF ANTHROPOLOGY - Each sub-field of anthropology has its own approaches. - However, all the sub-fields have a lot of crossover or overlap. For example: - Archaeologists dig up prehistoric tools and then switch over to ethno-archaeology by interviewing contemporary peoples who use similar tools. - Biological anthropologists use skeletons excavated by archaeologists to investigate human diseases and morphology, and - Linguistic anthropologists use language skills to publish the findings of cultural anthropologists. - The anthropology departments of many colleges display a balance between all the sub-fields of anthropology. - However, some of them emphasize archaeology and cultural anthropology over the other areas. Some departments have no linguistic anthropology at all. APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY AS 5TH SUBFIELD OF ANTHROPOLOGY - Applied anthropology is often considered a 5th subfield of anthropology. - Applied or practicing anthropologists act as consultants, using the methods and insights of anthropology to resolve social problems outside the academy. - In contrast, academic anthropologists teach in colleges and universities, and carry out research aimed at advancing anthropological knowledge. - Some applied anthropologists consult as well as carry out research. A typical example was Stephen Lansing (shown in the film clip entitled ?The Goddess and the Computer? who examined the complexities of the Balinese irrigation system. Types of Applied Anthropologists (a) Medical Anthropologists - Medical anthropology is a fast growing applied area which focuses on the sociocultural factors and perceptions which affect health, disease and treatment. Different societies recognize different causes of diseases, different symptom, and different treatment approaches. Applied medical anthropologists serve as cultural interpreters for public health programs which must fit into local cultures and be accepted by local peoples. - A category of medical anthropologists called paleopathologists try to investigate the diseases of ancient populations. Sometimes paleopathologists also attempt to explain the causes of some diseases of modern industrial societies by comparing the diet and lifestyles of industrial people with those of contemporary hunter- gatherers who do not have heart diseases, high blood pressure and diabetes. (b) Urban anthropologists - Urban anthropologists study the problems and lifestyles of people in increasingly industrial and non-industrial complex societies. They focus on: knowing how population density and heterogeneity affect traditional ways of life, the description of urban neighborhoods, the description of urban neighborhoods, rural-urban linkages, labor migration, urban family and kinship patterns, urban social stratification, squatter settlements, and informal economies. (c) Educational anthropology - Educational anthropologists use anthropological theory, data, and methods to study educational institutions and their problems and practices. The range of educational institutions they study varies from formal school systems in industrial societies to traditional informal systems in which cultural knowledge is passed down from generation to generation by kinspeople through such means as storytelling, experience, and peer interaction. Today, lot of applied educational research carried on in the classrooms relates to observing interaction between teachers and students, or students and administrators, staff, parents and visitors. Some of the studies are not confined to the classroom, but follow students into their homes and neighborhoods, viewing them within the wider cultural context of family and peers. (d) Forensic anthropologists - Forensic anthropology focuses on the analyses of bones of past and present cultures for a wide variety of reasons. It helps in identifying remains of people who die unusual and disastrous deaths, such as deaths brought about by plane crashes, drowning, warfare, massacre, and so on. (e) Garbage archaeologist - Garbage archaeologists study garbagology. Garbagology is the science which studies the pattern and nature of garbage disposal, the most common items disposed, and eating habits within and across cultures. f) Developmental anthropologists - These work for international development agencies. Such agencies include: the World Bank, the United Nations Organization (UNO), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Development anthropologists assess or evaluate the impact of Western socio-economic institutions and projects on traditional societies. (g) Economic anthropologists - Economic anthropology studies how goods and services are produced, distributed and consumed within the total cultural context of which they are a part. - Like cultural anthropologists or ethnographer, economic anthropologists have traditionally studied small-scale, non-western societies whose economies are not based on the profit-making motive. - Most economic anthropologists feel that classical economic theories and approaches used in modern Western capitalist economies are inappropriate for understanding small-scale, non-Western economies. - Economic anthropologists are embroiled in the debate between the formalist approach of problem solving (this entails giving everyone or every society in the same way according to the nature of his or its problem ) and the substantivist approach of problem solving (this involves treating everyone or every society differently according to the nature of his or its problem). This debate reached its climax in the 1950s and 1960s when anthropologists wanted to determine whether or not Western problem-solving models could be applied cross-culturally. This debate is still a very heated one in anthropology even today. KEY CONCEPTS IN ANTHROPOLOGY - Anthropology has two leading concepts, as follows: Cultural Relativity and ethnocentrism. (1) CULTURE - Culture consists of all the material objects, ideas and behavioral patterns that guide a people?s way of life as members of a group. (2) CULTURAL RELATIVITY - Cultural Relativity is the demand that a culture be appreciated and judged on its own terms, not ours. (3) ETHNOCENTRISM - Ethnocentrism is the opposite of Cultural relativity. - Ethnocentrism is the tendency to see, interpret, and judge other cultures based on the values of one?s own culture. - Judging or evaluating a culture from its own perspective implies that anthropologists view cultures from the Emic Perspective (a perspective in which reality is seen from the point of view of an insider or from a culture- specific perspective). - The Emic Perspective is different from the Etic Perspective in which reality is seen from the point of view of an outsider or from a cultural neutral perspective. - The problem with cultural relativity is that we do not know where it should begin and where it should end. (4) HOLISTIC PERSPECTIVE - The holistic Perspective refers to studying all aspects of the human condition. WHAT STUDENTS GAIN FROM STUDYING ANTHROPOLOGY (1) Knowledge About the Scientific Method - Anthropology teaches students the scientific approach (which stresses systematic observation, critical analysis, inductive and deductive methods, and the emic-etic perspectives, and holistic broad-based analysis. - By exposing students to the values and lifestyles of people in different societies, it teaches them self awareness, new insights on the nature of human beings, thus, broadening their minds and sharpening their analytical and critical thinking skills. (2) Global Awareness It?s Comparative Perspective And Humanistic Perspective (as Seen In Such Themes Of the Course As Universalism, Uniformitarianism, Psychic Unity/Biopsychological Equality, And Cultural relativity) Help In The Development of Global Awareness Skills - In a world where the economy is fast becoming globalized and there is great need for positive cross-cultural interaction. Anthropology?s comparative and humanistic perspectives serve as a check against Euro-centric stereotypes, ethnocentrisms, biases and prejudices, and oversimplified generalizations with respect to the behavior of non-European people in other parts of the world. (4) Awareness of Cultural Relativity & Ethnocentism - It?s emphasis on the concepts of Cultural Relativity (belief that culture only makes sense to those who own it) and ethnocentrism (belief that one?s cultural values are better than those of others) teaches students to tolerate and accept people who are different from themselves. Such thinking is critical in a world torn apart by inter-class and inter-racial conflict. File: CHAPTER 2 (5) Awareness on the Profound Impact of Culture on Human behavior - It?s emphasis on Culture teaches students the profound effect of culture to those who own it. (6) Humanitarianism - In a world with advanced technology and cross-cultural misunderstanding and conflict, anthropology?s humanistic nature helps in the establishment of peace and order. REFERENCES Boas, F. 1966 (Orig. 1940). Race, Language and Culture. New York: Free Press. Greenwood, D. & W. Stini 1977 Nature, Culture and Human History. New York: Harper and Row. Nanda S. & Warms R. 2010 Culture Counts: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. Wolf, E. 1982 Europe and the People Without History. Berkeley: University of California Press. CHAPTER 2 CULTURE COUNTS INTRODUCTION Fundamentalism - Culture is the most fundamental concept in the discipline of Anthropology. - Culture is as important in Anthropology as X and Y are in Mathematics. Definition - However, anthropologists up till today are not all agreed on the exact definition of culture. - Since the late nineteenth century, when Anthropology was established as an academic discipline, anthropologist have been struggled tirelessly to come up with an appropriate definition of the meaning of culture. - The British social anthropologist Edward Tylor (popularly known as the First Professional Anthropologist,? was the first anthropologist to attempt a formal definition. - He defined culture in his book ?Primitive Culture? as follows: ?Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits, acquired by man, as a member of society.? Features of Tylor?s Definition - Tylor?s classic definition contains many significant features that have been utilized and preserved by most definitions of culture today. - It suggests that culture has holism, or includes everything ? attitudes, beliefs, values, material objects, ideas, and behavior. - Thus, culture according to Tylor consists of everything that we think (ideas), have (material objects), and do (behavioral patterns) as members of a group. - By stressing that people acquire culture as members of a society, Tylor?s definition implied that culture - must be learned, - must be shared, and - must be handed down. - People live and interact with others, - learning knowledge, skills and values from them, - transmitting knowledge, skills and values onto them, and - passing knowledge, skills and values onto their posterity. Tylor?s Beliefs - Tylor believed: - That culture is the most important concept in Anthropology, - That Anthropology is basically the study of human cultures, and - That different societies have culture in different degrees. Critique of Tylor?s Definition - Tylor?s definition and conceptualization of culture are, however, not entirely supported by many modern anthropologists. - Most modern anthropologists agree with Tylor that culture is important in anthropology, and that anthropology is basically a study of human cultures. - However, most modern anthropologists: - feel that the word ?man? in Tylor?s definition of culture should be substituted with the word ?humanity,? and - differ with Taylor?s view that different societies have culture to different degrees, maintaining that all societies have culture to the same degree. Difference between Society & Culture - An important word in Tylor?s definition of culture is the word ?society.? How is society different from culture? - Society is a social structure of patterned relationship among people in a specific geographical territory; while - Culture as the by-products of a social structure of patterned relationships. Culture includes: - Values (shred notions of what is considered right or odeal), - Social Knowledge (information that enables people to function in their society and contribute to the survival of society as a whole), - Social Models (shared assumptions that people have about the world and about the ideal culture), - Norms (expectations and attitudes that people share with respect to appropriate behavior), and - Taboos (specific prohibited behaviors). (C) BROAD CLASSIFICATIONS OF CULTURE (I) Material, Explicit, Overt, Non-Normative, or Non-Cognitive Culture - This consists of the physical products of human society, ranging from weapons to clothing styles. - The earliest traces of material culture are rough stone tools that are associated with Homo Habilis or ?handy man.? These consist of a collection of choppers, scrapers and flakes. - Material culture in modern societies consists of all the physical objects it has produced or inherited from the past, such as: tools, streets, buildings, homes, parks, automobiles, toys, medicines, forests, etc. - Archaeologists who make the most use of material culture call it artifacts. - Ethnographers study not only the material culture of the societies they research, but they also examine the relationship between their material and non-material culture (values, beliefs and norms that represent their patterned ways of thinking). - Archeologists, however, are primarily concerned with studying the material culture of past societies in order to reconstruct their past lifestyles. (II) Non-Material, Implicit, Covert, Cognitive, Or Normative Culture - This refers to the intangible products of human society, for example, values, beliefs, worldviews, ideologies, norms, folkways, and mores. FUNCTIONS OF CULTURE Culture determines the reality of those who own it. It is to those who own it as a pair of lenses to a student. It highlights the material and non-material symbols of those who own it, permitting them to see reality. Culture makes things so real to its members that they appear god-given (deification of reality). Culture enables people to know their past, present and their future. It enables people know where they have been and what they have been, where they are now and what they are, and most importantly where they still must go and what they still must be. (3) It gives those who own it a pool of significant people with whom to resolve the problems of life. These people include significant family members (parents), neighbors and friends. This means that culture gives its owners hope and a high sense of self esteem. (4) Culture gives its members distinguishing values, belief systems, attitudes and behaviors, and group solidarity. (5) Culture orders or systematizes the societies, and permits its members to live life to the fullest. (6) Culture enables its members to transfer their way of life onto their posterity. (7) It allows its members to learn from the known to the unknown. (8) Culture provides a forum for our most significant relatives and material objects (parents, spouses, inheritance and wealth). EFFECTS OF THE LACK OF CULTURE What Will Happen To Individuals Who Do Not Learn Their Culture, Who Are Raised Away From Their Society? Or Rather, Do Feral Children Have Culture? - Studies of feral children (humans infants that have been reared in isolation from society) strongly suggest that culture is very important to meaningful human behavior. - In 1799, Victor, a wild human beast of about 12 years old, was captured in a forest in Aveyron, France, and brought to Paris, where he attracted huge crowds (Itard 1962). - People were surprised to see that: - He was dirty and covered with foul excrement and urine. - He could not clean himself or eat using cutlery. - He had no language, and barked like a wild beast. - His sight was imprecise - he gazed unsteadily, vaguely, and expressionlessly from one object to another. - His feelings were callous - he looked more like a picture than a life human. - His hearing was insensitive - he did not mind loud noises and music. - His sense of smell was poor - the smell of perfume did not mean anything for him. - He had the habit of smelling at anything given him. - His touch of anything was a mechanical grasp. - His walk was more akin to trotting and galloping. - His chewing was rodent-like, with emphasis on the use of the incisors. - Additionally, he showed little sensitivity to cold and heat, manifested little or no attention, and rocked backwards and forwards like the animals in a zoo. - Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, was the young psychologist who undertook the resocialization of this wild human beast, which he called Victor. - Gaspard indicated that Victor?s abnormality was caused, not by an illness, but by lack of participation from normal human society. - Gaspard?s analysis of Victor implied that: (a) human potential can be realized only within the structure of human culture, (b) human beings become human only through growing up in close contact with other human beings of their own society, and (c) without the employment of culture humans will be incapacitated due to undeveloped human qualities and abilities. CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE - Culture has some universal characteristics, as follows: (1) CULTURE IS LEARNED - Culture is never inherited the way we inherit our physical characteristic; \- It is learned through Enculturation (the process of learning one?s culture through formal and informal observation and instruction). Ways In Which Culture Is Learned: (a) Situationally or Experientially ? This is learning or a way of knowing that involves direct experience. (b) By Stimulus and Response or Through Conditioning ? This is learning or a way of brought about by stimulus and response behavior. - Conditioning or stimulus and response learning requires that individuals involved in a learning process be made to learn by the employment of a positive stimulus (called incentive or reward) or negative stimulus (called punishment or sanctions), and that their responses be accompanied by reinforcements or feedbacks. - Humans and many other animals, including single-celled organisms, can learn through conditioning or situational learning. (c) Through Formal and Informal Enculturation ? This takes place through the process of enculturation, that is learning culture through informal observation and formal instruction. This is also called learning by imitation. - Social learning takes place when one organism observes the way other organisms behave and then imitates or avoids such behavior. In social learning, therefore, the organism learning can learn without having direct experience. - Obviously human beings learn by observing their classmates, teachers, parents, friends, and the mass media. - Social animals also learn in this manner. Chimpanzees, for example, observe other chimps fashioning twigs with which to hunt termites, and they imitate this behavior in their own turn. (d) Authoritatively ? Authoritative learning is learning in which individuals learn from experts or authorities in a given area of knowledge. (e) Inspirationally ? Inspirational learning is learning in which an individual is inspired or influenced to know by some divine occurrence. (e) Symbolically ? Humans have the unique ability to learn and understand meanings of a wide variety of symbols. Symbolic Learning takes place when an individual or organism learn the meanings of arbitrary units or models used to represent reality. - Symbols are different from signs which are concrete, physical items, activities, or behaviors which represent themselves. Symbols, however, do not directly represent themselves, and the only connection between symbols and the concepts they represent is popular or social consensus. - Through the ability of humans to master a wide variety of symbols, they are the only living creatures who can create meaning out of numerous symbols, learn the meanings of these numerous symbols, and effectively transmit these meanings onto other members of their group, including their posterity future generations. - For example, the study of verbal language and mathematics involve the study of numerous abstract symbols and only human beings are capable of such studies. - Cultural learning also includes the learning of taboos, which are norms specifying prohibited behaviors in a culture. (2) CULTURE IS SHARED - Culture consists of shared norms, and shared cultural models. - Norms are sets of rules and expectations and attitudes that people have about appropriate behavior. - Cultural models are shared assumptions that people have about the world around them. - Culture also consists of shared understandings/meanings and practices by members of a given society. - These shared meanings/understandings are to some extent ?public? and thus beyond the mind of any individual (Geertz 1973). - The publicly shared meanings or understandings provide designs or recipes for human survival and contribution to society. - Culture exists before the birth of an individual into the society, and it continues beyond the death of any particular individual. - Culture, on the other hand, is also found within the minds of individuals. - Individuals are not just passive assimilators of their culture. - Cognitive anthropologists such as Roy D?Andrade and Naomi Quinn have emphasized that culture has Schemas or internalized individual models that influence our decision-making ability and behavior. In their view, culture is acquired by, and modeled into Schema within the minds of individuals, leading to a motivation, shaping and transforming of cultural symbols and meanings. - To say that culture is shared does not mean that all members of a given society are robots who have exactly the same attitudes and do the same things in the same way. - Rather, it is to say that the members of a common cultural complex share certain core values, norms, or understandings that allow them to adapt to their environment in a way that permits them to get the most out of life, live life to the fullest, or communicate and interact with one another effectively. Without these common cultural understandings, a society cannot exist. - Even though in every society cultural beliefs and practices appear to be natural and God-given, they are learned. - Socialization and enculturation are the terms used by sociologists and anthropologists, respectively, to mean the process by which people learn their cultural elements. (3) CULTURE IS ADAPTIVE - Culture is adaptive, that is, related to environmental conditions. By this, we mean that culture has behaviors and beliefs that make those who have it cope with environmental constraints and assure survival fitness. In all societies, people adapt to their environment, and culture is the chief mechanism for this adaptation. - Cultural adaptation often involves a modification of the natural environment to create artificial environments that permit survival fitness. - This means that adaptation also calls for technological innovation and the elaboration of material culture. - Culture makes people adapt to 3 kinds of environments, as follows: the physical environment (topography and climatic conditions), the social environment (the people around one), and the biotic environment (animals and plants). Example of Cultural Adaptive Behavior ? People everywhere make a vast array of tools and formulate practices to help them procure food and perform subsistence tasks. These tools and practices that permit people to organize work and produce food and other goods necessary for their survival are called the Cultural Core. - Similarly, people living in islands or coastal environments construct rafts, canoes and boats to cross rivers, bays and oceans. (4) CULTURE IS MALADAPTIVE WHEN CIRCUMSTANCES CHANGE - While most cultural practices are adaptive, some cultural practices can be maladaptive or result to unintended negative consequences as circumstances change. - Sometimes, an adaptive cultural practice that resolves one problem can lead to new unforeseen problems. Read ?Maladaptive Adaptations: Kuru and Mad Cow? (pages 30 & 31 of Text). (5) CULTURE IS INTEGRATED OR ORGANISMIC - Cultural integration implies that culture has values, practices and beliefs that form relatively coherent and consistent systems. - The organismic component of culture means that culture is like a living organism in which the different parts are interrelated. - Culture enables specific groups of people to develop specific ways of thinking about themselves, other people, and the world as a whole through exposure to the same cultural symbols, the same patterns of enculturation, and the acquisition of the same concepts/material objects. - These underlying shared ways of thinking or worldviews become so ingrained in their people that they become naturalized concepts, or accepted as god-given. - Though cultures consist basically of these organized elements, they are sometimes challenged by alternative conflicting values or concepts from individuals or counter/subcultures within a society. - These alternative values or concepts may be discussed and debated in the context of mutual respect, or they may erupt in more contentious culture wars ? internal disagreements in society about cultural models, or about how society or the world should be organized. (6) CULTURE IS ETHNOCENTRIC - Cultural ethnocentrism implies that culture makes those who own it believe that their own cultural values or ways are better than those of others. Moderate ethnocentrism is good because it gives people a sense of high self esteem and security, but extreme ethnocentrism can lead to chauvinism, jingoism and genocide. (7) CULTURE IS OFTEN TAKEN FOR GRANTED - Members of a culture generally take their culture for granted, not questioning it or questioning it very little. - However, when they go out or establish some critical distance, they begin to examine their culture from a unique perspective. - The taken-for-granted nature of culture and cultural sharing tends to promote social solidarity among the members of a given cultural complex. (8) CULTURE IS SYMBOLIC - Symbols are things or behaviors to which people give meaning (for example, a flag or a wedding ring). - The value and meaning of symbols depends on the cultural context in which are found. For example, the meaning of a cross at a church door is different from that of a cross burnt in somebody?s front yard. - The values and meaning of symbols have a very strong influence on human behavior. Thus, learning a culture means learning the symbolic meanings within it. (9) CULTURE IS EVOLUTIONARY, AND VARIES ACROSS TIME AND SPACE - Culture is not static. It attempts to move forward; it changes in the same society at different times, and in all societies at all times; and it calls on its subjects to constantly adapt to new values, thinking patterns and behaviors. (10) CULTURE IS CONSERVATIVE OR ANACHRONISTIC - Cultural anachronism or conservatism implies that culture is old-fashioned, making it difficult for its people to tolerate or accept change. (11) CULTURE IS PARADOXICAL - The fact that culture is both evolutionary and anachronistic reveals that culture is paradoxical, attempting to go forward at one time and reluctant to go forward at the same time. (12) CULTURE IS RELATIVISTIC - Culture is relativistic. Cultural relativism is the idea that culture makes sense only when it is understood from the perspective of those who own it. - It is the view that all cultures have intrinsic worth and that each culture must be evaluated and understood according to its own standards. Implication: - Cultural relativism implies that practices considered normal and accepted in some cultures (such as body piercing, tattoos and female circumcision) may be considered abnormal in other cultures. It also implies that one cannot objectively judge another person's values or customs until one understands them, and that one cannot do business with the members of a different culture if one misinterprets their behavior and unknowing behaves in ways that offend them. - For most scientists, cultural relativism is easier said than done. Scientists, students, tourists and business people who first encounter values vastly different from their own tend to experience Culture Shock - a feeling of alienation, depression and loneliness. (13) CULTURE IS ETHNOCENTRIC - Culture exerts such a powerful influence on its owners that they exhibit ethnocentrism. - Ethnocentrism is the tendency to evaluate one's culture as superior to that of others. - For political purposes, ethnocentrism is appropriate because it fosters national solidarity. However, for the purpose of scientific investigation ethnocentrism is inappropriate because it can lead to research biases and misconceptions. (14) CULTURE IS MORE IDEALISTIC THAN REALISTIC - Real Culture is what people are in actual fact, and Ideal Culture is what people claim or say that they are. - A lot of times, what people say they are or do is not really what they are or what they do. - Taking into consideration the ethnocentric and idealistic nature of culture, anthropologists are more inclined to employ participant observational research than survey research. (15) CUTURE IS EOLUTIONARY OR SUBJECTED TO CHANGE - Cultures are dynamic systems that change as a result of internal or external historical and/or socio- economic/political changes. Reasons Why Cultures Change - The most glaring reasons for culture change include the following: (1) Contact ? The process of direct interaction between peoples of different cultures through migration, trade, invasion or conquest. (2)Syncretism ? The process by which people selectively borrow cultural traits from other cultures to suit their own culture. - An example of syncretism is seen in Santeria, the religion traditional Afro-Caribbean that is a mixture of beliefs in magic, witchcraft, and Roman Catholicism. Assimilation ? Assimilation is the process by which a less powerful cultural group is absorbed by a dominant culture. Acculturation ? This is the process by which a group living by or within a dominant culture adopts some of its values and identity, while at the same time maintaining its own original cultural values and identity. Cultural Pluralism ? Condition in which many diverse cultural groups ideally coexists together, equally and harmoniously, without losing their cultural identities and diversity. Modernization ? Complex culture change, both internal and external, based on industrialism and a transnational market economy. Evolution ? Process by which cultures change from a simpler and more primitive state to a complex and more culturally advanced state. (9) Competition and adaptation (Social Darwinism) ? Early belief that cultures compete for survival of the fittest similar to the process of natural selection in biological evolution. (10) Ethnogenesis - Ongoing process by which people develop, define, and direct their own cultural and ethnic identities. (11) Inventions - Rise of new technologies and systems of knowledge. (12) Innovation - Process by which new technologies and systems of knowledge are based on or built from previous tools, knowledge and skills. (13) Revolution - Process by which people try to change their culture or overturn the social order so as to replace it with a new ideal society and culture. (14) Diffusion ? Spread of ideas, material objects, and cultural practices from one society to another through direct and indirect culture contact. (15) Transculturation ? This is the process by which cultural traits, values, norms and practices are remodeled to suite a new culture when they diffuse from one culture to another. GLOBALIZATION OR CULTURE FUSION/MERGENCE - Globalization is the tendency of cultures throughout the world to rapidly adopt Anglo-European and Anglo-American cultural values, practices, attitudes and material objects. - It is the constellation of technologies, practices, attitudes, values, and symbols originating from the Anglo-European-American cultural complex. - This constellation can be traced as far back as the 15th and 16th centuries which marked the beginning of European mercantilism and colonialism. - For hundreds of years, initial globalization was centered in Europe, especially in Great Britain, France, Portugal and Spain. - However, in the late 19th century, the U.S. joined in the colonial race and greatly influencing regions in the Latin America and the Southern Pacific. - In the mid 20th century, after World War 2, the centers of world power were the United States and the Soviet Union, 2 nations with opposing political, economic and cultural views. - However, with the dismantling of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, world power has shifted to the U.S., even though Japan and South Korea in Asia are also exerting substantial economic influence. The Principal Agents of Globalization (1) Multinational Corporations that control much of the world?s industries, commerce and mass media. - These Multinational Corporations share a common network of manufacturing goods, export-import techniques and financial institutions that unite all the nations of the world and many local communities. COMPONENTS/CONSTITUENTS OF CULTURE (A) Values - Values are the standards by which members of a society define what is good or bad, holy or unholy, beautiful or ugly. - They are assumptions that are widely shared by the members of a given society. - Values are a central element of culture and they are important because they influence the behavior of people in a given society. Main Values of U.S. Culture - The main cultural values of the United States society include the following: - Individual achievement and success, - Efficiency, - Progress, - Material Comfort, - Equality, - Freedom, - Science, - Rationality, - Nationalism, and - Democracy (William 1970, Bellah et al. 1985). - Although the above values may seem normal to Americans, they are not accepted values in all societies. For instance, while the American society emphasizes individualism and self-reliance, other societies such as Japan, stress cooperation and community interest. (B) Beliefs - Beliefs are cultural conventions concerning what is true or false, including the nature of the universe and man?s place in it. - While beliefs are more specific understandings of what is good or bad, values are generalized notions of what is good or bad. - A good example of a Belief in the American society is a specific statement such as ?Grading is the best way to evaluate students,? while a good example of an American Value is the statement that ?Education is good thing.? (c) Worldviews - A Worldview is a body of beliefs about the nature of reality. Worldviews provide people with a more consistent orientation of the world, and help them interpret and understand the realities surrounding them. - For example, the Azandes of East Africa and the Navajo of the United States each have a worldview on witchcraft. - The Azandes, for example, have the worldview that illness is caused by witchcraft, meanwhile people in Western Industrial Societies have the worldview that illness is caused by scientific factors. (D) Ideologies - An ideology consists of cultural symbols and beliefs that reflect and support the interests of specific groups within a society (Yengoyan 1986). - In the different economic and political systems of the world (for example, Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Democratic, and Totalitarian Institutions), particular leadership groups promote certain ideologies for their own ends, and as a means of maintaining and justifying their economic and political authority. - The leading economic and political systems of the world, therefore, represent different ideologies. For example, capitalist societies maintain that individuals should be rewarded monetarily based on their own self-interest. However, socialist societies emphasize the interest or well-being of the community or society over individual interest. (E) Norms - Norms are a society?s rules of right and wrong behavior. They are shared rules or guidelines defining how people ought to behave under certain circumstances. - Norms are generally connected to its society?s values, worldviews and ideologies. For example, individualism is a value in the American society and is reflected in the prevailing worldviews of Americans. Not surprising, Americans have many norms that emphasize individual initiative and responsibility. - Some anthropologists use the term ?Ethos? to refer to the socially acceptable norms in a given group (Geertz 1973). (F) Folkways - Folkways are norms that guide ordinary, everyday human activities, so engrained or so taken for granted that individuals are hardly aware that they exist. - People conform so readily to their folkways that they are not aware that the folkways exist and cannot explain the reasons why they conform to them. - For example, if Americans were asked folkway related questions by non-Americans, such as: - Why do Americans eat with knifes or folks?, - Why do Americans allow dating between single men and women without chaperones (elderly moral supervisors)?, - Why are American school children not allowed to help one another during exams?, they will not find it easy to respond. - In responding to such folkway-related questions, most of them will be vague, and simply say ?Because that is the way it is,? ?Because it is the custom,? or ?I don?t know.? - Folkways assure collective conformity, and the smooth running of social life because they provide guidelines and expectations for individual behavior. - However, although most people conform to folkways most of the time, folkways are sometimes violated. (G) Mores - Mores (pronounced ?Mor-ays?), compared to folkways, are strong norms (stronger than folkways) that guide the conventions of everyday life. - Members of society believe that their mores are crucial for the maintenance of a decent and orderly way of life. - People who violate Mores are generally severely punished. - Such punishment may take the forms of ostracism, vicious gossip, public ridicule, banishment or exile, lose of one?s job, public beating, imprisonment, restriction in a mental asylum, or even execution. - In some Islamic Societies such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, there are mores relating to female dress codes in public. It is morally very wrong for women to violate the public dress code more by exposing their chests or even faces. They stand the risk of being arrested, or even imprisoned if they appear indecent in public. - Similarly, in some Hunting-gathering Societies individuals who violate the sharing more by monopolizing anything they gather or hunt are severely punished through gossip, ridicule, and occasional ostracism. CULTURAL ETHNOCENTRISM AND DIVERSITY - All through history, humans have always been interested in cultural diversity. - Whenever people from different societies come in contact with one another, people have compared and contrasted their various cultural traditions, and societies often differentiate themselves from others based on their various cultural patterns. - The Greek historian, Herodotus, as far back as the 5th century B.C., wrote about the differences in behavior and beliefs between the Egyptians and Greeks. - Anthropologists who have written on cultural diversity have often tended to be ethnocentric. - Ethnocentrism is the practice of judging another society by the values and standards of one?s own society. - To some degree, ethnocentrism is a universal phenomenon. As humans learn the basic values, beliefs and norms of their society, they tend to think of their own culture as better than those of others, and rank other peoples? culture as less desirable. - In fact, the members of every society are so committed to their own cultural values and traditions that they cannot conceive of any other better way of life; often viewing other cultural traditions as strange, alien, inferior, crazy, or immoral. - 19th century European anthropologists, like previous scholars, often reinforced ethnocentric beliefs that favored European cultures. - 20th century anthropologists, however, realized that ethnocentrism prevented scientists from viewing other cultures in a scientific manner. To combat the problem of ethnocentrism, 20th century anthropologists developed the concept of Cultural relativism. - Cultural Relativism is the view that cultural traditions must be understood within the context of their own society?s solutions to problems and opportunities. Cultural Relativism offers anthropologists a means of investigating other societies without the imposition of their own ethnocentric assumptions on them. - However, although Cultural Relativism meets the needs a sound methodological basis for ethnographic research, it has some serious ethical problems. Some cultural practices (such as cannibalism and human sacrifice) are harmful to human beings in all cultures and anthropologists have often found it difficult to view their execution by anybody as cultural relativistic behavior. How does the anthropologist stop making value judgments about such emotional cultural practices as infanticide and geronticide (the killing of elderly people)? LEVELS AT WHICH CULTURAL DIVERSITY IS CLEARLY MANIFESTED - FOOD, CLOTHING AND ADAPTATION. - A lot of the diversity that human societies exhibit has to do with the preferences for what people eat and what they wear, including scarifications, family marks, tattoos, deodorants, and so on. - Most Americans are repulsed by the mere thought of eating insects and insect larvae, even though many societies consider these to be delicacies. - American culture distinguishes between ?pets,? which are not edible animals, and ?farm animals? (such as chickens, cows, pigs and goats) which are eaten. - In the United States, horses are considered pets and are not eaten, but people in nearly all the nations of Europe (the French, Belgians, Dutch, Germans, Italians, Poles and Russians) consume significant quantities of horsemeat eat year (Harris 1985). - Similarly, it is normal for Americans to put on their deodorant and ?smell good.? However, people from traditional societies in some parts of the world value smelling like human beings, and wonder why Americans prefer to ?stink like perfume? rather than ?smell human.? - The Yanomamo put on little or no clothing and wonder what industrial people are hiding by wearing layers and layers of clothing. Meanwhile western industrial people wonder how people like the Yanomamo feel, looking almost naked. - Rastafarians or Rastas, a specific religious group in Jamaica, who get their name after the Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, originally called ?Ras Tafari,? wear dreadlocks or long breaded hair after him. During the early phase of the Jamaican Rastafarian Movement in the 1950s, the religious ideology and lifestyle of Rastafarians became known in the West through reggae music and Rasta musicians such as Bob Marley. - Rastafarians viewed the unshaven man as the natural man, and considered Sampson the most important figure in the Bible. For them, dreadlocks symbolized a lion, which was associated with Emperor Haile Selassie, one of whose titles was the Conquering ?Lion of Judah.? Thus, to simulate the spirit of the lion, Rastas did not cut their hair, sometimes growing their locks as long as 20 inches or more. - Additionally, the dreadlock hairstyle had a deeper symbolic significance in Jamaican society, where hair was considered an index of racial and social inequality at the time. Fine silky hair was considered ?good,? whereas woolly, kinky hair was frowned on (Barrett 1973). The white person with fine, silky hair was considered higher on the social ladder than the typical African descendant in Jamaica. Thus, the Rastafarian hairstyle was a defiant symbol of resistance to the cultural values and norms of Jamaican society. - The long dreadlocks sent the message that Rastafarians were outside of Jamaican society. Even though they were viewed by some Jamaicans as unkempt, dangerous, and dirty, Rastafarians saw their dreadlocks symbolizing power, liberation and defiance. - Through their locks, Rastafarians announced to society that they did not accept the values, beliefs, and norms of a majority of the people. CULTURE AND RACISM IN WESTERN SOCIETY - Racism, the belief that some ?races? are inherently superior or inferior to others has a profound history in Western society. The Greeks - The Greeks, as far back as the 5th century B.C., believed that one?s racial and physical characteristics were connected to one?s mental and behavioral abilities. Plato?s Theory of Differential Essences - Plato, the Greek philosopher (427-347 B.C.), argued that different groups of people in the world had different essences, temperaments or dispositions. - He maintained that different people were born with different essences, souls, or dispositions. - For Plato: - Some people were born with the essence of being rulers, - Some with the essence of being soldiers, - Some with the essence of being farmers, and - Some with the essence of being slaves. Hippocrates? Theory of Differential Humoral Existence - Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.), a famous Greek medical specialist, developed a Humoral-Environmental Existentialist Theory that classified people into races based on inherited blood, essences and humors. - Hippocrates? theory viewed the universe as made up of 4 elements: - Fire, - Water, - Earth, and - Air, all of which transformed into 4 human humors, essences or temperaments. - He maintained that the Greeks had the best essence or temperament, followed by the Asians, who like the Greeks were gentle, well fed, and courageous, but who unlike the Greeks were incapable of developing industrious habits because their lives were dominated by pleasure. Medieval European Theory of the Great Chain of Being (1oth Century to the 17th century) - During the European Medieval Times, European scientists saw the cosmos or universe as a natural, hierarchical, Great Chain of Being, in which everything, including the main global populations, was ranked from top to bottom or from the greatest to the least. - Their placement of global population groups in this Great chain of Being was guided by ethnocentric considerations; they placed the white European race at the top and non-white colored people from other parts of the world below White Europeans. - Such a placement gave rise to many popular misconceptions and generalizations concerning the values, traditions, and behaviors of non-European peoples. - 1500 signaled the start of the European Age of Expansion or Enlightenment, when European explorers began to have contact with people and civilizations outside Europe, especially in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas. - As they started meeting these people they did not forget about prior conceptual racist explanations based on blood, humors and essences. 18th Century Carolus Linnaeus? Classification of Races Into Whites, Reds, Yellows and Blacks (1700, Age of Enlightenment) Carolus Linnaeus - In 1758, a Swedish scientist, Carolus Linnaeus divided Homo sapiens into four races based on skin color, as follows: - Whites or Europeans, - Reds or North American Indians, - Yellows or Asiatics, and - Blacks or Africans. - However, his classification was influenced by ancient and medieval theories, and ethnocentric ideas about European superiority. - For example, he described: - Reddish skin American Indians as choleric, with a need to be regulated by customs; - Black-skinned Africans as relaxed, indolent, negligent and governed by caprice; and - White-skin Europeans as gentle, acute, inventive, and governed by laws. - Such scientific racist views were used to rationalize the slavery, imperialism, colonialism, and the political oppression of people in other parts of the world. 19th Century, Joseph Arthur de Gobineau?s Essai Sur L?Inegalite des Races Humaines - In 1853 Joseph Arthur de Gobineau wrote a book entitled ?Essai Sur l?Inegalite des Races Humaines (Essay On The Inequality of Human Races) in which he described the whole of human history as a struggle among the various races of humanity. - Here, he expressed that: - Some races were intellectually stronger or weaker than others, - Each race has its own high or low intellectual capacity, - It is right for the stronger races to conquer the weaker races, - Everything great, noble and fruitful in the works of humanity springs from the Aryan family, the super-race. - He argued that the Aryans spread out to create first the Hindu civilization, then the Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, Chinese, Roman, German, Mexican, and Peruvian civilizations (Banton 1998, Montagu 1997), and that these civilizations collapsed due to ?racial mixing.? Charles Darwin?s Theory of the Origins of Species, and Herbert Spencer?s Theory of Social Darwinism - In 1859, when Charles Darwin published his Theory of Biological Evolution in ?On the Origins of Species? and his theory, and ideas on natural selection, competition, adaptation and survival of the fittest, made many European scientists to wrongfully apply his concepts to social life, greatly promoting racism in Europe. - For example, Herbert Spencer (an Englishman) and Francis Galton, after Darwin, saw the global society as a place in which superior races rise to the top while inferior ones sink to the bottom as the earth carries out its work of natural selection. - They discouraged human intervention to help the less fit, seeing this as a disturbance to nature?s work of natural selection. Louis Henry Morgan & Bunett Tylor?s Theory of Unilineal Evolution - In the 1870s, two European scientists (Louis Henry Morgan and Bunett Tylor) came up with the Theory of Unilineal Evolution, which classified the populations of the world unilineally into 3 races according to their various levels of socio-cultural development, as follows: Savages, barbarians and civilized Europeans. - Unilineal evolutionists believed that given time, savages and barbarians will become like Europeans, and that it was necessary to study savages and barbarians in order to understand what Europeans were like in their early stages of development. - Since many of the newly discovered non-Europeans had different skin colors from Europeans, European scientists began to assume that the inferior levels of these non-European civilizations were related to the skin colors, essences and races of their populations. 20 century Adolph Hitler?s Concept of A Pure Aryan Race - In the 20th Century, writers such as Houston Stewart Chamberlain copied the above-mentioned scientific racist views. Chamberlain?s writings, in their own turn, influenced Adolph Hitler?s Mein Kampf which promoted the notions of racial superiority and inferiority. In the 1930s, the Nazi scientific racist ideology, based on the superiority of the ?pure Aryan race? was used to justify the annihilation of millions of Jews and other non-Aryan peoples such as Slavs and Gypsies in Europe. CULTURE & ETHNICITY - Ethnicity refers to a shared cultural heritage. - An Ethnic Group is a collectivity of people who believe they share a common history, culture and ancestry. - Thus, one?s ethnicity is not innately determined by biology or purported racial characteristics. - The English, Germans, French and Italians are not European races as they were erroneously classified by earlier typologies; they are different ethnic groups based on language and culture. - Likewise, there is no African race; rather Africa is a continent with thousands of different ethnic groups that vary behaviorally from region to region. - In like manner, the variations between Chinese, Koreans and Japanese are not based on racial differences but on ethnic differences. File: CHAPTER 3 - A big misconception in Western racist ideology has been the confusion between race and culture, or the misunderstanding that one?s physical characteristics are related to one?s behavior. - However, one of the important findings of Franz Boas? research and that of other anthropologists is that the physical characteristics of a particular group of people are not related to any particular behavior, language or culture. Cultural Models Of Ethnicity (a) Circumstantial Ethnicity Model - The Circumstantialist Model of Ethnicity emphasizes that ethnicity is plastic, situational, or circumstantial, and that although ethnic groups have boundaries such as language to mark their identities, people in them can shift their linguistic and ethnic identities in a wide variety of social interactions. - Up to the 1960s, the institutionalization of the Circumstantialist Model Of Ethnicity in the United States implied the advocacy the Policy of Assimilation (the absorption of different ethnic groups into one ethnicity). - Assimilationists believed that ethnic boundaries are so fluid and situational that they will eventually disappear, giving room to anglo cultural hegemony or the imposition of English values, norms, language, beliefs, and symbols unto non-anglo ethnic groups. (b) Primordial Ethnicity Model - The 1960s, however, were a Period of Ethnogenesis (or origins of an emphasis of ethnicity) and the Primordialist Model of Ethnicity that emphasizes the persistence of ethnic affiliations because of the fundamental nature of ethnicity to the identity of human beings. - This model assumes that many groups assure ethnicity by clinging to Ethnic Boundary Markers (aspects which distinguish one ethnic group from the other). - The Amish are an example of a group that has maintained strong Boundary Markers despite of the assimilation policy of the United States society ? they cling together by rejecting the English-only policy and speaking a German dialect among themselves, and by dressing in a typical traditional manner. - Traditionally, Amish men wear hats and keep long beards, while the women wear long hair always covered by a hat in public. CHAPTER 3 STUDYING CULTURE COMPONENTS OF CULTURE (A) Values - Values are the standards by which members of a society define what is good or bad, holy or unholy, beautiful or ugly. - They are assumptions that are widely shared by the members of a given society. - Values are a central element of culture and they are important because they influence the behavior of people in a given society. Main U.S. Cultural Values - The main cultural values of the United States society include the following: - Individual achievement and success, - Efficiency, - Progress, - Material Comfort, - Equality, - Freedom, - Science, - Rationality, - Nationalism, and - Democracy (William 1970, Bellah et al. 1985). - Although the above values may seem normal to Americans, they are not accepted values in all societies. For instance, while the American society emphasizes individualism and self-reliance, other societies such as Japan, stress cooperation and community interest. (B) Beliefs - Beliefs are cultural conventions concerning what is true or false, including the nature of the universe and man?s place in it. - While beliefs are more specific understandings of what is good or bad, values are generalized notions of what is good or bad. - A good example of a Belief in the American society is a specific statement such as ?Grading is the best way to evaluate students,? while a good example of an American Value is the statement that ?Education is good thing.? © Worldviews - A Worldview is a body of beliefs about the nature of reality. Worldviews provide people with a more consistent orientation of the world, and help them interpret and understand the realities surrounding them. - For example, the Azandes of East Africa and the Navajo of the United States each have a worldview on witchcraft. - The Azandes, for example, have the worldview that illness is caused by witchcraft, meanwhile people in Western Industrial Societies have the worldview that illness is caused by scientific factors. (D) Ideologies - An ideology consists of cultural symbols and beliefs that reflect and support the interests of specific groups within a society (Yengoyan 1986). - In the different economic and political systems of the world (for example, Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Democratic, and Totalitarian Institutions), particular leadership groups promote certain ideologies for their own ends, and as a means of maintaining and justifying their economic and political authority. - The leading economic and political systems of the world, therefore, represent different ideologies. For example, capitalist societies maintain that individuals should be rewarded monetarily based on their own self-interest. However, socialist societies emphasize the interest or well-being of the community or society over individual interest. - In societies with many competing interest groups, such as modern complex societies, the promotion of ideologies by dominant groups may lead to Cultural Hegemony. - Cultural Hegemony refers to the ideological control by one dominant group over society?s beliefs and values. Cultural hegemony, therefore, takes place when one dominant group in a society imposes its cultural beliefs on subordinate groups. - This happened in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries when the dominant group (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) imposed its language, cultural beliefs and practices on Native American Indians and other groups. - Similarly, in many parts of the world, minority groups are often forced to accept the ideologies of the economically and politically more dominant groups. (E) Norms - Norms are a society?s rules of right and wrong behavior. They are shared rules or guidelines defining how people ought to behave under certain circumstances. - Norms are generally connected to its society?s values, worldviews and ideologies. For example, individualism is a value in the American society and is reflected in the prevailing worldviews of Americans. Not surprising, Americans have many norms that emphasize individual initiative and responsibility. - Some anthropologists use the term ?Ethos? to refer to the socially acceptable norms in a given group (Geertz 1973). (F) Folkways - Folkways are norms that guide ordinary, everyday human activities, so engrained or so taken for granted that individuals are hardly aware that they exist. - People conform so readily to their folkways that they are not aware that the folkways exist and cannot explain the reasons why they conform to them. - For example, if Americans were asked folkway related questions by non-Americans, such as: - Why do Americans eat with knifes or folks?, - Why do Americans allow dating between single men and women without chaperones (elderly moral supervisors)?, - Why are American school children not allowed to help one another during exams?, they will not find it easy to respond. - In responding to such folkway-related questions, most of them will be vague, and simply say ?Because that is the way it is,? ?Because it is the custom,? or ?I don?t know.? - Folkways assure collective conformity, and the smooth running of social life because they provide guidelines and expectations for individual behavior. - However, although most people conform to folkways most of the time, folkways are sometimes violated. - However, the people who violate folkways are not severely punished. For example, in the American society, people who eat using chopsticks rather than spoons and forks, or people who do not keep their lawns neatly mowed may not be treated as criminals. (G) Mores - Mores (pronounced ?Mor-ays?), compared to folkways, are strong norms (stronger than folkways) that guide the conventions of everyday life. - Members of society believe that their mores are crucial for the maintenance of a decent and orderly way of life. - People who violate Mores are generally severely punished. - Such punishment may take the forms of ostracism, vicious gossip, public ridicule, banishment or exile, lose of one?s job, public beating, imprisonment, restriction in a mental asylum, or even execution. - In some Islamic Societies such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, there are mores relating to female dress codes in public. It is morally very wrong for women to violate the public dress code more by exposing their chests or even faces. They stand the risk of being arrested, or even imprisoned if they appear indecent in public. - Similarly, in some Hunting-gathering Societies individuals who violate the sharing more by monopolizing anything they gather or hunt are severely punished through gossip, ridicule, and occasional ostracism. ANTHROPOLOGY ETHNOCENTRISM AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY - All through history, humans have always been interested in cultural diversity. - Whenever people from different societies come in contact with one another, people have compared and contrasted their various cultural traditions, and societies often differentiate themselves from others based on their various cultural patterns. - The Greek historian, Herodotus, as far back as the 5th century B.C., wrote about the differences in behavior and beliefs between the Egyptians and Greeks. - Anthropologists who have written on cultural diversity have often tended to be ethnocentric. - Ethnocentrism is the practice of judging another society by the values and standards of one?s own society. - To some degree, ethnocentrism is a universal phenomenon. As humans learn the basic values, beliefs and norms of their society, they tend to think of their own culture as better than those of others, and rank other peoples? culture as less desirable. - In fact, the members of every society are so committed to their own cultural values and traditions that they cannot conceive of any other better way of life; often viewing other cultural traditions as strange, alien, inferior, crazy, or immoral. - 19th century European anthropologists, like previous scholars, often reinforced ethnocentric beliefs that favored European cultures. - 20th century anthropologists, however, realized that ethnocentrism prevented scientists from viewing other cultures in a scientific manner. To combat the problem of ethnocentrism, 20th century anthropologists developed the concept of Cultural relativism. - Cultural Relativism is the view that cultural traditions must be understood within the context of their own society?s solutions to problems and opportunities. Cultural Relativism offers anthropologists a means of investigating other societies without the imposition of their own ethnocentric assumptions on them. - However, although Cultural Relativism meets the needs a sound methodological basis for ethnographic research, it has some serious ethical problems. Some cultural practices (such as cannibalism and human sacrifice) are harmful to human beings in all cultures and anthropologists have often found it difficult to view their execution by anybody as cultural relativistic behavior. How does the anthropologist stop making value judgments about such emotional cultural practices as infanticide and geronticide (the killing of elderly people)? CRETERIA FOR EVALUATING CULTURAL DIVERSITY - FOOD, CLOTHING AND ADAPTATION - A lot of the diversity that human societies exhibit has to do with the preferences for what people eat and what they wear, including scarifications, family marks, tattoos, deodorants, and so on. - Most Americans are repulsed by the mere thought of eating insects and insect larvae, even though many societies consider these to be delicacies. - American culture distinguishes between ?pets,? which are not edible animals, and ?farm animals? (such as chickens, cows, pigs and goats) which are eaten. - In the United States, horses are considered pets and are not eaten, but people in nearly all the nations of Europe (the French, Belgians, Dutch, Germans, Italians, Poles and Russians) consume significant quantities of horsemeat eat year (Harris 1985). - Similarly, it is normal for Americans to put on their deodorant and ?smell good.? However, people from traditional societies in some parts of the world value smelling like human beings, and wonder why Americans prefer to ?stink like perfume? rather than ?smell human.? - The Yanomamo put on little or no clothing and wonder what industrial people are hiding by wearing layers and layers of clothing. Meanwhile western industrial people wonder how people like the Yanomamo feel, looking almost naked. - Rastafarians or Rastas, a specific religious group in Jamaica, who get their name after the Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, originally called ?Ras Tafari,? wear dreadlocks or long breaded hair after him. During the early phase of the Jamaican Rastafarian Movement in the 1950s, the religious ideology and lifestyle of Rastafarians became known in the West through reggae music and Rasta musicians such as Bob Marley. - Rastafarians viewed the unshaven man as the natural man, and considered Sampson the most important figure in the Bible. For them, dreadlocks symbolized a lion, which was associated with Emperor Haile Selassie, one of whose titles was the Conquering ?Lion of Judah.? Thus, to simulate the spirit of the lion, Rastas did not cut their hair, sometimes growing their locks as long as 20 inches or more. - Additionally, the dreadlock hairstyle had a deeper symbolic significance in Jamaican society, where hair was considered an index of racial and social inequality at the time. Fine silky hair was considered ?good,? whereas woolly, kinky hair was frowned on (Barrett 1973). The white person with fine, silky hair was considered higher on the social ladder than the typical African descendant in Jamaica. Thus, the Rastafarian hairstyle was a defiant symbol of resistance to the cultural values and norms of Jamaican society. - The long dreadlocks sent the message that Rastafarians were outside of Jamaican society. Even though they were viewed by some Jamaicans as unkempt, dangerous, and dirty, Rastafarians saw their dreadlocks symbolizing power, liberation and defiance. - Through their locks, Rastafarians announced to society that they did not accept the values, beliefs, and norms of a majority of the people. - Rastafarian dreadlocks reveal that culture, to a great extent, consists of a network of symbolic codes that enhance values, beliefs, worldviews and ideologies within a society. CULTURE AND RACISM IN WESTERN SOCIETY - Racism, the belief that some ?races? are inherently superior or inferior to others has a profound history in Western society. The Greeks - The Greeks, as far back as the 5th century B.C., believed that one?s racial and physical characteristics were connected to one?s mental and behavioral abilities. Plato?s Theory of Differential Essences - Plato, the Greek philosopher (427-347 B.C.), argued that different groups of people in the world had different essences, temperaments or dispositions. - He maintained that different people were born with different essences, souls, or dispositions. - For Plato: - Some people were born with the essence of being rulers, - Some with the essence of being soldiers, - Some with the essence of being farmers, and - Some with the essence of being slaves. Hippocrates? Theory of Differential Humoral Existence - Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.), a famous Greek medical specialist, developed a Humoral-Environmental Existentialist Theory that classified people into races based on inherited blood, essences and humors. - Hippocrates? theory viewed the universe as made up of 4 elements: - Fire, - Water, - Earth, and - Air, all of which transformed into 4 human humors, essences or temperaments. - He maintained that the Greeks had the best essence or temperament, followed by the Asians, who like the Greeks were gentle, well fed, and courageous, but who unlike the Greeks were incapable of developing industrious habits because their lives were dominated by pleasure. Medieval European Theory of the Great Chain of Being (1oth Century to the 17th century) - During the European Medieval Times, European scientists saw the cosmos or universe as a natural, hierarchical, Great Chain of Being, in which everything, including the main global populations, was ranked from top to bottom or from the greatest to the least. - Their placement of global population groups in this Great chain of Being was guided by ethnocentric considerations; they placed the white European race at the top and non-white colored people from other parts of the world below White Europeans. - Such a placement gave rise to many popular misconceptions and generalizations concerning the values, traditions, and behaviors of non-European peoples. - 1500 signaled the start of the European Age of Expansion or Enlightenment, when European explorers began to have contact with people and civilizations outside Europe, especially in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Americas. - As they started meeting these people they did not forget about prior conceptual racist explanations based on blood, humors and essences. 18th Century Carolus Linnaeus? Classification of Races Into Whites, Reds, Yellows and Blacks (1700, Age of Enlightenment) Carolus Linnaeus - In 1758, a Swedish scientist, Carolus Linnaeus divided Homo sapiens into four races based on skin color, as follows: - Whites or Europeans, - Reds or North American Indians, - Yellows or Asiatics, and - Blacks or Africans. - However, his classification was influenced by ancient and medieval theories, and ethnocentric ideas about European superiority. - For example, he described: - Reddish skin American Indians as choleric, with a need to be regulated by customs; - Black-skinned Africans as relaxed, indolent, negligent and governed by caprice; and - White-skin Europeans as gentle, acute, inventive, and governed by laws. - Such scientific racist views were used to rationalize the slavery, imperialism, colonialism, and the political oppression of people in other parts of the world. 19th Century, Joseph Arthur de Gobineau?s Essai Sur L?Inegalite des Races Humaines - In 1853 Joseph Arthur de Gobineau wrote a book entitled ?Essai Sur l?Inegalite des Races Humaines (Essay On The Inequality of Human Races) in which he described the whole of human history as a struggle among the various races of humanity. - Here, he expressed that: - Some races were intellectually stronger or weaker than others, - Each race has its own high or low intellectual capacity, - It is right for the stronger races to conquer the weaker races, - Everything great, noble and fruitful in the works of humanity springs from the Aryan family, the super-race. - He argued that the Aryans spread out to create first the Hindu civilization, then the Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, Chinese, Roman, German, Mexican, and Peruvian civilizations (Banton 1998, Montagu 1997), and that these civilizations collapsed due to ?racial mixing.? Charles Darwin?s Theory of the Origins of Species, and Herbert Spencer?s Theory of Social Darwinism - In 1859, when Charles Darwin published his Theory of Biological Evolution in ?On the Origins of Species? and his theory, and ideas on natural selection, competition, adaptation and survival of the fittest, made many European scientists to wrongfully apply his concepts to social life, greatly promoting racism in Europe. - For example, Herbert Spencer (an Englishman) and Francis Galton, after Darwin, saw the global society as a place in which superior races rise to the top while inferior ones sink to the bottom as the earth carries out its work of natural selection. - They discouraged human intervention to help the less fit, seeing this as a disturbance to nature?s work of natural selection. Louis Henry Morgan & Bunett Tylor?s Theory of Unilineal Evolution - In the 1870s, two European scientists (Louis Henry Morgan and Bunett Tylor) came up with the Theory of Unilineal Evolution, which classified the populations of the world unilineally into 3 races according to their various levels of socio-cultural development, as follows: Savages, barbarians and civilized Europeans. - Unilineal evolutionists believed that given time, savages and barbarians will become like Europeans, and that it was necessary to study savages and barbarians in order to understand what Europeans were like in their early stages of development. - Since many of the newly discovered non-Europeans had different skin colors from Europeans, European scientists began to assume that the inferior levels of these non-European civilizations were related to the skin colors, essences and races of their populations. 20 century Adolph Hitler?s Concept of A Pure Aryan Race - In the 20th Century, writers such as Houston Stewart Chamberlain copied the above-mentioned scientific racist views. Chamberlain?s writings, in their own turn, influenced Adolph Hitler?s Mein Kampf which promoted the notions of racial superiority and inferiority. In the 1930s, the Nazi scientific racist ideology, based on the superiority of the ?pure Aryan race? was used to justify the annihilation of millions of Jews and other non-Aryan peoples such as Slavs and Gypsies in Europe. CRITIQUES OF SCIENTIFIC RACISM - Some leading anthropologists in the United States, such as Franz Boas, have subjected the above-mentioned scientific racists assumptions to rigorous testing and evaluation. - Franz Boas (1858-1943), who was a German immigrant and scholar of unparallel dimensions, and his students, patiently took precise measurements and assessments of the cranial capacities and physical characteristics of different human populations. - His research demonstrated exclusively that there is no direct link between race, brain size, cranial capacity, and intelligence level. RACE AND INTELLIGENCE - Intelligence is the capacity to process and evaluate information for problem solving. Intelligence contrasts with Knowledge, the storage and recall of learned information. - A big controversy in scientific racism is determining if intelligence can be objectively measured. - Most scientists agree: (a) That heredity or genetics plays a role in intelligence ? This is confirmed by the fact that the intelligence of genetically-related individuals (for examples, parents and their biological children) displays a close correlation. (b) That other environmental or social factors, different from genetics, are also important in the determination of intelligence; and (c) That Intelligence is a difficult thing to measure objectively, given the fact that any tests used for measuring it inevitably reflects the beliefs and values of a particular cultural group. Bias in the Measuring of Inter-racial Intelligence - Nevertheless, Western scientists have devised a number of questionable ways to measure intelligence. Among these ways is the controversial Intelligence Quotient Test (IQ Test), first invented in 1905 by the French psychologist Alfred Binet. - Binet?s test was brought to the United States and modified to become the Stanford-Binet Test. - Even though, the inventors of the Stanford-Binet Test warned that the test only made sense when the children tested came from a similar environment, the IQ Test has been indiscriminately used since its creation to evaluate a wide variety of students in the U.S. academic system from different cultural backgrounds. This has sparked much argument among educators and social scientists alike. - Such argument or controversy reached a climax in 1994 when Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray published a disputed document entitled The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. - In this document, the 2 argued that research supports the conclusion that intelligence is related to race, and they used a bell-curve statistical distribution that placed the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) of Europeans at 100, East Asians at an average IQ of 103, and African at an average IQ of 90. These findings implied that IQ scores were related to genetic differences among races. - However, a number of scientists have extensively noted the faulty reasoning and flawed methods used by Herrnstein, Murray, and other scholars in their determination of IQ differences between Europeans, African Americans, and the other so-called racial groupings. CULTURAL OR SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF RACE - Even though the concept of race does not have any biological significance, it is considered important for classificatory purposes by many societies. (1) Peurto Rico - In Peurto Rico, an island initially colonized by Spain, and then by the United States, racial classifications based on skin color are used to categorize people. - Peurto Ricans classify groups in their population into the following - Blanco (Whites), - Preito (Blacks), and - Trigueno (Brown or Tan-skinned people. (2) Brazil - In Brazil, a complex social classification exists which uses different criteria than the ones found in the United States to classify people. - An individual classified as White in Brazil may be classified as Black in the United States. (3) United States - In the 19th century, the United States employed the Hypo-descent Concept of Racial Classification, which assumed that in cases of racial mixture, the offspring should be identified as belonging to the race of the parent with the lower social status. - Since Black Americans were considered to be a lower race, any person who had a black ancestor anywhere in his or her family history was considered black. This was known as the ?one-drop rule? of racial classification because it was based on the myth that one drop of ?black blood? was enough to determine racial blackness. - Following the ?one-drop rule?, someone was defined as ?black? if he or she had even one black ancestor, or as White if he or she lacked one black ancestor. CULTURE, ETHNICITY AND RACE CULTURE & ETHNICITY - Ethnicity refers to a shared cultural heritage. - An Ethnic Group is a collectivity of people who believe they share a common history, culture and ancestry. - Thus, one?s ethnicity is not innately determined by biology or purported racial characteristics. - The English, Germans, French and Italians are not European races as they were erroneously classified by earlier typologies; they are different ethnic groups based on language and culture. - Likewise, there is no African race; rather Africa is a continent with thousands of different ethnic groups that vary behaviorally from region to region. - In like manner, the variations between Chinese, Koreans and Japanese are not based on racial differences but on ethnic differences. - A big misconception in Western racist ideology has been the confusion between race and culture, or the misunderstanding that one?s physical characteristics are related to one?s behavior. - However, one of the important findings of Franz Boas? research and that of other anthropologists is that the physical characteristics of a particular group of people are not related to any particular behavior, language or culture. Cultural Models Of Ethnicity (a) Circumstantial Ethnicity Model - The Circumstantialist Model of Ethnicity emphasizes that ethnicity is plastic, situational, or circumstantial, and that although ethnic groups have boundaries such as language to mark their identities, people in them can shift their linguistic and ethnic identities in a wide variety of social interactions. - Up to the 1960s, the institutionalization of the Circumstantialist Model Of Ethnicity in the United States implied the advocacy the Policy of Assimilation (the absorption of different ethnic groups into one ethnicity). - Assimilationists believed that ethnic boundaries are so fluid and situational that they will eventually disappear, giving room to anglo cultural hegemony or the imposition of English values, norms, language, beliefs, and symbols unto non-anglo ethnic groups. (b) Primordial Ethnicity Model - The 1960s, however, were a period of Ethnogenesis (or origins of many ethnic groups) and the Primordialist Model of Ethnicity that emphasizes the persistence of ethnic affiliations because of the fundamental nature of ethnicity to the identity of human beings. - This model assumes that many groups assure ethnicity by clinging to Ethnic Boundary Markers (aspects which distinguish one ethnic group from the other). - The Amish are an example of a group that has maintained strong Boundary Markers despite of the assimilation policy of the United States society ? they cling together by rejecting the English-only policy and speaking a German dialect among themselves, and by dressing in a typical traditional manner. - Traditionally, Amish men wear hats and keep long beards, while the women wear long hair always covered by a hat in public. ANTROPOLOGY AND EXPLANATION OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY - Anthropology has its origins in the colonial expansion of Europe that began in the 15th and 16th centuries. During this time, explorers, traders and missionaries visited and commented on the people and cultures they encountered in their worldwide search for land, wealth and religious converts. - In the 18th century, European social scientists consulted the writings of earlier observers and tried to come up with an explanation of human differences and human similarities. In doing so, they were greatly influenced by previously held biased, racist, ethnocentric, unilineal evolutionary and degenerationist armchair speculative theories. (Read about the Theory of Unilineal Evolution, the British Diffusionist Theory and the German Diffusionist or Kulturchreise Theory). Franz Boas And Branislaw Malinowski -In the late 19th century, the anthropology that emerged in Europe and the United States, focused on classifying and comparing people from different parts of the world, and attempting to show their evolutionary relationship in respect to one another and European cultures. - The main anthropologists at this time were Franz Boas (considered the Father of American Anthropology) who championed or stressed historical details or particularism, empiricism, and cultural relativity, and Branislaw Malinowski (considered the Father of Fieldwork or Participant Observation Research) who championed the perspective of functionalism. The two condemned European armchair anthropology and emphasized the importance of fieldwork, direct interaction with, and observation of other cultures, and their works formed the central core of anthropology. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE USED BY ANTHROPOLOGISTS IN EXPLAINING CULTURE - Anthropologists have developed a number of theoretical perspectives or conceptual frameworks to explain human cultures, as follows. (1) Cultural Materialist Perspectives (Marvin Harris) ? These perspectives include Cultural Ecology and Cultural Materialism, both of which emphasize environment, technology, and ideology. (2) Cultural ecology (Julian Steward) - This focuses on how the physical environment directly influences human behavior, including the satisfaction of basic human needs and how people?s adaptive behaviors interact with other aspects of culture. (3) Structural Perspective (Claude Levi-Strauss) - This looks at culture from a structural functionalist orientation, including the role of concepts in structuring the experiences and relationships of people, for example, myths and kinship systems. (4) Symbolic Perspectives (Clifford Geertz) - This stresses that culture is a unique system of symbols with multiple layers of meaning. - Through their behavior, people act out those meanings and communicate them to one another. \(5) Conflict Perspective (Karl Marx) - This perspective argues that culture is an expression of power relations within a society and between societies. - The distribution of power is linked to the distribution of wealth and prestige, and affects gender relations including processes such as colonialism. (6) Emic-Etic Perspectives - The Emic Perspective is based on an insider?s views, as in explanations people have for their own cultural behavior. - The Etic Perspective is based on an outsider?s views, as in explanations of people?s behavior by anthropologists or other observers. CULTURE & ETHNOGRAPHIC FIELDWORK - The main tool of Anthropological Research is Fieldwork, also called Participant Observation Research, Naturalistic research, or Idealistic Research. - In Carrying out fieldwork, anthropologists go and live among the people they are studying for an extended period of time in order to gain an inside of their culture from the people?s point of view. As participant observer, anthropologists observe and record a community?s activities and participate in them as much as possible. - Earlier anthropologists focused on studying foreign cultures, especially small seemingly isolated indigenous societies. But today, many anthropologists work in large scales societies, including their own, focusing on specific subcultures or communities. Fieldwork involves multiple Cultural Dimensions, such as: (1) Choosing a research problem and a site, (2) Having a research grant, (3) Obtaining research clearance, (4) Studying ethno-histories to understand the cultures of research, (5) Finding a place to live, (6) Working in an unfamiliar environment, File: CHAPTER 4 (7) Learning an unfamiliar language, (8) Overcoming culture shock, and (9) The writing of an Ethnography (a detailed description of the studied culture) or Ethnography (a comparative study of the researched culture). THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF ANTHROPOLOGY - This has to do with the ethical behavior of anthropologists in relationship to the people they study. - Some play the role of defending the people they study; while others disseminate information that reduces negative stereotypes and prejudices related to poor and marginalized people. CHAPTER 4 LANGUAGE & COMMUNICATION (1) DEFINITION & SIGNIFICANCE - Language consists of a system of symbols with standard meanings. Language is: - An integral component of human cultures -Anthropologists describe it as a cultural Universal, Absolute, and Commonality; - A distinguishing feature of all human beings; - A central element of human thought, - A means of acquiring cultural heritage, or of storing and transmitting cultural values; and - A strong social glue. (2) FUNCTIONS - Language is an important aspect of all cultures. - It permits the members of a given culture to store values and symbolic meanings for communication. - Communication is the act of transferring information to others. - Communication permits human growth and prosperity because it puts into unity the past, the present, and the future. - In other words, communication enable us know where we have been and what we have been, where we are now and what we are, and most importantly where we still must go and what we still must be. - Language is a vehicle for transmitting culture onto posterity or the next generation. - In other words, language is used as a vehicle for cultural heritage. ? All humans need Culture for: social solidarity, self and social identity, high self esteem, and survival fitness. ANIMAL COMMUNICATION AND HUMAN LANGUAGE - There has been a running debate related to whether or not non-human species have the ability to communicate or use symbols. NON-HUMAN PRIMATE COMMUNICATION - Studies of non-human primate communication have been carried out in the wild by primatologists and ethologists. - Ethologists are scientists who study the behavior of animals in their natural settings. - Typical examples of ethologists who have studied the communication patterns of chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutangs include: - Jane Goodall - who spent more than 30 years studying primate behavior at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania (1971 - 1930); - Dian Fossey - an expert on the study of gorillas, and - Birute Galdikas - an expert in the study of orangutans. (1) Washoe, Allen Gardner and Beatrice Gardner - In 1966, two psychologists Allen and Beatrice Gardner adopted a female chimpanzee named Washoe and began teaching her American sign language (ASL or Ameslan), a non-vocal form of communication used by the deaf. - After several years, Washoe was able to master hundreds of signs. This was a remarkable display by a chimpanzee that challenged the traditional assumption that only human beings can use symbols (Gardner and Gardner 1969). (2) Lana, Yerkes Regional Primate Research center Atlanta - Similarly, in the 1970s, in the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center of Emory University at Atlanta (Georgia), a chimpanzee named Lana was taught to communicate using a coded or color-stained computer keyboard. (3) Koko, Francine Patterson - Finally, in a widely publicized study in the 1970s, Francine Patterson taught Koko, a female gorilla, the use of 170 ASL words. Koko was famous as the world's first "talking" gorilla. - At the age of 4, Koko was given an intelligence test based on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, and she scored 85%, only slightly below the score of an average human child. - Petterson indicated that Koko even told stories related to her violent capture in Africa. In addition, according to Patterson, Koko demonstrated the capacity to lie, deceive, swear, joke, and combine signs in new and creative ways. (4) Chimpanzee Studies At The Gombe Game Reserve, East Africa - In addition to the above laboratory studies, the ethologist Jane Goodall (scientist who studies the behavior of animals in their natural settings) has been studying animals behavior in Africa since the 1960s. - She found out that wild animals utter specific vocalizations or call systems for a wide variety of adaptive purposes. These animals include prairie dogs, chickens, monkeys, gorillas, and chimpanzees. - She also found out that Chimps used both intra-party call systems and distance calls. Intra-party calls include: pant-grunts directed a higher ranking individuals within the group as a token of respect, barks, whimpers, squeaks, screams, coughs, and other sounds directed towards some internal group members. Distance calls serve many functions, including (a) drawing attention to a local food source, and (b) announcing the precise location of individuals in the home territory. George schaller, Identification of 22 Vocalizations (Call Systems) Used By Primates. - George schaller, another ethologists, identified 22 vocalizations or call systems used by primates, 20 vocalizations used by howler monkeys, 30 used by Japanese macaque monkeys, and 9 used by gibbins (Schaller 1976). - The vocalizations are associated with specific behaviors or different emotional states, such as: play, need for sexual partners, anger, and warning of approaching enemies. Conclusions - Ethological studies reveal that while both wild animals and humans are capable of using symbols, only humans are capable of using an extremely complex network of symbols. MAIN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WILD ANIMAL COMMUNICATION AND HUMAN COMMUNICATION - Human communication, unlike the communication of non-human animals, has: productivity, displacement, and arbitrariness. Productivity - Productivity here means the ability of humans to express thoughts, meanings and experiences in infinite ways. This contrasts greatly with animal communication. Wild animal communication uses vocalizations or call systems, which are signs (not symbols) that are rigid and fixed. These vocalizations or signs do not vary and cannot be modified. The offspring of chimpanzees will always use the same pattern of vocalization as the parent, and chimpanzees all over the world utter the same vocalizations. Human language or communication, in contrast, is highly flexible, permitting humans to create and use a wide variety of symbols. A sign is something that represents itself while a symbol is something that represents something else. Displacement - Displacement refers to the meaning of sounds and symbols in human language to refer to people, things and events that are not present. It can also be considered the ability of human to discuss abstract concepts that cannot be seen or heard. - Diaplacement represents the competency of humans to discuss the past, present and future, including the discussion of sbstract or hypothetical phenomena that do not exist concretely. Primates and other wild animals are not capable of displacement. Arbitrariness - Arbitrariness here means the ability of humans to use words that have no connection to the concrete objects or abstract symbols that they represent. CHARLES HOCKETT?S MAIN FEATURES/CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN LANGUAGE - In 1960, Hockett designed 16 features of human language. Among these feature are included the following: (1) Vocal-auditory feature - Which implies language originating from the vocal apparatus and being received by the auditory apparatus. (2) Broadcast transmission and directional reception feature - Which implies language/speech going out in all directions and the source being identified by the receiver. (3) Interchangeability feature - Which implies the flexibility of language, or the fact that a speaker can utter any message. (4) Complete feedback feature - Which implies that the speaker can monitor his/her own speech. (5) Specialization feature - Which implies that speech is specifically for communication (involving the use of only very essential vocabulary). (6) Semantic feature - Which implies that language lays stress more on the meanings of words and sentences than on anything else. (7) Arbitrary feature - Which implies that word sounds do not have any necessary relationship with what they mean. (8) Discrete feature - This implies that language messages are made up of separate and separable units and that changing one sound completely changes the entire meaning of a sentence. (9) Displacement feature - Which implies ability of language to describe things and events distant in time and space. (10) Openness feature - Which implies permitting new and unique utterances. (11) Prevarication feature - Which implies that language permits speakers to make false statements. (12) Reflexiveness feature - Which implies that language makes it possible for people to talk about talking. (13) Learnability feature - Which implies that speakers of one language can learn another language. - From Hockett?s point of view, the above-mentioned characteristics of human language are only unique to homo sapiens or higher order primates; - They are too complex for lower order primates such as Japanese macaques, chimpanzees (Washoe, Lana), and gorillas (Koko), and other social creatures such as ants. ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE (1) TEMPORAL PERSPECTIVE ON LANGUAGE ORIGINS - Language and human culture probably originated and evolved together. As human cultures became more complex so too did their languages. - Theories relating to when language started range as far back as: - the first genus of Homo (Homo Habilis ? Practical Man) estimated to have lived 2 million years ago, and - the first modern humans (Neanderthals) estimated to have lived 50,000 to 150,000 years ago. - These theories originate from a study of the characteristics of fossil brains and vocal cords. - However, the studies do not reveal clearly the time when language originated. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE ORIGINS -Anthropologists have come up with three theories relating to the ways language originated. These theories are: the Bowwow Theory, Ding Dong Theory, and the Call Systems Theory. (1) The Bowwow Theory : - The Bowwow Theory suggests that language started when humans started mimicking the sounds of nature. (2) The Ding Dong Theory : - The Ding Dong Theory suggests that language started when people started making sounds that were related to the ideas or behavior they represented. (3) Charles F. Hockette?s Call System?s Theory : - However, the most widely accepted theory of language origins is the one proposed by Charles Hockette in the 1970s. - According to Hockette language evolved in three stages, as follows: Call Systems, Blending, and Duality of Patterning. Phase 1: Single Vocalization Or Call System Phase - Language, at the early stage, was restricted to single vocalizations uttered by humans in response to specific events. Phase 2: Blending, Para-linguistic or Pre-language Phase - According to Charles Hockett, as time went on, the single vocalizations were blended to represent more complex meanings. For him, this is the paralinguage or prelanguage phase. - Paralanguage relates to the intonation, pacing, pauses and accenting of words. - Most anthropologists also see paralanguage as any extra-linguistic vocalizations that do not constitute the official vocabulary of a given language (Exclamations, laughter, crying, sobbing, sighing, etc). - Charles Hockett thinks that blending probably greatly increased the number of possible messages in language, but was limited compared to present day languages. Phase 3: Duality of Patterning Phase - This phase occurred when language evolved to a more complex stage involving the use of many blended sounds or symbols. WHEN CHILDREN START BEING SENSITIVE TO LANGUAGE? - According to a study by Steven Pinker (1994:264), 4 day old French babies are able to recognize sounds in the French language at a very early age. - They babies who were suckling on rubber nipples were made to listen tapes of French and Russian music. - Researchers found that the babies suckled harder when they heard French music than when they heard Russian. - When the music sounds were filtered to sound as they would to a baby in the womb, the infants still recognized the difference between the two sets of sound. - However, when the tapes were played backwards, distorting the language melody or patterns, the babies did not respond to them. - From the study, scientists concluded that babies start to process the melodies and sounds of their parent?s languages fairly early, even before they are born. - The study did not imply that babies are born biologically equiped to learn only the language of their parents. - Linguist believe that babies are born biologically equipped to learn any language. The infant of another culture adopted into an English-speaking household soon learns to speak English as well as any other English child. WHAT HUMANS NEED TO LEARN LANGUAGE - To be able to learn a language humans need cultural participation. They need to be in the company of people speaking the language. - A baby removed from its own group at birth and placed in another group will speak the language of its new group when it grows up. - A child with normal physical and mental apparati has the capacity of learning any language. - However, the period before the age of 6 years appears to be a critical period during which the grammar of a language must be learned. - This is the reason why Victor the Wild Boy of Aveyron and Genie the California girl both of who spent their early days in isolation could never learn normal speech. - People who are raised in isolation and do not learn to speak until they are adults when they can master the vocabulary but not the syntax of their language. - After 40 years of re-socialization, Victor could understand much of what was told him, but he could never learn to speak like others. - The same was true of Genie, a child discovered by Social Workers in California in the 1970s. - Genie had been locked up in an attic for the first 12 year of her life. - With training and good living conditions, she rapidly acquired a large vocabulary but was never able to master English syntax. THE ANATOMY OR BIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE - Humans are biologically adapted for language learning. - Studies reveal that the human brain and body are biologically adapted for language acquisition. - The visual, auditory and feeling parts of the brain work inter-connectedly. - Human children learning language are: - able to see images in their minds eyes, - have feelings for these images, and - produce sounds to comform with the images and feelings. Brocca?s Area and Wernicke?s Area - Some authorities maintain that the left side of the brain is equiped with the Brocca?s Area which caters for the production of sounds, and the Wernicke?s Area which caters for the interpretation of sounds (Scupin 1998). - The structure of the food and air tracts in humans is very different from that of their ape relatives. In apes food and air pass through separate passage ways. However, in humans the food and air tracts are connected; humans who try to eat and speak at the same time stand the risk of becoming choked. Apes can do both at the same time. Adam?s Apple - Also, human are equiped with a voice box or Adams apple in the lower neck region for the production and control of sounds while their ape relatives are not. - Furthermore, the teeth of humans are close together and better built for more effective sound control while than of apes which are too widely dispersed for any good speech. THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE - Every language has a structure, an internal logic, and a relationship between the parts. - The structure of a language consists of: phonology, morphology, syntax (the arrangement of words to form phrases and sentences), and semantics (rules related to the meanings of words and phrases). (1) Phonology - Phonology relates to the production of sound patterns in language. - There is an International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) which contains symbols for all the sounds in the major languages of the world. - Each language uses different sounds, and combine sounds differently. - Sound management and control is aided by the use of the breath and vocal cord or Adam?s apple. (2) Morphology - Morphology relates to the arrangement of sound patterns in language. (3) Syntax - Syntax relates to the agreement of words, phrases and sentences. - Languages differ in their syntactic structures. (4) Semantics - Semantics refers to the meaning of words, phrases and sentences in language. - Semantics reveals the relationship between a language and its culture. Technology words can reveal level of technology of a society, while kinship vocabulary (such as Brother-in-law) can reveal the nature of social solidarity. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE LEARNING (1) Noam Chomsky & Rene Descarte?s Bio-cultural Or Inert Theory - According to the Biocultural Theory of Language Learning, the human ability to learn language is innate and universal. Noam Chomsky?s Bio-cultural or Inert Theory - Noam Chomsky heads a school of thought on linguistics which believes in the bio- cultural basis of human language. - Chomsky thinks that language learning is made possible for everyone by an internal, cognitive, Universal Generative Grammar Model. - He also described this internal Generative Grammer Model a Deep Structure for language learning in all human beings. - He proposes: - That language is an innate property of the mind, and - That children unconsciously apply grammar to process the sounds they hear in their parent?s languages. - There is substantial evidence supporting Chomsky?s biological basis of human language. - Research reveals that some people with low IQs are still able to speak very well, and that some hearing- impaired children can use sign language very well. - Noam Chomsky,s Theory is widely accepted, though many anthropologists also feel that language is strongly influenced by culture or society. Rene Descartes - Rene Descartes, like Chomsky, also held the view that the mind has the innate ability to learn language intuitively. - Anthropologists agree with Chomsky and Descartes on the biological basis of language, but point out that there are many different cultural scenarios in which language is actually learnt. (2)John Locke?s Theory Of Language Learning (Habit Formation Hypothesis) - According to the empiricist philosopher, John Locke, the child?s mind at birth is like a blank tablet, ?tabula rasa,? and children learn language only through habit formation. (3) E. B. Skinner?s Theory of Language Learning (stimulus And Response Theory) - B.F. Skinner maintained that children learn language through conditioning or stimulus and response from the environment. - For Skinner, the child learns language faster if it is given a positive stimulus like a reward when the child makes efforts to learn, or sanctioned with a punishment when the child is reluctant to learn. - In this way, the child makes efforts to learn in order to get the reward or in order to avoid being sanctioned or punished. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND INTELLIGENCE The Sapir-Whorf?s Hypothesis - A study of the Hopi language carried out in the 1930s, by Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf (1956) suggested that language reflects culture; that language shapes culture and cognition, and that culture shapes language. - This means that language, in effect, serves us a special pair of glasses that heightens our perception of certain things and dims our perception of others, determining the way we see reality. LANGUAGE, CULTURE & ENVIRONMENT - Anthropologists who study the relationship between language, culture and environment are socio-linguists and historical linguists. These have developed a technique called Glottochronology that can help them compare and know the divergence between languages using phonological and morphological factors. - Language reflects culture and the environment. - It sets the scope and dimensions of what individuals can perceive or conceptualize with respect to their physical environments, social environments, or their worlds. - Edward Sapir (1949) made this clear when he wrote as follows: ?Human beings do not live in the objective world alone . . . but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become a medium of expression for their society . . . The fact . . . is that the ?real world? is to a great extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group. No two languages are very sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached.? NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION - Apart from being interested in verbal communication, linguistic anthropologists such as Edward Hall (1959) are also interested in non-verbal communication. - Broadly speaking, Non-verbal Communication can be lumped into: - Kinesics (Body language), - Tasile Communication (this has to do with touch/touching) - Proximics (the study of the meaning and manipulation of space); and - Paralanguage (non-linguistic elements of communication that accompany speech, such as tone of voice, tempo, crying, laughing, exclamations, etc. - Nonverbal communication varies cross-culturally, yet some forms of non-verbal communication appear to be universally understood. - From a more detailed perspective, Non-verbal Communication is characterized by the following (involving body movement and postures): - Facial expressions, - Perfumes and Pheromones (pheromones are chemical substances produced by animals to attract or repel other animals), - Regalia and Emblems (clothing and significant adornment symbols), - Paralanguage (the extra-linguistic vocalizations uttered during speech communication), - Choreometrics and Kinesthetics ? This is a combination of paraliguistic utterances, together with hand and foot work or movement), - Body-size Manipulations - This requires a reduction or increase in body size to demonstrate superior or inferior status. Body-size manipulation is seen in the forms of making body poise, stance or carriage smaller or bigger, standing or sitting on a platform, groveling, shivering, stooping, kneeling, lying down, standing at attention, putting of hands on one?s back, etc), and - Edward Hall (1959) states that ?time talks? and ?space speaks.? - In the American culture, we are definitely saying something to people when we show up for an appointment 40 munutes late, or if we show up for an appointment 10 minutes early. - However, the message is not the same for a traditional African or latin American who shows up late or early for an appointment. - People in all cultures use non-verbal gestures to communicate information or messages. Some of these non-verbal gestures are conscious, while some are not. - Non-verbal facial communication is a significant type of communication across many cultures. - For example: - Among the Tuaregs of the African Sahara where males are veiled, the position of the veil is an important part of non-verbial communication (Murphy 1964). - Tuareg males lower their veils only among intimates and people of lower status. - When they are engaged in encounters in which they do not wish to commit themselves to a particular course of action, they wear their veil very high on the bridge of their noses so that the other party may not be able to read their facial expression. - In the U.S. culture, and many other cultures, the eyes are also an important clue to what people are feeling or thinking during communication. - This explains why some people wear dark eye glasses in the shade when communicating. - By hiding their eyes, they are in a better position to control the flow of communication and thus the entire encounter. - Non-verbal communication is more ambiguous than verbal communication and permits people to have more flexibility of behavior when they are not interested in making a commitment. - Most people resort to non-verbal communication when they do not wish to accept total responsibility. For example, saying ?I love you? by giving someone flowers does not involve the same degree of commitment as saying ? I love you? verbally. RANKING IN LANGUAGE - In hierarchical societies, languages are ranked. - In hierarchical societies the most dominant group generally claims that its own speech and grammatical patterns is the ?proper? language, while branding the speech patterns of micro-cultural groups as ?dialects.? - A dialect can, therefore be defined as a pattern of speech spoken by the lower classes. - Anthropological research, however, reveals that all languages are equally important to those who own them, and that there are no languages that are superior or inferior to others. - The idea that primitive people have primitive languages is totally not accepted in anthropology because: the word ?primitive? has a negative connotation, some simple societies such as the Dani have verbs with more than 1680 forms, simple organizations and technologies have no co-relationship with the status of languages. CONTROVERSY OVER AAVE - In the 1950 and 1960s, many varieties of English in the U.S. were considered inferior. It was believed that teaching people to speak standard English would enhance their ability to think logically, and thereby enable them to better their standard of living. A particular language that was considered inferior was African American vernacular English (AAVE), or Black English Vernacular (BEV). - This is a language which has deep roots in the African American community. - It is particularly spoken by African Americans of working-class background, both rural and urban. - AAVE has been heavily criticized by scholars like Arthur Jensen who sometimes argued that it symbolizes the genetic inferiority of blacks. - Research has, however, shown that BEV is indeed a different variety of English from Standard Spoken American English (SSAE), the language spoken by most of the American middle class. - Research also stresses that BEV is in no way linguistically inferior to to Standard Spoken American English (SSAE). - BEV is different but not inferior to SSAE and, like every other language, it is fully systematic, gramatical, symbolic, and certainly no barrier to abstract thought. Speakers of BEV often engage in code switching, moving between languages. - Research points on this language reveals the validity of the anthropological approach: it reveals that language is used differently depending on the audience it serves. - Max Weinreich wisely defines a language as ?a dialect with an army and a navy behind it? (Stephen Pinker 1994:28). - The implication of Weinreich statement is that a dialect is a language without an army or a navy behind it. Thus, to Weinreich, it is simply power which determines if a mode of communication is considered a language or a dialect. SOME IMPORTANT DEFINITIONS IN LINGUISTIC STUDIES (1) Code Switching - A conversation people talk to some people in one language while talking to others in a different language. (2) Dialect - Language used by poor or less powerful groups in the society. It consists of linguistic difference in pronunciation, vocabulary or syntax within a single language. (3) Genderlect - The different ways in which men and women speak in private and in public. - Deborah Tannen argues that male talk is focused on preserving independence and negotiating status. (4) Glottochronology - An advanced technique by which linguist separate out languages for studies. (5) Kinesics - Body motions and gestures used in nonverbal communication (6) Lexicon - The total stock of words in a language. (7) Morpheme - The smallest meaningful unit of a language. For example, ?s? as in dogs, ?un? as in undo, ?er? meaning ?one wo does? as in teacher. Because ?s?, ?un?, and ?er? cannot be used by themselves, but only in association with other units of letters, they are called Bound Morphemes. The word ?teacher? has 3 morphemes, ?teach? and ?er.? ?Undoes? has 3 morphemes: ?un?, ?do?, and ?s?. (8) Paralanguage - - Paralanguage relates to the extralinguistic noises that generally accompany language. - Examples of paralanguage include: the sounds of laughter, crying, yelling, whispering, yawning, belching, and so on. - Though not a primary means of communication, the importance of paralanguage cannot be underestimated. (9) Pidgin - A language which emerges when people combine terms from at least two languages and develop a simple grammatical structure to communicate with one another. (10) Creole - Creole is the accepted and adopted language that evolves from pidgin and used by a group of people. (11) Protolanguage - The oldest language in a given linguistic context; a parent language for ancient and modern languages. For example, Latin is a protolanguage of Western Europe. (12) Proximics - Study of the use of space in communication. In the American society people maintain different ?personal space? in different situations. File: CHAPTER 5 (13) Semantics - Relating to the meaning of words or phrases. (14) Syntax - Relating to the grammatical arrangement or combination of words to form meaningful phrases and sentences. (15) Universal grammar - A set of principles, conditions and rules that underlie all language. CHAPTER 5 MAKING A LIVING: FORAGING, HORTICULTURAL, PASTORAL, AGRARIAN, INDUSTRIAL & POST INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES INTRODUCTION Until about 10,000 years ago, humans lived by foraging (hunting, fishing, and the collection of vegetable foods). As the tools of ancient men improved, they spread out to many environments arriving the America and Australia about 25,000 years ago. About10,000 years ago and 4,000 years later human groups in the Old World and New World respectively, began to domesticate plants and animals. Though called the ?agricultural revolution?, the transition to food production was a gradual process which opened up many possibilities for the development of complex social organizations. (1) HUNTING-GATHERING/FORAGING SOCIETIES (A) GERHARD LENSKI?S TECHNOLOGICAL MODULE INTRODUCTION - Gerhard Lenski conceptualizes society as a place where differential technological levels shape people?s standard of life. - He uses the expression socio-cultural evolution to mean the changes that occur in society as it gains new technology. - According to Lenski, societies with simple technology, such as the Tuaregs of the Sahara Desert of Africa, have little or no control over the environment and can support only a small number of people. - As a society becomes more technologically complex (with its members having technological items such as cars, cellular phones, and a wide range of machines), it develops the ability to support larger populations in which people live affluent lives. - Technology expands economic and military strength. When our ancestors first discovered how to use wind and sail to move boats, they were able to go to new lands, greatly expanding their economy and military power. - Technology, brings about a dramatic change in lifestyle. Non-technological societies change very slowly, as seen in the case of the Tuaregs of the Sahara Desert of Africa. It is because of this slow change in Tuareg society that Sididi Ag Inaka, a Tuareg, says that ?I live the life of my ancestors? and every day is like any other day. - How many people in the U.S. can say that they are living the way their grand parents or great grand parents did? (1)HUTING GATHERING SOCIETIES Time - These existed from 3 million years ago to 10,000 to 12,000 years ago when humans discovered agriculture and the domestication of animals. Definition - People in hunting-gathering societies hunted animals and collected food items in the wild. Synonyms - Hunting-gathering societies are also called foraging, band, Paleolithic or Old Stone Age societies. Main Focus - Hunters and gatherers focused intensively on getting their next meal. Social Structure - Hunter-gatherers lived in bands (small social structures of about 15 to 50 kin-related people. - It was easier to work as blood relatives rather than strangers. - In each band, kin members produced and shared food and craft items among themselves, and production for trade was unknown. Tools - Hunters and gatherers had little or no technology to control or farm their environment. - They worked hard, and roved extensively to hunt animals for meat and to gather food with simple tools, such as: clubs, spears, stone scrappers, knives and blades, and bows and arrows. Life Style - They had a life style of constant mobility. - They were nomadic and always moved or roved to follow migrating animals or find new sources of food. - Although, they tended to return to favored sites, they were not sedentary and rarely formed permanent settlements. Distribution of Labor - Hunter-gatherers distributed labor based on gender and age. - Women generally gathered and men hunted. - However, even though men and women did different tasks, most hunter-gatherers saw both sexes as equal. - In addition, healthy adults did most of the work, leaving the very old and young to help as they could. Egalitarianism - Hunter-gatherers lived in egalitarian societies (socities in which everyone is almost equal). - Nobody owned the land. They hunted and gathered anywhere. - The status of everyone was pretty much the same. - All band members lived and hunted together, and shared everything they procured in common. - They did not have economic classes of wealthy and poor individuals. Personal Property - Since hunter-gatherers were nomadic; they did not accumulate property that could present problems of portage during their daily rounds. - There were no classes, and gender relations were equal, partly because women made substantial contribution to economic subsistence ? in many cases far more than males. Effects of Industrialization - Today?s industrial societies have exerted tremendous pressure on the few hunting-gathering societies left on the surface of the earth, greatly reducing their food supply. - Resultantly, hunting-gathering societies are disappearing from the surface of the earth at an alarming rate. - Only a few of them survive today, and it is doubtful if they will persist for long due to the persistent squeeze into their territory by technological industrial societies. Population - Hunter-gatherers willfully kept their populations small to facilitate movement during hunting and gathering, and to preserve enough environmental space for animals and plants. Spiritual Leaders - Most hunting and gathering societies had Shamans or Spiritual Leaders who enjoyed high prestige. - However, they had to work to procure food, like anybody else. Violence - In hunting-gathering societies, there were occasional raids, but no wars as we know them today. - The real enemies of hunter-gatherers were not other humans but the forces of nature, such as storms, droughts, wild fire, floods, strong winds, and earth quakes. Contemporary Known Examples - Contemporary known examples include: the Kung of the Sahara Desert, Mbuti Pygmies of Central Africa, Aborigines of Australia, and the Semang of Malaysia. (2) HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES Time & Tools - Between 10,000 and 12,000 years, Hunter-gatherers underwent a change of technology involving the production of better tools, such as: knives, axes, and hoes. - These tools made most of them to give up hunting and gathering, and settle down to start horticulture or garden agriculture. Definition - Swiden agriculture involved cutting down of the brush, burning it (to increase soil fertility), tilling the soil, and planting. Supplementary Activities - The supplementary activities of horticultural agriculture include: hunting, gathering, and fishing. Location - Today, most horticultural societies are found in the tropical rain forest parts of the world, especially in Central America, West Africa, and South East Asia. Synonyms - Other names of the horticultural lifestyle are: Swiden Farming, and Slash and Burn Agriculture. Characteristics - The main characteristics of horticultural agriculture are as follows: (i) Rotation ? The practice of farming 1 or a few plots every year and moving to another plot the following year, (ii) Fallow ? The practice of leaving the an exhausted plot that has been cultivated for sometime to regain its fertility for one or a few years, after which cultivation is restarted. (iii) Intercropping ? This is the practice of planting many crops on the same farm. Advantages - The advantages of horticultural economy include: (i) Production of food surplus, (ii) Higher standard of living compared to hunting-gathering, (iii) Accumulation of personal property, and growth of economic class differentiation, (iv) Development of slavery and caste system, (v) Development of land disputes and warfare, (vi) Rise of Chiefs to settle economic problems, and (vii) Availability of time to specialize on other life styles, e.g. trade, religion, education. (3) PASTORAL SOCIETIES Temporal Factor - About the same time horticultural societies were appearing in some fertile parts of the world, domestication was also taking place in some arid regions of the globe. Location - In North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, camels, cattle, sheep and goats were being domesticated, raised or pastured. Types - There are 2 main types of pastoral techniques, as follows: (i) Normadism ? This is the practice of following herds of animals as they migrate with the seasons, although they may be sedentary during some periods of the year. (ii) Transhumance ? This is the practice of moving animals up and down the hills or mountains according to the seasons. In summer, pastoralists are uphill, while in winter they are down in the valleys as the hills are too cold. - Pastoralists, generally, rent the land they use for grazing. Also, they tend to settle near agricultural or farming groups where they can easily exchange animal products with food items. Social Differentiation or Inequality - Pastoralists have the same level of social differentiation as found among horticulturalists. - They generate production surplus that can be used for trade, and to support full-time specialists. - Thus, pastoralists have social inequality as wealthy families accumulate larger herds of animals compared to poorer families. Religion - It is interesting to note that all the major religions of the world originated in pastoral societies. They include: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Survivability - Like hunting-gathering and horticultural societies, pastoral societies have their influence increasingly limited by industrial societies. (4) AGRARIAN SOCIETIES Temporal Factor and Technological Development - About 5000 years ago, the plow (and dragged by animals or machines) was invented in the Middle East, and this marked the beginning of Intensive Agricultural Economy, that changed the entire face of human history. Earliest Agrarian Societies - The earliest agrarian societies started in the valleys of the great river valleys of the world, as follows: (a) Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq (due to a refinement of the metallurgical technology- Childe 1951), (b) Nile in Egypt, (c) Ganges in India, (d) Yangtse in China, and (e) Later in Peru. Results of Plow Economy - Food surplus far beyond anything ever realized, - Increase population, urbanization and first cities. - Development of occupational specialization (metallurgy, pottery, and wood working), - Rapid expansion of knowledge ? Invention of writing, intensification of learning and research (mathematics, Philosophy, Theology, literature, architecture, and the sciences). - Development of internal and long distance trade, - Rise of powerful divine rulers with formidable aristocracy, - Development of elaborate irrigation systems, - Development of First Legal Codes, and - Increase conflict and warfare. Survivability - Today, most of the world is agrarian. - Where the agrarian economy persists, the family or kinship continues to be important. - However, like the other kinds of societies, agrarian societies are under great stress from modern industrial societies. (5) INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES - These are societies that mass produce goods using machines driven by advanced sources of energy. - Industrial societies originated in Europe in the second part of the 18th century, during which time people congregated around factories where they worked using machines equipment. - This led to the development of surplus production, domestic trade and long distance trade. - The time also witnessed improvements in agriculture, education, and medicine. - With time industrial societies spread to other parts of the world. Main characteristics of the Industrial Societies - Industrial societies are characterized by: - The intensive use of Capital (Money) and Technology, - Division of labor, - Differentiated labor force, - Gender inequality, - Pronounced bureaucracy, - Pronounced socio-economic stratification, - Destruction of the family or kinship system, - Pronounced individualism, - Impersonal relationships (More emphasis on regulations and principles and less emphasizes on acquaintance and feelings), - Rigid respect of time, and - Respect of academic qualification over respect of age, - Overcrowding and environmental pollution, - Increase in crime, drugs, unlawful sexual intercourse, and prostitution, - Increase sexual or venereal diseases, - Extensive environmental exploitation and destruction, and - Air pollution, global warming, and flooding because land reclamation is pushing the sea to limits it cannot tolerate. Advantages - Attractive factory wages and unattractive family work without pay. - Improved diseased diagnosis and treatment, - Easy movement to work, earned money, and reduced boredom, - Access to western education, easy transportation, the internet, radio television, the cinema, other urban facilities, (Zoos, Museums, parks), - Illusion of liberty, freedom, and democracy, and - Ability to make independent choices without control by kinship members. (6) POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES Definition - Post Industrial Societies are emerging technological societies that emphasize information management or processing. Examples - Two examples of post industrial societies are: the U.S.A. and Japan. Critical Success Pre-Requisites - In post-industrial societies, education and technical training become exceedingly important, and individuals without them tend to have low-paying unskilled work, or remain permanently jobless altogether. The U.S as Both an Industrial and post-Industrial Society . - The U.S. is both an industrial and a post-industrial society since its people are employed in the production of industrial goods, the processing of information, and the provision of services. File: CHAPTER 6 Dependence of Post Industrial Societies on Global Economy - Post-industrial societies are becoming increasingly dependent on a global economy for: - The acquisition of gas, raw economic materials and services, - The creation and maintenance of service markets, - Acquisition of middle-class industrial laborers, and - The hosting of large multi-national corporations by third world nations that exploit them for the cheap production of goods. Result of dependence - The result of this dependence is an increase in global poverty and inequality. CHAPTER 6 ECONOMIC ANTHROPOLOGY DEFINITION Economics is a discipline that studies the choices individuals and societies make, as it concerns the production, distribution and consumption of valuable but scarce goods and services, such as - Wealth/Money, - Land, and - Labor. - All economic activities take place within a cultural context. The choices or economic decisions people make are very much dependent on cultural values. - Culture determines: - who produces what, - the ways goods and services are distributed, and - how they are consumed. ASSUMPTIONS OF ECONOMICS Economists have the following assumptions: (a) Human needs are unlimited and the means of achieving them are limited, (b) In other to procure unlimited needs with limited means, individuals or organizations must make the best decisions or choices, and (c) The best decisions/choices are those that seek to minimize work and maximize profits (Dalton 1961). - The big problems with making the best choices that maximize profits and minimize work are that: (a) What is the best decision/choice for one group may be the worst decision or choice for other groups, and (b) What is maximum profit for one group may be minimum profit for other groups. VALUABLE ECONOMIC RESOURCES IN DIFFERENT ECONOMIC SYSTEMS - The stability or productivity of an economic system depends on the allocation or distribution of scarce economic resources. Such resources include land, water, labor, tools, and knowledge or technical know-how. In Hunting-Gathering economic system: - Land is the most valuable economic resource. - Land is: - Collectively owned, - Settlement on it is spread out, - Boundaries are flexible, - Whatever is hunted or collected by one person or group is commonly distributed, and - Society emphasizes social equality or egalitarianism. In Horticultural, Swiden or Slash and Burn Economic System: - Land is the most valuable resource. - Land is: - Typically owned by elders or household heads, - Cannot be sold, - Used mainly for settlement and agriculture, - Agriculture involves slash and burn, rotation, fallow, and intercropping. In Pastoral Economy: - Livestock, land, and water are the most valuable resources, - Livestock are owned and managed by families or household heads. - Livestock produces meat, milk and butter, for direct consumption. - Livestock also serves as wealth, and medium of exchange for goods and services. - Land and Water are, generally, not owned. - Animal rearing involves transhumance. In summer or rainy season animals are grazed uphill, while in winter or dry season they are grazed on crop wastes in valleys, on the lands of settled farmers, by agreements. - Such agreements specify ownership rights, payments amounts, and specific periods of use by both parties. In Agrarian or Intensive Agricultural Economy, - Land is: - Privately owned, by big landlords who employ laborers or peasants to work on their fields/manors on a stipend. - Farms are intensively cleared, cultivated and maintained. - Landlords have a relatively high standard of living compared to the peasants or serfs. - Agrarian lifestyle is characterized by use of the plow, canals /irrigation and terraces. - Among the Lacandon Maya, individual ownership over a piece of land is defined by claiming, clearing and cultivating a portion of virgin forest. - When individuals migrate, they transfer their land ownership rights temporarily to their family members or lose his rights of it. - When land owners die, after investing time and labor in clearing and planting a piece of land, the land is inherited by his wives and children (McGee 1990). ORGANIZATION OF LABOR Basic Unit of Production and Consumption In many small-scale pre-industrial and peasant economic systems, the household is the basic unit of production and consumption is the household. Definition of Household - The household is a group of people who share: - Knship, - A common residence, and - Production, distribution and consumption of good. Difference Between a Household and A Family - A household is different from a family in that a household includes: - servants, - lodgers, - guests and - other individuals, - who all produce, distribute and consume their own goods and services. - In economic systems where households form the units of production, there is little growth. This is because households do not expand or contract with economic fluctuation, and they are slow to fire their members and admit new workers. Occupational Specialization - In Intensive Agricultural and Industrial Economies we have occupational or economic specialization of labor based on sex, training, and class or cast. Occupational or economic specialization intensifies as agricultural and economic activities become more complex. - In India, the culture of the cast system calls for well defined economic or occupational specialization. - Economic roles and services are distributed according to hereditary groups called casts, for example: - casts for washing clothes, - casts for drumming at festivals, - Religious leaders casts, \- Potter casts, and - Painter casts. - Today?s modern industrial world is made up of a wide range of specialists. Advantages - Specialization leads to: - Greater efficiency in the production of goods and services, - Food surplus, and - Development of trade. Disadvantages - However, specialization also leads to: - boredom, - alienation, and - physical and emotional stress, so much so that Meyers (2004) wrote as follows: ?The machine is my boss.? DISTRIBUTION, EXCHANGE SYSTEMS AND CONSUMPTION INTRODUCTION - Economic systems are characterized by the exchange of goods and services. - Marcel Mauss, a great French anthropologist (1924/1990), theorized that: - It is the giving and receiving of goods that holds societies together, - humans are obligated to each other through exchange, and - ?it is better to give than to receive.? MAIN PATTERNS OF EXCHANGE Or RECIPROCITIES - The main patterns of exchange are as follows: Reciprocity, Redistribution, Cargo System, and Market System. Although many societies have more than one kind of the above-mentioned exchange and consumption systems, each system is predominantly associated with a specific kind of political and social organization. (1) RECIPROCITIES - This is a kind of exchange that takes place mostly in foraging societies. Three kinds of reciprocities have been distinguished, as follows: (a) Generalized Reciprocity ? This is the exchange of goods and services without keeping track of their exact value, but often with the expectation that their value will balance out over time. This type of exchange takes place within family members and in it no immediate return is expected. (b) Balanced Reciprocity ? This is the exchange of goods and services of a specific value at a specific time and place. This type of exchange takes place between other members of the community and in it there is usually a mutual exchange of goods; - A good example of balanced reciprocity id barter. - Barter is a system of distribution or exchange in which goods are exchanged for goods. - Barter is a form of trade. However, while trade generally involves personal face to face contact between buyers and sellers, barter may not involve face to face interaction between the two. (c) Negative Reciprocity ?This is the unsociable exchange of goods, in which each party tries as much as possible, to benefit at the expense of another. - Negative reciprocity is characterized by impersonal and unfriendly transactions between groups which define insiders and outsiders, considering it morally wrong to cheat insiders and right to dupe outsiders using practices such as stealing or even witchcraft. - This type of exchange takes place between strangers, especially in the market place. In it, each party tries to receive much more value than he or she gives. Examples of negative reciprocity: Potlatch and Barter. - The Potlatch is a ceremonial feast among Kwa Kwaka?waka or Kwakiutl Indians of the Pacific Northwest, in which host kings distributed to guests a great deal of defective outdated foods and goods accumulated over many months or years. - Barter an exchange pattern in which one exchange a product one has in excess for another product one needs ? barter, therefore, is as good as throwing away excess. (2) REDISTRIBUTION Definition of Redistribution ? Redistribution is a pattern of economic exchange which takes place in Agrarian or Intensive Agricultural Societies. - Redistribution calls for: - rise of Leaders or Organizers who collect excess from other and redistributed it to others in large public gatherings. - Redistribution, is characterized by: - A social center to which goods are brought, and from which goods are redistributed; - A significant social event, such as a birth, marriage or death celebration, or a rite of passage (social event that marks the transition of an individual from one age group to the other); and - A Ceremonial political climate, such as the installation of chiefs in Melanesia and Polynesia; Classical Examples of Redistribution in Anthropology (A) The Kula Exchange - The Kula Exchange was a ceremonial trade of valued objects practiced by people in a number of Trobriand Islands. - This trade was described by Branislaw Malinowski in his book entitled Argonauts of the Western Pacific ([1922] 1961). - His account showed how red-shell necklaces or ?souleva? and white-shell armbands (bracelets) or ?nwali? were ritually exchanged from one island to the other by a network of male traders. - The red-shell necklaces or ?souleva? traditionally traveled in a clockwise direction while the white-shell armbands or ?mwali? traditionally traveled in an anti-clockwise direction. - These items were in circulation all the time, and their size or volume had to be kept perfectly matched or balanced (hence, balanced reciprocity). - People did not keep the items for very long; in fact, they seldom wore them; and there was no haggling or discussion of their price by any of the traders. - Trobriand males were inducted into the trade through an elaborate ritualistic process of training regarding the proper etiquette and magical practices of the Kula. Younger males learned about the practices of the Kula from their fathers or mother?s brothers. - Trade in utilitarian goods such as tobacco, pottery, coconuts, fish, baskets, and mats were also exchanged in the Kula exchange process by Trobriand Islands trading partners. - For these utilitarian objects, the partners could haggle and discuss prices. Malinowski referred to this as Secondary Trade or Barter because their exchange involved the direct exchange of one commodity for another. - Branislaw Malinowski argued that the real essence of the Kula Trade was the fact that it created emotional ties among trading partners, the utilitarian trade being only secondary or incidental. - Because his analysis of the Kula Trade was very sophisticated or lofty, Malinowski is often referred to as the first substantivist economic anthropologists. He hypothesized that the production and exchange of utilitarian goods were embodied in the social practices and cultural norms of the kula exchange, which was non-economic. - Some anthropologists, however, have hypothesized that the ceremonial trade was only a ritualistic means by chiefs to conduct more utilitarian transactions of material goods. - Annette Weiner (1987), for example, in her study of the kula trade discovered that Malinowski had overlooked the kitomus, royal shells of armbands and necklaces periodically introduced by chiefs into the kula system to attract new partners and new wealth, and used for bride wealth payments and funeral expenses. - The kitomu were more like money, and their introduction into the kula system by chiefs was the taking of economic risk to accumulate valuable private profit. If the chiefs gained new trade partners by their introduction, they certainly made more wealth, but if they failed to make new trade partners, they certainly lost the investment. - For Annette Weiner, therefore, the kula exchange was not a system of balanced reciprocity; it was a system of economic competition in which chiefs aimed at maximizing their economic, political and social status, and at accumulating profits. - Thus, even though the kula emphasized the notions of equality and reciprocity, these notions were in fact an illusion. In actual fact, trading partners tried to achieve the opposite, to gain ever-larger profits and status for themselves. - Malinowski failed to see that the trade items of the kula, referred to as ?wealth finances? greatly contributed in establishing the high social prestige of the chiefs. - In the Kula Trade, only the chiefs were able to control the extensive labor needed to construct the large canoes that were used in conducting the trade. - Thus, the chiefs benefited enormously from the kula exchange (Earle 1987, Johnson and Earle 2000). (B) The Potlatch - A second example of a chiefdom redistribution system is the Potlatch. - Potlatches were intra and inter-tribal competitive feasts that linked the Indian tribes of the Northwest coast into a regional alliance and exchange network. - Potlatching or competitive feasting is a characteristic of many economic societies. - However, it is typically found in agrarian or Intensive Agricultural societies and Industrial societies. - Potlatches were found among the Native American Indians of the Northwest Coast. - The Potlatches of Northwest Coast Indians were studied and described at length by Franz Boas (1930), and later interpreted by Ruth Benedict (1934). - The word ?potlatch? is a Chinook word that means ?give-away party.? - In a potlatch, local chiefs collected and gave away large quantities of goods and resources in what appeared to be a highly wasteful manner. - Native American Indians organized potlatches: - when young people were initiated into society, - during marriage celebrations, and - during funerals ceremonies. - In preparation for these festivals, families donated valuable goods such as: food, drinks, fish, blankets, animal skins, and berries to chiefs for redistribution. - During the potlatches, chiefs competed to out beat their competitors in giving away or destroying as much wealth as possible. - The more goods a chief gave away or destroyed, the more grew his status or reputation. - Ruth Benedict associated potlatches or competitive rivalry feasts among the Indian tribes of the Northwest Coast to their megalomaniac or infantile personality type. - However, contemporary anthropologists, however, see the Indian potlatch feasts as primarily a measure of redistribution. - Despite the abundance of resources in the Northwest Coast Region, there were regional variations and periodic fluctuations in the supply of salmon and other products. In some areas people had more than they needed, while in others people suffered from frequent scarcities. - Given these circumstances, the potlatch helped in redistributing surpluses and special local products to all the villages in need (Piddocke 1965). - Through these elaborate redistributive feasts and conspicuous consumption, the chiefs presented themselves as the providers of food and security to the population. (C) The Cargo System (iv) This is an economic redistribution system aimed a leveling wealth or services and thus promoting social equality, by appointing specific wealthy and prosperous individuals to important religious and political offices called cargos, which call on them to periodically organized and pay for elaborate public feasts or celebrations. - The Cargo System was studied by Manning Nash (1961) and June Nash (1970) in the village of Amatenango, Mexico. - Cargos are ranked and those held by older and wealthier individuals are considered more prestigious. - Cargo Systems are characterized by the following: (i) Organization of labor around the household, (ii) Emphasis on inheritance, and (iii) Frequent witchcraft accusations ? in which rich but selfish officers or leaders are accused of witchcraft, executed, and their property distributed, (D) Taxation - Taxation is the practice of governments collecting, hoarding and redistributing goods and services to their citizens through the provision of social or public amenities. - Taxation takes place generally in modern industrial economies. - In theory, the value of these monies collected in taxes is redistributed equitably to citizens in the form of public services such as roads, water, education, criminal justice system, and defense. - In practice, however, many systems of taxation are flawed with imperfections. In most tax systems the assumption is that income tax makes equitable the tax burden so that richer people pay a higher percentage of their earnings as income tax compared to the poor is flawed, because in many nations, today, wealthy people have many ways to reduce their taxes while poor people end up shouldering a disproportionate burden of taxation. (E) Market Exchange Definition: - Market Exchange is an economic exchange system in which goods, products or services are exchanged between buyers and sellers in a specific geographical environment called market, involving the use of money or currency. Characteristics: (a) Face-to-face relationships: - For a long time, market exchange has traditionally been characterized by face to face interpersonally contact. - However, today, market exchange has increasingly assumed a more abstract impersonal nature through the use of the e-mail and internet. (b)Relentless efforts to increase financial gains or profit: - In the Market System, sellers and buyers make sustained efforts to increase profits. Erroneous Assumptions: - In the Market System is based on the following fallacious assumptions: (a) The assumption that the value of goods and services is determined by supply and demand. - This assumption, however, is not always true: other factors contribute in determining the value of goods and services, e.g. beauty, personality, or charisma of the seller or buyer of goods or services. (b) The assumption that the value or price of all goods and services is fixed. - However, in practice, the market system in many societies of the world involves haggling (practice by which sellers and buyers beat up and beat down the prices of goods and services, respectively) in an attempt to make the most profit. Status Of Market Distribution - Market distribution or exchange is the most common type of redistribution in modern societies, although it is also found in traditional societies. - In modern societies, the Market Exchange, generally, involves impersonal contact, even though it also has specific geographical environments called markets. Results Of Market Exchange (Class System & Capitalism) - The principle of capitalism emphasizes ever-increasing desire by owners of the means of production to increase their profit. (F) Capitalism - In the capitalist system is an exchange or distribution system in which few individuals or institutions have a monopoly of the means or production and distribution. - It is a system in which individual of the poor working class sell their labor to the rich or propertied classes who are out to make as much profit as possible through mass production and distribution. - The Capitalist System strated in Europe during the Industrial revolution, and spread to other parts of the world - In it, factory owners organize and produce goods and services. - Workers have no control over the means of production, and sell their labor to factory owners for a wage. - According to the Marxist paradigm, this relationship enables us to divide capitalist economies into 2 basic classes, Capitalists or Bourgeosie who own the means of production and Workers or Proletariats who provide services. (d) The workers produce surplus value or value greater than the wage they are paid, while (e) The industrial owners take this surplus value as their profit. - Unlike traditional indigenous subsistence economies which strive for balance and stability in the distribution of labor and benefits reaped, the capitalist economies strive for continuous, none-stop increase in profits especially for the upper classes. - Capitalists raise profits by: - increasing and improving the means of production, - purchasing more machinery, File: CHAPTER 7 - introducing new technologies, and - employing cheap or inexpensive labor. Popular Erroneous Notions About the Capitalist System - The Capitalist system has some popular Ideological constructs aimed at validating the profits of factory owners or propertied class and justifying the low status of factory workers, as follows: (1) The enormous assumption that the wealth made by property classes or factory owners is ?natural? and legitimate because they work hard for it. (2) PThe irrineous assumption that propertied or factory owners deserve their profits or wealth, because properties owners are more intelligent, have more foresight, take more risks, make more sacrifices, and work harder than others in society. (3) Ther irroneous assumption that, in contrast, the destitute position of factory workers originates from their personal failings (stupidity and laziness) rather than from fundamental social and economic factors. What Holds Capitalism Together - Capitalism is upheld by the enforcement of: (a) political beliefs and (b) religious beliefs, both of which make capitalists and workers accept their differential economic and social positions without question. CHAPTER 7 KINSHIP AND DESCENT DEFINITION OF KINSHIP Kinship refers to patterned social relationships or ties among people in society, based on consanguinity (the exchange of blood or sexual intercourse), affinity (marriage), and other arbitrary criteria (such as adoption), which link people in a web of mutual rights, expectations, and obligations. - Anthropologists are interested in these patterned social relations or ties because they determine the nature of inter-social behavior, the expectations people of others in society, the extent of social cohesion, and the life span of social institutions. FUNCTIONS OF KINSHIP - Kinship relations or ties give individuals survival fitness. - They enable individuals in society to: - Establish affinal ties with other group members in order to enjoy the privileges and responsibilities of group membership, - Trace their descent and understand their roots, - share a common nominal identity, develop social solidarity, and increase survival fitness, - Distinguish and select appropriate marital and sexual partners, - Assume social statuses and roles, - Play vital social roles such as: the enculturation of children, care of the elderly, and the organization of burial and funeral rituals for the deceased, and - Take over inheritance. - The above-mentioned functions are critical for human survival, especially in traditional societies with non-monetary economies, which require kin members to work as a team. - In western industrial monetary societies, kinship is important but not central for individual survival because here money can be used to resolve problems that in traditional societies would require kinship members. MAIN KINSHIP SYMBOLS (A) MATHEMATICAL OR DIAGRAMATIC SYMBOLS Anthropologists use the following symbols to in analyzing kinship structures: (1) Triangle = male (2) Circle = female (3) Triangle or Circle with filled interior = deceased male or female (4) Triangle or Circle with diagonal bar = deceased male or female (5) Square = unspecified gender (6) Vertical line = descent (7) Horizontal line with male/female symbols = condescend, as in the case of siblings (8) Equal sign = marriage (9) Equal sign with diagonal bar = divorced (B) ALPHABETICAL SYMBOLS (1) F = Father (2) M = Mother (3) B = Brother (4) W = Wife (5) H = Husband (6) S = Son (7) Z = Sister (8) D = Daughter (9) C = Child For example, FZH = Mother?s Sister?s Husband, and MH = Mother?s Husband. MAIN BASIC BUILDING BLOCK OF KINSHIP - The basic building block of kinship is the family. Definition - A family is a group of people (parents, children, siblings, grandparents, grand-children, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, cousins, spouses, siblings-in-law, parents-in-law, children-in-law) considered related consanguineously (by blood, descent or descent), by affinity (marriage) or fiction (other criteria). - In traditional societies, the members of one family generally live together. - However, in western industrial societies, members tend to live apart but organize periodic family meetings from time to time. Main Types of Families - The main types of families include: nuclear family, family of orientation, family of procreation, and extended family. (a) Nuclear family - This is a family that is made up of two spouses and their siblings. It is the core family type on which larger family types are built. - Most people in the U.S. see the nuclear family as the ideal or preferred family type. - The Nuclear Family is most often associated with a Neolocal Residence, and an independent householdl. - In Industrial Societies, the neolocal family is adaptive to: (a) Constant mobility required by an industrial economic system, (b) Pre-sexual romance (the emotional bond between married people, (c) Respect for privacy, (d) Respect for independence, and (e) Respect for Equality. - However, while equality is the ideal, research indicates that American women who work fulltime are also responsible for most housework, and child care. (b) Family of Orientation - This is the family in which one is raised or socialized. (c) Family of procreation - This is the family in which one is born. (d) Extended family - This is a family with many relatives (such as grandparents, aunts, and uncles) live in the same household). - Although uncommon, there are some extended families in the U.S. The extended family has some advantages over the nuclear family. Member can easily handle crisis such as death, divorce and illness. Moreover, members can easily chip in labor and resources for larger economic projects. - Extended Families are ideal in more than 1/2 of the world?s societies. Yet, they are generally found among landlords and wealthy merchants. Types of Extended Families - Two types of Extended Families exist, as follows: (a) the Patrilineal Extended Family and (b) the Matrilineal Extended Family. (i) The Patrilineal Extended Family - This is an extended family organized around a man, his sons, and his sons? wives and children. - In then residence is patrilocal. Patrilocal Extended Families are common in rural China (175). - They are adaptive for hunting- gathering and agricultural societies where men must work cooperatively. (ii) Matrilineal Extended Families - This is an extended family organized around a woman, her daughters, and her daughters? husbands and children. - In them residence is matrilocal. Examples are found in Southern India, among the Mayors (soldier castes) of Kerala (176). - Matrilineal Extended Families are adaptive in horticultural societies where women have an important economic role, or where horticulturalists are patrilocal. Advantages of Extended Families - The advantages of the Extended Family are mainly economic in perspective: for example, extended families: (1) Provide cheap labor for food production and marketing handicrafts. (2) Keep land intact for future generations, rather than divided into small parcels because of inheritance. - Land ownership is important for pride, prestige and power. (3) Offer companionship, consolation and security for individuals in crisis situations. - For example, Matrilocal Extended Families provide companionship, comfort and stability in societies where warfare constantly takes males away from the home (The Nayar are an example,176). (4) Give elders a sense of participation and dignity, and make them not to look like burdens to society. CHANGING NATURE OF THE AMERICAN NUCLEAR FAMILY (2) Single-Parent Families - Statistics show that the American society is experiencing an increasing number of single-parent, primarily single- mother households. - Over 50% of American families are headed by a single parent. Reasons: - The causes of this increase in single parenting in the U.S. include: (a) New forms of contraceptives discovered in the 1960s; (b) A cultural climate that discourages marriage and promotes sexual intercourse. (c) Poverty, and (d) Increase teen marriages. (e) Absorption of the roles of traditional families by other institutions, such as follows: - peer group members, - state ? which has absorbed other family functions such as caring for the sick and elderly, and - schools ? which have taken over the duty of childhood socialization. MAIN PRINCIPLES OF KINSHIP - Of particular interest to anthropologists are social relations or ties originating from the following kinship principles: (a) The Principle of Descent - The Principle of Descent examines the kinship relations of a given individual or group of people from the point of view of shared totems (animals or plants supposed to be the ancestors of a group of people), shared ancestors, shared grand parents, or shared parents. (C) The Principle of Affinity - The Principle of Affinity examines kin relations from the perspective of marital connections. This Principle, therefore, examines mother- in-law, father-in-law, son-in-law and daughter-in-law relationships. - It also examines relationships such as those involving aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews. (c) The Principle of Consanguinity - The Principle of Consanguinity examines the kin ties of an individual or group of people from the point of view of the sharing of blood or sexual intercourse. An example of a consanguineous relationship is a husband-wife relationship. (d) The Sibling Principle - The Sibling Principle examines the kin ties of an individual or group of people by viewing them as the sons, daughters, or children of the same individual, family, lineage, or clan. An example of a sibling relationship is the one between brother-brother, sister-sister and sister- brother. (D) The Fictive Principle - The Fictive Principle examines kin relations from an arbitrary, non-consanguineous, non-affinal perspective. - This principle examines relations based on adoption factors, class factors or age group factors. - A typical example of a consideration of the fictive principle in kinship ties is the relationship between Godfather and godson and godmother and goddaughter (compadrazgo) among Mexicans. - Other examples include the relationship among individuals in men or women secret societies, relationship among peer group members and that among class mates or school mates. - Some of such relationships can be as intense or even more intense than a mother-daughter and father-son relationship. - The establishment of kin relationships is a cultural universal. However, kinship patterns and the expectations that go with them vary dramatically from one culture to another. MAIN DESCENT PATTERNS IN THE PRINCIPLE OF DESCENT - With respect to the principle of descent, anthropologists identify the following descent patterns: (1) Unilineal Descent Principle - A Unilineal Descent Pattern is a descent pattern which calls on individuals in a kinship universe to trace kin relations or ties strictly from the mother?s side or father?s side, but not both. - Such an arrangement reinforces kin group solidarity. - The establishment of unilineal descent kinship ties is related to an attempt to control economic resources beyond the nuclear family. - Unilineal descent groups have fixed or clearly defined kin boundaries since membership in them is based on ascription or biology rather than on adoption. - Also, an individual?s membership in a unilineal kinship system is fixed or unchanging. This makes unilineal kinship system very different from ambilineal kinship systems, which have fluctuating membership. - Unilineal kinship groups have fixed kin boundaries; their members have intense social solidarity; and they form corporate groups or groups whose members own common property, take unanimous decisions, and meet constantly to partake in a wide variety of rituals (including rights of passage). (2) Double, Bilineal Or Bilateral Descent Principle - A Double or Bilateral Kinship Descent Pattern is a multilineal, non-unilineal, kinship descent pattern in which ego or a given individual in the kinship universe traces kin ties through both the father?s line and mother?s lines. - This means that in a bilateral kin group ego has flexibility of choosing the kin members with whom he or she wants to affiliate. - Tracing descent from a double or bilateral perspective implies that individuals in double, bilineal or bilateral descent kinship groups have a greater pool of kin relatives than individuals in unilineal descent groups, and therefore a greater chance of survival fitness. - It also implies that while kinship boundaries in unilineal descent groups are fixed or inflexible, kinship boundaries in bilineal or double descent groups tend to be flexible or shifting due to factors such as: divorces, remarriages, deaths and births. - Because the member of double/bilateral or bilineal kinship groups have constantly shifting consanguineous and affinal kin, double descent kinship groups have more fragile social solidarity than unilineal descent groups. - The bilateral kin group includes consanguineous and affinal kin on both the mother's side and father?s sides. In them kin ties fluctuate due to deaths, divorces, remarriages, and individual?s ability to choose significant kin. - It is important to note that, in bilateral or double descent kinship systems individuals do not trace kin ties indefinitely; they stop searching for meaningful kin relations when they have a good-enough pool of kindred to work with. This means that each ego or individual in the system has a different pool of kindred. In other words, the number of kindred each individual has is ego-centered, that is, can be figured out only in reference to a specific ego. This is far from saying that in a bilateral or double descent kinship system the number of kindred each individual has is egocentric, or ?self-centered.? - Because kin boundaries in bilateral kinship systems are not fixed (as in the case of unilineal kinship systems) but fluid or flexible, bilateral kinship systems are not corporate groups, that is, members do not own property in common and cannot make any unanimous decisions. (3) Ambilineal Or Cognative Descent Principle - An Ambilineal or Cognative Kinship Descent pattern is a unilineal descent pattern which requires ego or an individual in the kinship universe, to affiliate with or trace his or her descent from either the matrilineal kin group or patrilineal kin group. - Such a system provides ego (individual in a kinship universe) more flexibility and greater survival fitness than the unilineal descent principle because it permits individuals to affiliate with the descent group that promises them more resources. - It is a principle which assumes that in a kinship universe the formation of kin ties is not fixed, but fluid or flexible, depending on such variables as: individual choice, divorce, death, adoption, and so on. (4) Parallel Kinship Descent Principle - A parallel kinship descent pattern is a unilineal kinship descent pattern in which male individuals trace kin ties from male ancestors (including the significant consanguineous members of the line), while the women trace their origin or kin ties from female ancestors (including the significant consanguineous members of the line). - Such descent patterns promote patriarchy (male dominance), matriarchy (female dominance), and the separation of the male and female sexes in different kinship systems. - Parallel descent kinship systems also promote sexual differential in the distribution of social and economic statuses and roles. - It is most appropriate in kinship groups, which have male and female secret societies. MAJOR KINSHIP STRUCTURES (1) LINEAGES - A lineage is a unilineal, corporate descent kinship system whose members trace their descent from a known common ancestor, or demonstrate genealogical linkages to a common known ancestor. - In a lineage all the people believe to be the descendants of one ancestor whose name they know. This founding ancestor may be historical, mythical or totemic (in the case where members of a lineage believe that they originated from a tree or plant), or a little of both. - The members of a lineage form Corporate Groups with intense solidarity. The members of such groups share close consanguineous and affinal ties. They have common property and wealth, and meet consistently to share rituals and take common decisions. - Lineage members tend to reside together in the same geographical area, know one another intimately by name, do not practice endogamy or in-group marriage, and consistently share domestic and economic activities. This makes lineages different from clans whose members tend to build on a wider geographical area, meet rarely or sparingly, do not know one another intimately, and only periodically share political and religious functions. - Lineages have kin group of various sizes, own collective wealth, and members are related to one another intimately in an extensive genealogy. Main Types of Lineages (a) Patrilineages - The patrilineal kinship system is a unilineal, corporate, descent system in which ego or an individual in the kinship universe traces his or her descent strictly from the father?s line. - In the patrilineal descent system all individuals trace origin through their fathers and fathers brothers, rather than through their mothers and mother?s sisters. - Membership in a patrilineal kinship system is based on ascription (birth) and not achievement (hard work). - A patrilineage is a corporate group because its members generally own property in common, meet consistently, and take unanimous decisions. (b) Matrilineages - The matrilineal descent group is a kinship group in which ego and other individuals in the kinship universe trace descent strictly from the mother?s line. - In matrilineal descent groups, all individuals trace origin or descent through their mothers and mother?s sisters rather than through their fathers and father?s brothers. - As is the case with patrilineages, in matrilineages membership is ascriptive. - (2) CLANS, KINDRED, TOTEMIC OR CORPORATE DESCENT GROUPS Description - A clan is a unilineal descent group whose members trace their descent from a common ancestor whose name is not known, or the links to whom are not specified. - Clans are widespread all over the world. We fine them among the Scots of Scotland, Irish of Ireland, Chinese, and Australian aborigines. - Clans practice endogamy across a pluralism of lineages that constitute them. - Clans are often named or associated with a totem, which is a feature of the natural environment (generally an animal or plant) believed to be an ancestor or founder of a clan and treated with a lot of care and respect by members of the clan. - The solidarity of clans is emphasized through insignias, names, and the above-mentioned totems. - Many clans reinforce the notion of a totemic ancestor in their art, names, folklore, and rituals. These totemic ancestors are often called upon to assist in healing when a clan member is ill or is suffering some misfortune. - Because members of a clan sometimes own collective property in the form of land, livestock, and sacred objects, anthropologists often describe them as corporate descent groups or kindred groups. - Like modern corporations, clans have an existence which is independent of that of their members. Old members of clans or corporate groups consistently die but new ones are born to take their places, while the clan or kindred continues to exist and operate through times. - Compared to lineages, clans are much more loose social structures, have members who practice endogamy (in-group marriage) across the lineage groups that constitute them, and who do not own collective property. Main Types Of Clans (a) Patriclans ? A Patriclan is a unilineal group of kins whose members trace descent from a common male ancestor who is not known. (b) Matriclans ? A Matriclan is a unilineal group of kins whose members trace descent from a common female ancestor who is not known. (3) PHRATRY KINSHIP GROUPS - A phratry consists of a conglomeration of clans whose members feel that they are closely related. - Typical examples are found in Scotland and among the Hopi of Arizona. (4) MOIETY KINSHIP GROUPS - A Moiety is a composite of 2 unilineal descent groups whose members live side by side, reciprocally helping one another. - Each moiety may either be patrilineal or matrilineal in their descent principle. - Where moieties exist, they members render one another mutual help, reciprocally exchanging marital partners, and supporting one another during rituals such as religious services, and other ceremonial activities. - Most often, the names of moieties are oppositional terms associated with qualities of the universe, for example, left and right, sea and land, night and day, sky and earth, or war and peace. - Examples are found: among the Abelam of New Guinea (called "Us" and "Them?), among the Tlingit of the Pacific coast of North Canada and Alaska where they are called "Ravens" and "Wolfs". Others are found among the Mardudjara aborigines of Australia, and the Seneca Iroquois of North America. (5) FICTIVE OR NON-DESCENT GROUPS - A fictive or non-descent kinship principle is one which recognizes the arbitrary assignment of members into a kinship group, and which does not respect consanguinity and affinity in the assignment of members to kinship structures. - Some examples of fictive or non-descent kinship groups include: groups with adopted individuals, age group members, voluntary group members (such as church groups), and many more. - In fictive groups with adopted individuals, adoption may be brought about by the following conditions: (a) childless nuclear families, (b) patrilineal descent group without a male heirs to fill desired kinship roles, and (c) need to provide children with compadrazgo relatives as in the case among Mexicans. - In Mexicans, a child is provided with godparents or compadrazgo, who are fictive kins obligated to provide financial and patronage assistance to the child at key moments of the child?s development. - In case the biological parents of the child die, the godparents are expected to step into the parental role. (6) JOKING RELATIONSHIP KINSHIP GROUPS - These are groups with a joking relationship between sets of relatives. Joking may be in the forms of flirtation, sexual innuendoes, and even explicit sexual remarks. This type of behavior is found most commonly between cross cousins in societies where cross-cousin marriages are preferred. Joking relations also may be common between an individual and his or her spouse?s same sex sibling. For example, a woman may joke with her husband?s brother, or a man may joke with his wife?s sister who in some cultures are potential spouses, and may be preferred marriage partners in the event of the death of one?s own husband or wife. These joking relationships between these types of relatives (cross cousins or spouse?s siblings) acknowledge the potential sexual or marital relationship that is possible between the individuals. (7) AVOIDANCE RELATIONSHIP KINSHIP GROUPS - Some kinship groups practice relationships of avoidance or respect. - Gary Witherspoon, writing about the Dine (1972), refers to this behavior as ?bashfulness.? In some societies, avoidance relationships characterize the relationship between parents-in-law and their sons-in-law or daughters-in-law. - For example, among the Dine, a man does not speak directly to his mother-in-law and avoids being alone with her. If he needs to make a request of her, he asks his wife to intercede on his behalf. He defers to his mother-in-law, complies with her wishes and requests, and makes himself helpful and cooperative. - This kind of relationship is fairly common between men and their mother-in-laws in matrilineal societies. In such societies, men usually leave their natal homes when they get married and take up residence with or near the wife?s kins. Bashfulness helps minimize potential conflict between a man and his mother-in-law in matrilocal households. A new husband does nothing that can be interpreted as a challenge to her authority or to anyone else in the household. And after many years, a husband?s behavior may be modified, and he begins to assert his authority more on the wife?s relatives. Eventually, he may take up leadership roles in the household. - In patrilineal societies, avoidance or respect behavior towards a father-in-law is expected on the part of the daughter-in-law. In this situation, the daughter-in-law lives in a household dominated by her ?father-in-law. Here too, avoidance behavior mitigates any potential conflict. Rarely would a daughter-in-law have authority in such a household. She acts with extreme reverence and respect, and are acutely aware of their subordinate situation. MAJOR KINSHIP RESIDENTIAL PATTERNS - People related by kinship form families whose members generally live together in a common household or compound. - The following are the most common types of kinship families residential patterns identified by anthropological research (see Figure 10-1): (1) Neolocal Residence - This is a residence pattern in which a newly married couple choose their own dwelling which may or may not be near either set of parents. - In traditional kinship societies, neolocal residence was permitted only in exceptional cases; for example, when one, both, or all the spouses involved in the marriage were ill of a horrible disease and needed isolation. - Neolocal residence is common in modern industrial capitalist societies. - Its main advantages are that: it leaves the newly married couple independence to study and better understanding each other, gives abundant time to have children if they choose to do so, and permits them to synchronize marital obligations with tight industrial work schedules. Its disadvantages, however, are that it is financially and socially expensive, and sometimes causes great stress to couples who before marriage had strong solidarity relationships with their family members. - Most poor and unemployed newly married couples without money to support themselves often take up temporal residence with the parent of the groom or bride. - In industrial societies the latter is, however, a rarity, and as soon as their financial situation improves the newly married couple leaves immediately. (2) Patrilocal or Virilocal Residence - This is a residence pattern found in patrilineal societies in which a woman, after marriage, goes to live with her husband among her husband?s kins. - This is the most popular type of residence pattern - 67% of global societies practice patrilocal residence. - It is most common among horticultural and intensive agricultural societies. - An example of this post-marital residence type is found among the Nuer of the Sudan. (3) Matrilocal Or Uxorilocal Residence - This is a residence pattern in which a woman, after marriage, lives with her own group and her husband comes to live there with her. - Such a residence pattern is very common in matrilineal societies. - It is particularly beneficial for women, allowing them to form strong social units for work and mutual support. - The husband, in this case, does not give up membership in his own natal group, as do women in patrilocal residence. - He, in most cases, exercises authority in the group of his birth over his sisters and their children because he occupies the important status of ?mother?s brother.? - Because of this status, sometimes powerful mother?s brothers establish residence with their sisters, taking their wives with them. - An example of this post-marital residential type is found among the Hopi of Arizona. (4) Avunculocal Residence - This is a residence pattern found in matrilineal societies in which a married couple live with or near the husband?s mother?s brother. - Such a residential pattern includes a group of brothers and their offspring. - Some authorities maintain that this pattern of residence is associated with warfare and male dominance. (5) Bilocal Residence This is a residence pattern in which a married couple live among the family members of the bridegroom for sometime and also live amomg the family members of the bride for sometime. (6) Ambilocal Residence - This is a post-marital residential pattern in which the married couple has a choice of living with or near the parents or kin of either the bride or the groom. - The Dobu islanders, near the Trobriand island, practice this kind of residence. (7) Duolocal Residence - This is a residential pattern in which the husband and wife live with their respective kins, apart from one another. - The Ashanti of Ghana practice this type of marital residence. Among them, husbands and wives may live in the same town, but not in the same household. At dusk one can see young children carrying the evening meal from their mother's house to their father's house. - The advantages of the duolocal residence pattern are that: (a) It helps maintain the production level of both the bride and bridegroom?s families, and (b) It permits caring for the elderly in both families. - The Ashanti of Ghana practice this kind of post-marital residence pattern. MAJOR KINSHIP CLASSICAL MODULES, SYSTEMS OR TYPOLOGIES - Anthropologists identified six major kinship classification models in different societies of the world. These models include: the Hawaiian Kinship Model, Inuit or Eskimo Kinship Model, Iroquois Kinship Model, Omaha Kinship Model, Crow Kinship Model, and Sudanese Kinship Model. (1) The Hawaiian Kinship Module - As its name suggests, this module originates from Polynesia. It is the least complex kinship system compared to the other kinship systems. - In the Hawaiian Kinship module, kin terms make distinctions only of generations and gender. - Ego uses the same term for all same-sex relatives in his generation. Thus, in the Hawaiian terminology system, all of Ego's female relatives, including Ego's sister are called the same term (Sisters), while all of Ego's male relatives in his generation, including Ego's brother are called the same term (Brothers). - Similarly all of Ego's male relatives in his father's generation (including his father) are known by one terminology (Father), while all of Ego's females relatives in his mother's generation (including his mother) are known by the same terminology (Mothers) ? See Figure 8.7. (2) Eskimo Or Inuit Kinship Module - The Inuit kinship module is named after the Eskimos of northern Canada. - In the Inuit or Eskimo module makes distinctions between the nuclear family and other relatives and also gender distinctions. - There are separate terms for mother, father, sister and brother. - The siblings of one?s parents are distinguished by gender and given the same name, regardless of whether they are related through one?s mother or one?s father. - Also, relatives of one?s own generation, outside the nuclear family, are called by the same term: ?cousins.? - This means that in the Eskimo System, the same term is used for Ego's uncles (mother's brothers and father's brothers) and the same term for Ego's aunts (mother's sisters and father's sisters). - Also the same term is used for Ego's cousins (brothers' sons and sisters' sons) and the same Ego's nieces (sisters' daughters and brothers' daughters). - This module is associated with bilateral descent and is found in modern industrial and foraging societies. (3) The Iroquois Kinship Module - The Iroquois kinship model is named after the Iroquois of North America. - In the Iroquois model, the same term is used for Ego's father and father's brother; and the same term for Ego's mother and mother's sister. - Also, the same term is used for Ego's mother's brother's children or cross cousins (15 and 16) and Ego's father's sister's children (7 and 8), distinguished only by sex. - This means that Ego's mother's brother's daughters, and Ego's father's sister's daughters are refered to by the same term. Also, Ego's mother's brother's sons and Ego's father's sister's sons are referred to by the same term - Parallel cousins always have terms different from those of cross cousins, and are sometimes, but not always, referred to by the same terms as one's brother and sister (See Figure 8.5). (4) Omaha Kinship Module - The Omaha kinship module is named after the Omaha of North America. However, this module is found in many societies around the File: CHAPTER 8 world, generally in societies with patrilineal descent. - In the Omaha typology, the same term is used for Ego's father, father's brother (number 2 and 3) and Ego's mother, mother's sister, and interestingly Ego's mother's brother's daughters. - This implies that, as in the crow system, the Omaha kinship system has a trans or cross-generational lumping. However, this cross- generational lumping is in favor of female relatives (mother, mother's sister, and mother's brothers' daughters) See Figure 8.8. (5) Crow Kinship Typology - The Crow kinship module is named after another North American culture. - In this typology, the same term is used for Ego's mother and mother's sister, and the same term is used for Ego's father, father's brother, and interestingly father's sister's sons. - This means that, just like the Omaha System, the Crow System has a trans or cross-generational lumping in favor of male relatives (father, father's brother' and father's sisters' sons) rather than female relatives on the mother's side ? See Figure 8.8. (6) The Sudanese Kinship Module - Unlike the Omaha, the Crow and the Iroquois kinship typologies, the Sudanese kinship module is a descriptive system in which different descriptive terms are used for each relative in the kinship universe. - The Sudanese model does not have the lumping of individuals or relatives in the entire kinship universe. Instead, this typology uses a different term for each individual or relative of ego in the system. - Societies with the Sudanese kinship model turn to be patrilineal. - They are associated with relatively complex social structures. CHAPTER 8 SEX AND GENDER INTRODUCTION Common sense reveals that men and women differ physically; that their primary sexual characteristics (appearance of genitalia, breasts), secondary sexual characteristics (size and shape of muscles, voice, buttocks and structure of the pelvis girdle, body hair), and sexual dimorphism (general body mass) are very different. Generally, in any given population, men tend to be taller, bigger and heavier than women. - Extensive research reveals that men and women differ genetically also have significant differences in terms of genetic make up. The DNA of the gamete cells of women has XX chromosomes while that of men has an XY chromosomes. When, during fertilization, an X chromosome from the gamete cell of a woman meets an X chromosome from the gamete cell of a man, a female child results. When however, an X chromosome from the gamete cell of a woman meets a Y chromosome from the gamete cell of a man, a male child is formed. The former means that it is the man who determines the sex of the child. - Finally, some studies suggest that men and women are significantly different in life span and degree of endurance: that women generally live longer than men and can endure stress better than men. MAIN INTERESTS OF ANTHROPOLOGISTS The main interest of anthropologists is how these physical and genetic differences influence gender behavior and cultural roles in particular. - Gender behavior here means behavior originating from nurture, environment or culture, i.e. tasks or activities assigned to males and females by their culture. - Gender is different from sex, which relates to biological or genetic differences. CLASSIFICATION OF GENDER ROLES - There are 2 categories of gender roles, as follows: (a) Distinct Gender Roles ? Such roles are found in traditional non-industrial, male-dominated, Third World Societies, and - In these societies men and women are: - supposedly unequal, and - have differential access to power wealth and prestige. - Men are: - considered superior to women, - play prestigious leadership roles (heads of household, religious and political leaders, and decision makers). - In homes, they display dominance and have overwhelming control over their wives. - Extreme forms of male dominance may result in physical abuse and rape. - This dominance is accepted in strongly patriarchal or male dominated societies. (b) Flexible or overlapping Gender Roles ? Found in Industrial Western Societies. What Distinct and Flexible Gender Roles Reflect - The above mentioned distinct and flexible gender roles reflect unequal and equal distribution of power, wealth and prestige between men and women. - In industrial societies the flexibility of gender roles means that men and Women are supposedly: - equal, Independent, and autonomous, and - have equal access to power, wealth and prestige. - Although men and women may have different roles in their households and communities, male-female roles are equally valued and equally rewarded. SCHOLARLY VIEWS ON THE CONTRIBUTION OF NATURE AND NURTURE IN GENDER BEHAVIOR - Pioneering views on the contributions of nature or nurture in human gender behavior came from Charles Darwin, John Watson, and Margaret Mead. (1) Charles Darwin (The Theory of Evolution) , in the second part of the 19th century (1859) formulated the Theory of Biological Evolution which emphasized the contribution of natural selection, adaptation, competition, and survival of the fittest in species evolution and assumed that gender roles originate from nature. (2) John Watson (Theory of Behaviorism) - In the first decades of the 20th century, formulated the Theory of Behaviorism, which explained human behavior including gender roles originate from nurture or the environment. (3) Margaret Mead (Culture and Personality Theory) - In the 1930s Margaret Mead formulated the Culture and Personality Theory. - Her theory, like that of John Watson, assumed that human behavior, including gender roles originate from nurture or the environment. - Mead, in 1935, carried out a classic study on Sex and Temperament in the 3 New Guinean cultures of Arapesh, Mundugumor and Tchambuli, and found out that: - She found out that: (a) Among the Arapesh both men and women were docile, nonaggressive, co-operative, and sympathetic, characteristics Americans associate with females; (b) Among the Mundugumor, both men and women were aggressive, fierce and ruthless, characteristics Americans associate with males; (c) Among the Tchambuli, Females were aggressive, dominant food providers, while males were dependent, emotional, and fashion- oriented, spending most of their time in hair parlors where they gossiped for hours about the opposite sex. - Mead concluded that: - If Arapesh males had exhibited behavior considered by Americans to be that of females (nurturing, non-aggressiveness, co-operation, docility) and - If Mundugumor women exhibited behavior considered by Americans to be that of males (aggression, fear, ruthlessness), we have no basis to believe that gender behavior is biologically based or the product of nature. CULTURAL CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER BEHAVIOR Definition - For Mead, all gender behavior is the product of cultural constructs. - Gender Cultural Constructs are defined as: - Learned and shared beliefs, practices, and attitudes of people in a given society, - Gender constructs determine the status, roles, power, wealth, and prestige that men and women have in the family and society. - Passed down or transmitted onto future generations, they are: Accepted, unquestioned, taken for granted, and used as the guiding principles of society. - Gender constructs, therefore have a lot to do with: - Status (social position), - Roles (duties that go with status), - Power (the ability to exert influence on others), and - Value (level of goodness or badness). HOW CULTURES PASSED DOWN GENDER CONSTRUCTS ONTO THEIR OFFSPRING - Cultural constructs are passed down onto offspring in many ways, as follows: - Through social interaction, - Through formal education, - Through political ideologies, - Through Religious beliefs and practices, - Through language, - Through song and dance, and - Through daily interactions between men and women in society. GENDER IN MINANGKABAU MATRIACHIAL SOCIETY - Gender studies in Minangkabau tribe of West Sumatra, Indonesia (Peggy Sanday 2004) reveal that gender differences between Minangkabau men and women are kept at a minimum. - Minangkabau women exercise considerable power over men, however, without dominating them to the same degree men dominate women in the western world. - Among the Minangkabau, men and women interact more like partners than like competitors. - Male-female relations revolve around the ?adat philosophy,? a philosophy that emphasizes love, consensus, co-operation and nurturing among people, wild life and plants, rather than competition and dominance, so that society can grow. - Peggy Sanday (2004) writes that during ceremonial occasions, the Minangkabau address women using a term reserved for the mythical queen, and view women or the maternal figure as the spiritual center and foundation of society. - Minangkanau women: (a) have considerable economic and social power: (b) Control land inheritance, and (c) Move their husbands into their household during marriage. - In Minangkabau marriages, it is the wife and her female family members who officially go and collect her husband from his household to her own household, and - When divorce occurs, it is the husband who gathers his belongings and leaves the wife?s residence. - Yet the Minangkabau are not a totally matriarchal society. Though decision making is based mainly on consensus and cooperation, the women still look on the men to play important roles as: law-makers, religious officers, and distributors of scarce goods such as land, water, animals and farm equipment. THIRD GENDER OR HOMOSEXUAL WORLDWIDE - The notion of the cultural construction of gender behavior is confirmed by the presence of Third genders or Trans- sexuals in some non-Euro-American societies, as follows: (1) HIJRA HOMOSEXUAL CULTURE OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN INDIANS - The Indians of S.E. Asia have a group of men that dress and act female called Hijras. - Hijra behavior mimics that of Hindu gods that are sexually ambiguous, combine both male and female physical characteristics and roles, and constantly transform from one gender to another. - Hindu hijras are thought of as ?neither males nor females? (Nanda 1990). - They are very active at Indian rituals, during birth celebrations, marriage celebrations and death celebrations. - Hijras are sometimes feared and sometimes ridiculed. - However, they are generally loved, respected, considered sacred, and seen as essential in the functioning of society. (2) HOMOSEXUALITY AMONG THE ETORO OF NEW GUINEA - The Etoro of New Guinea consider homosexuality as normal. - The Etoro believe that people have a spiritual essence or spiritual life force called hame that is needed to male children energy and vitality. - At birth, the child has only a small amount of hame which must be increased as the child develops. ? Boys acquire hame by eating the semen of older males through oral sex. - Heterosexual sexual intercourse, especially during periods of farming and trading, can lead to a depletion of hame. - Protecting youths from the depletion of hame is critical to the survival of the group. - Women, in contrast to men, are thought of (by men) to have a limited amount of hame, which explains their relative weakness compared to males. - Raymond Kelly (1976), the anthropologist who studied the Etoro, could not have women?s views about hame because male anthropologists are not allowed to interview females. However, he was told by the men that Etoro women also engage in homosexual activity in which adult women transmit menstrual blood to young girls to initiate and enhance their reproductive capacity. (3) BERDACHE OR TWO-SPIRITED CULTURE OF NATIVE AMERICAN INDIANS - According to research (Charles Callender and Lee Kochems 1983), 113 North American traditional societies, especially those west of the continent between the Great Lakes and California, provided their people with a third gender status, called Two-Spirits. - This third gender or two-spirit culture was a distinct gender category composed of biological men and women who assumed social and economic roles different from those ordinarily associated with their sex. - Westerners or Euro-Americans who first saw them called them berdache, a derogatory term meaning ?male prostitutes, or male two-spirits who adopted some of the economic and social roles of a woman.? How Individuals Became Two-Spirits: - People became two-spirits through personal inclination, parental selection, and spiritual calling. (1) Personal Inclination - From an early age, a boy or girl might take an interest in the occupations and demeanors displayed by members of the other gender. (2) Parental Selection - Some parents, thereafter, might decide to train the child in the subsistence skills related to his or her chosen role. In some groups, parents who had no sons, might choose one of their daughters to learn men?s roles (e.g. hunting) so that she could contribute directly to household subsistence as a son would. (3) Spiritual calling (Vision or Dreams) - Spiritual calling took place through a vision or a dream. Dreaming to assume a third gender status gave the individual both spiritual and social validation. Two spirits who were chosen in this way were considered to have extraordinary powers to heal and foretell the future. How Two-Spirited Individuals Were Treated: (a) The Kaska of Yukon: - Wore or tied the dried ovary of a bear to the waist or belt of a two-spirit girl, at the age of 5, to protect her from becoming pregnant. (b) The Cocopa: - Pierced the nose of a two-spirit girl like that of a man, rather than tattooed her chin like that of a woman. (c) The Mohave: - The Mahove Indians, officially proclaimed a 10 year child an Aylha (two spirit) in a ritual requiring her to dance 4 dances. - After the 4th dance, the child was officially proclaimed Aylha. - This was followed by a ritualistic bath, after which the child was given a woman?s skirt, and a woman?s name. Two Spirited Individuals And Economic Duties: - Two spirits typically performed economic duties appropriate to the opposite sex, sometimes in addition to those associated with their own biological sex. (a) Female two-spirits served as: hunters, trappers, and occasionally warriors. (b) Male two-spirits served as: farmers, and domestic servants. Two-Spirit Individuals and Warfare: - Among the Cheyenne, male Two-Spirits went to war and served as healers of the wounded and guardians of scalps obtained in battle. They were also in charge of scalp dances that followed victorious raids. - Although female Two-Spirits did not always participate as warriors, they were not barred from doing so, and some of them became famous for their military and tactical skills. Unusual Economic Wealth of Two-Spirits Or Third Gender Individuals: - Compared with others members of their society, Two-Spirits were unusually prosperous. - They had economic advantages due to their ability to perform both women?s and men?s jobs. Riches and Roles Of Two Spirited Individuals - Two Spirits had sources of income not available to other people since they performed ritual functions specifically assigned to them. - Two-Spirits individuals played the following roles: - Told fortunes, and revealed secrets, - Named children, - Helped in burial and mourning the dead, - Served as arbitrators or go-betweens in conflicts, between men and women, and between tribes (Williams 1986, 70-71) Physical Appearance of Two-Spirits Individuals: - Two-Spirit individuals, generally, wore clothing and hairstyles associated with their new gender or the role they wanted to play at a given point in time. (a) They, generally, wore men?s clothing when they were hunting and women?s dress when they were gathering. (b) Among the Osage two-Spirits wore men?s clothing when they were at war and women?s dress when they returned home. (c) Among the Zuni two-spirits were buried in a woman?s dress, and a man?s trousers (Williams, 1986: 454). FEMALE EXPLOITATION ORIGINATING FROM BIAS GENDER CULTURAL CONSTRUCTS (1) DISCREPANCIES IN CENSUS COUNTS - In some parts of the word, biased cultural constructs with respect to women have led to serious discrepancies in census counts. - This is the case particularly in China and India where there is a strong gender bias that favors men and disfavors women. (2) FRMALE INFANTICIDE - Female infanticide is a particular malignant manifestation of biased cultural constructs in North India. - Here female infanticide involves the careful elimination of female children, and preservation of sons. Sons are considered more economically valuable than daughters and their lives are spared because: (a) They are stronger and needed for tedious farm work, (b) Bring in more money in wage employment, (c) Bring in dowry during marriage, (d) Do not leave home after marriage, and (e) More available to support parents during old age. (3) FEMALE NUTRITIONAL DEPRIVATION - This is a more subtle form of female child abuse. - Though, not fatal, nutritional deprivation can retard physical development, learning, and social adjustment. (4) HONOR KILLING - This is the consensual killing of girls who marry without their virginity or who lose their virginity without formal marriage. - It is another extreme form of gender exploitation. -Some research suggests that there is honor killing in a number of countries in the Middle East, India and Pakistan (Jehl (1999). - In these regions, people believe that a girl?s purity is the most important part of her family?s reputation. - If it is even rumored that a daughter has lost her virginity, the family as a group will experience shame. An unchaste woman is considered worst than a murderer because her behavior does not only affect her as a single victim, but the entire family as a whole. The only way for her family to restore its honor and avoid public humiliation, it is thought, is to sacrifice the daughter. - Despite western laws against this mode of thinking, the practice remains widespread, because an unchaste woman is seen as a threat. ? Because honor deaths are often disguised to look like domestic accidents, and because of the general reluctance in society to blow the whistle on killers, it is very difficult to determine the number of honor killings carried out each year. - According to Jehl (1999) there were more than 400 of honor killings in Yemen in 1997 (population 16 million). - Whatever, the number of killings, this practice places the entire burden of defending family honor on the woman, and it fails to punish the man who contributed in the loss of the girl?s virginity. (5) DOWRY DEATH - Another example of gender bias behavior that disfavors women is dowry death. - This takes place in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. - Following a marriage and receipt of dowry by the groom?s family, the family members of the groom often make additional demands on the bride?s family members for more money or goods. Since the bride is living with the husband?s family members, she is sometimes subject to harassment, humiliation, abuse and even murder, from beatings, burnings, and suicide for failing to meet the dowry demands of her in-laws. - A commonly reported form of dowry death involves a wife drenched in kerosene and set on fire. It is difficult to determine exactly how many dowry deaths occur every year in countries such as India, because they are always disguised as kitchen accidents. However, Xinhua News Agency reported in 2001 that there were as many as 16, 239 unresolved dowry death cases pending in the Indian court system. (6) FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION - A graphic form of gender exploitation faced by women is circumcision, popularly known in the west as female genital mutilation. - The practice of female circumcision is found mainly in Africa. UNICEF estimates that there are 130 million women in Africa today who had their childhood or early adolescence interrupted by a traumatic operation in which the clitoris was partially or completely removed. - According to Amnesty International, the following African nations have an incidence of 90% of the practice: Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali and Somalia (Hecht 1998). - Despite efforts by the Western nations to convince African institutions to give up the practice, approximately 6000 girls are circumcised in Africa each day (Gary Ferraro 2006). - Even though WHO has unanimously condemned the practice, it continues to be a lifestyle in most nations of sub-Saharan Africa. Here, grandparents and parents perform the operation themselves, and often coerce their children into submission. - Cultures that practice female circumcision give the following justification for their behavior: (a) It preserves a girl?s chastity, (b) Upholds family honor, (c) Purifies girls, (d) Curb girl?s sexual desires, and (e) Reduces rape. Even though these explanations may justify its continuation, the fact remains that millions of girls are subjected to pain, infection and even death to an extent that their brothers are not. CONTEMPORARY GENDER ABUSIVE BEHAVIOR IN THE U S - In the United States, gender behavior is biased because it favors males and disfavors females. - U.S. gender behavior is typically characterized by: physical and sexual abuse, double workday syndrome, and gender occupational segregation. (a) Physical & Sexual Abuse of Women - These have been and continue to be a serious problem. - Research shows that both types of abuse occur, not in dark alleys, but within the home. - According to the American Medical Association (2002) about one quarter of the women in the US (12 million women) are abused by a former or current spouse. - FBI statistics reveal that 30% of female murders in the US are caused by husbands or boyfriends, and 52% are caused by current of former intimate partners. - Since many women do not report sexual and physical assaults by their spouses and do not consider such assaults as rape or abuse, it is difficult to know the exact degree of abuse. (b) Double Workday Syndrome -The American woman of today is both a housewife and a paid labor worker. About 60% of American women now work both as housewives and as wage earners outside the home. Employed housewives, particularly those with children, often suffer from a double workday or workload syndrome, and feel exhausted and exploited both at home and at job. (c) Gender Occupational Segregation - Despite decades of legislation aimed at reducing gender discrimination at the workplace, a majority of American women continue to work in gender-segregated occupations, They work as: clerks, secretaries, receptionists, hairdressers, food service workers, health care and child care personnel, all of which are relatively low-paying jobs. - 90% of nurses, 80% of librarians and 70% of teachers are women. - Women make up only 1% of the American corporate CEOs, 6% of partners in private law firms, and 8% of state and federal judges. - In addition, men dominate women in supervisory occupations, even in occupations in which a majority of workers are women. - This occupational segregation is more pronounced for women of color who face not only gender segregation but also racial segregation. women in the last decades have made great inroads into high status professions. - Their numbers have definitely increased in the profession of judges, attorneys and athletes. THE LAW AND THIRD GENDER/HOMOSEXUAL RIGHTS IN THE U.S., AND BEYOND (1) VERMONT - Was the first to legally recognize civil unions between homosexuals so long as they were not called ?marriage.? (2) New Hamshire - In 2003, was the first state in which a gay was appointed to an advanced religious office (Anglican Bishop). (3) CANADA -In 2003, the Supreme Court of Canada, officially endorsed homosexuals marriages. File: CHAPTER 9 (4) Massachusetts In 2004, Massachusetts became the first State legalize same sex marriages - not simply recognizing same sex civil unions. (4) Other Nations That Today Allow Same Sex or Homosexual Marriages - These include: - Belgium and, the Netherlands. CHAPTER 9 MARRIAGE INTRODUCTION - Marriage and family are cultural universals or commonalties (some of those things which all societies share in common). - Every society sees the need of marriage and family to regulate the following issues between males and females as measures to assure the survival of its species: - Who has sex with who (distribution of sexual partners) - Who gets married to who (leadership), - Who takes care of children (nurturing), - Who does what in a marital relationship (responsibility), - What are rights and expectations of people in a marital relationship (responsibility), - Who inherits property from who (inheritance), and - Who respects who in a marital relationship (power). - This chapter describes some of the ways societies have tried to face the above-mentioned challenges. IMPORTANT DEFINITIONS An understanding of marriage and family calls on us to know the definition of the following words and expressions: Household, family, (1) MARRIAGE - There is no one definitive definition of marriage because marital patterns differ across societies. - However, many anthropologists are conservative in their definition of marriage, and consider it to be: - a socially recognized sexual and economic union between an individual and one or more spouses, - which is sanctioned by society in a public ceremony that denotes a change of status of the married individuals and the formation of a new alliance between their family members, - which involves the living together of spouses for an extended amount of time, and - the bearing, delivering, adopting, and raising of children. (2) FAMILY - The concept of marriage is closely related to the concept of marriage. - Like Marriage, the definition of Family differs across cultures. - Most anthropologists see a Family as: - a social group of two or more people, - related by consanguinity (blood), affinity (marriage) or fiction (other criteria e.g. adoption), - living or residing together, and - sharing economic resources, and - caring for their young. - In the United States and other industrial societies a traditional family is the Nuclear Family, which consists of a group of people related by a purely marital relationship, usually two spouses and their children. - However, in many non-industrial societies, the traditional family is the Extended Family, which consists of a group of people related by blood, usually a group in which children, their offspring and other relatives reside with their parents in the same geographical environment. EXPECTATIONS OF MARRIAGE INDIVIDUALS - In all societies, the marital alliance has norms that define specific expectations in respect to: - Sexual activities, - Parenting responsibilities, - Economic relations, and - Social identities married people and their family members. - Usually, people related to a pair or group of marital partners feel bonded together, share economic and social activities, and mutually protect the interests of one another. FUNCTIONS OF MARRIAGE - While marital patterns differ across cultures, the functions of marriage are much more consistent across cultures. Anthropologists recognize 3 main functions of marriage, as follows: (1) Sexual Regulation - Marriage regulates the sexual access of its members. In principle, it is supposed to give those involved exclusive sexual access to one another. However, in practice, this is not the case. In most societies, there is a ?double standard? in which men are allowed to have extra marital sexual relations while women are forbidden from having them. (2) Economic Co-operation - Marriage leads to the formation of a family which can only survive if certain economic functions are well carried out. - Many societies require marital couples or household units to divide these functions or labor based on gender considerations. Alongside with division of labor goes the pooling of resources together for joint consumption. (3) Enculturation of Children - Marriage makes possible the raising of children in a more meaningful manner. UNIVERSAL MARRIAGE RULES (1)Rule Relating to The Incest Taboo - The Incest Taboo is a rule prohibiting marital and sexual relations between between people of certain relations or from certain social groups. - The rule universally prohibits mating between those in the nuclear family, that is: mother and son, father and daughter, and brother and sister. - The incest taboo extends beyond the immediate family group. For example, in European based societies marriage and mating are prohibited between first cousins, while in other societies mating is prohibited between relatives to the 5th generation. Disrespect of the Incest Taboo - Some groups have been known that have disrespected the incest taboo; that have allowed brother-sister marriages and sexual relations. These include the following royal families which were reluctant of spilling royal blood: ancient Egypt, ancient Hawaiian monarchy, and the Incas of Peru. What Anthropological Research Has Revealed With respect To Out-breeding - Anthropological studies reveal that the Incest taboo, which prevents inbreeding and which promotes out-breeding is more adaptive because it permits genetic variability and leads to a healthy genetic pool. Cultures that practice the taboo seem to have more surviving children than those who do not. Some Views On The Incest Taboo - For Branislaw Malinowski, the Incest Taboo is good because it prevents destruction of the Nuclear Family, making possible the transmission of cultural values in a harmonious atmosphere. - For Claude Levi-Srauss, however, the Incest Taboo is good because it leads to co-operation among groups larger than the nuclear family, resulting in the formation of a wider system of alliances between families and the preservation of the human species. - While other animals expel junior members as they reach sexual maturity, human beings, in contrast, impose the Incest Taboo which promotes genetic variability, family harmony, community co-operation, and wider system of alliances. (2) Exogamy - The marital rule of Exogamy comes from the Greek roots ?Exo? meaning ?out? and ?gamy? meaning ?marriage.? - It specifies that marriage and sexual intercourse must be with partners outside particular groups (for example, Nuclear Family, lineage, Clan, Tribe, Chiefdom, etc). - Like the Incest Taboo, the Endogamous rule forbids marriage and sex between members of the Nuclear Family. - The Exogamous Rule, like the Incest Taboo: (a) reduces conflict over sexual partners; (b) leads to the formation of broad-based alliances between different families and groups and (c) has political, economic and religious components that are adaptive for the survival of the human species. - For example, Exogamy or spousal exchange across groups brings about: - Co-operative ties across groups, - Minimizing of inter-group aggression, especially in the case of hunter-gatherer bands which move around one another, camp together and exploit the same overlapping territories. The Arapesh are a typical example (p. 161). - Household peace - Since the wives of brothers are strangers, this facilitates the resolution of problems between brothers. - In peasant societies, exogamy is synonymous to marriage across villages. - For example, in Northern India, one?s wife must come from an outside village. (3) Endogamy - The Rule of Endogamy calls on people to get married to spouses within their own group. - Endogamy keeps group privileges and wealth within the group. - The Indian caste system is endogamous: - It calls on Indians to marry within their caste or within a specific section of the caste. - In the U.S., Endogamy is a rule for some religious groups such as the Amish. (4) Rules Relating To Preferred Categories Of Marital Groups - Cultures have rules relating to the preferred categories of people from which to get a mate. Cross-cousins - In the U.S. culture cross cousin marriages (marriages in which one is allowed to marry the daughter of one?s mother?s brother or one?s father?s sister) and parallel cousin marriages (marriages in which one is allowed to marry the daughter of one?s mother?s sister or father?s brother) are not considered potential marital mates. - However, many societies practice cross cousin marriages; and few societies (such as the Muslims of North Africa) practice parallel cousin marriages. - Both types of marriages keep resources within the family, and reinforce brother solidarity. - They also isolate groups of brothers, creating disunity in the larger system. CHOICE OF MARITAL MATES OR PARTNERS (A) Cross-cultural Criteria For Choosing Appropriate Marital Mates - From a cross-cultural and individual perspective, there is a lot of variation in the criteria for choosing marital mates. - From a cross-cultural perspective, many societies use the following as criteria for choosing appropriate spouses: (1) perceived physical attractiveness of the sexual partner or spouse (which in most cases, is socially determined) (2) romantic ability of sexual partner or spouse, (3) moral rectitude of sexual partner or spouse, (4) class or social status of sexual partner or spouse, (5) fertility or ability of a woman to give birth to a child, and (6) economic independence of sexual partner or spouse. - People in western industrial nations particularly value criteria 1, 2, 3 and 6. - However, people in many non-western, traditional societies, attach more importance to criteria 3 and 5, and less importance to the other criteria. (7) Similarity of Spouse-to-be To the Most Significant Persons in the Spouse Seeker?s Life - Individuals who use this criterion want a spouse who looks like themselves or their parents. They are conservative, but are full of a high self esteem, and need a girl who is as good as themselves or their own parents. are conservatives who are particularly close to their parents and tend to look for a parental image in the men or women they want to have as their spouses. (8) Proximity or Accessibility of Spouse to the Spouse Seeker?s Residence - People who use this criterion want to see their future spouse all the time. Studies show that most individuals who use this criterion are people fully ready for marriage, and people interested in premarital sexual intercourse and economic support. (9) Inaccessibility of Spouse to the Spouse Seeker?s Residence - Studies reveal that individuals who use this criterion are not fully ready for marriage, who have some unfinished business with other men or women to take care of, and who are uninterested in premarital sexual favors and economic support. (10) Congruence in physical or behavioral characteristics - People who use this criterion are conservatives with a very high self-image who initially think that such congruence will produce a successful relationship or marriage, even though this is not always the case. (11) Lack of congruence in physical and behavioral characteristics - Studies suggest that people who use this criterion are adventurists or radicalists who want to have or experience something new. PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR CHOOSING MARITAL MATES (a) Parents and Other Family Members - People in western democratic nations are sensitive to individual rights and are more comfortable with the idea that the duty of choosing a marital mate is that of the youth seeking to establish sexual or marital relations. However, in many traditional societies, for example in India and many parts of traditional Africa, the duty of choosing a marital mate for a youth or teenager is that of the parents and other family members. Everyone in these societies, both the young and the old, accept the custom of elders choosing wives or husbands for the younger generations, and everyone believes that the matter of choosing marital partners is too important to be left in the hands of an inexperienced and impressionable young individual. Not permitting a youth or teenager to independently select his or her own spouse implies that a married man or woman does not have the right to divorce his or her own spouse at will, without social approval from other family or group members. The implication is that in such societies a man or woman is married first and foremost to a family and only secondarily to one individual. This is the reason why no spouse is allowed to unilaterally divorce his or her marital partner without group permission. According to the customs of these non-western traditional societies no married individual is allowed to divorce a spouse whom he or she did not initially choose for himself or herself. (b) Go-betweens Or Marriage Brokers - In many cultures these parents and their family members make use of go-betweens to negotiate marital terms and process. These go-betweens run errands between family members of the candidates about to get married. They are in a sense marriage brokers whose job is to study and explain to the family members of the individuals who are supposed to get married the marital expectations of the members of each family, the socio-historical and socio-cultural backgrounds of each candidate, and the financial sacrifices that each family of the marital candidates is willing to make. The role of go-betweens as marriage errand runners and negotiators eliminates or reduces the shame and conflict that could possibly result from direct face to face contact between the persons about to get married. ORGANIZATION OF MARITAL CEREMONY - After mate selection has been made, the marriage needs to be formalized. Different societies formalize marriage differently. However, in all cases, the formalization of a marriage involves the organization of a public ceremony or rite of passage. A Right of Passage is a major social activity indicating that an individual has outgrown one major age group and is about to enter another age group. Examples of Marital Public Ceremonies or Rights of Passage In Traditional Simple Societies: (1) Public flogging of the bridegroom about to get married ? This practice is found among the Bororos, a pastoral tribe in West Africa. (2) Public circumcision of the brides or bridegrooms to get married. Most societies, in preparation of marriage, practice age group circumcision. All the children within a single age group are, on a stipulated day, collectively circumcised In some cultures, during the circumcision ritual the initiates are taught the secrets of adulthood or marital life and the history and underlying secrets of society. As a rule, they are held in the circumcision camp for a couple of weeks for their wounds to heal before they can go home to their various families. An example of a group that practices this ritual is the Masai of East Africa. (3) Fetching and depositing bundles of firewood behind the residence of a prospective mother-in-law ? This practice is found among the Tarirapes of Brazil. (4) Exposing a male marital candidate to a group of naughty girls instructed to ridicule him, spit on his face, and toss dust into his eyes. The idea here is to test the level of patience of a possible future bridegroom. If the latter loses control and starts fighting with the naughty girls, this will be taken to mean that he cannot withstand a aggressive wife in the event of a marriage, and he will lose respect among women and his chance to get married. (5) Building one?s hut or hammock next to that of a prospective mother-in law. (6) Toppling a male marital candidate from a high cliff ? If this future marital candidate drops dead, it will mean that the candidate is a bad product because the ancestors or gods do not want to see him get married. However, if he drops and survives (even with crushed limbs) he will be raised and triumphantly led home on horseback as a suitable marital product. - In the cases of public flogging, public circumcision, and tossing dust into the marital candidate?s eyes, the husband-to-be is not expected to cry, or demonstrate fright and cowardice. Crying implies that the candidate cannot withstand a troublesome wife, and this will automatically lead to the loss of the privilege to get married. - In western industrial societies, marital ceremonies are much more complex, involving in most cases a public mass or religious service, a party, including singing and dancing. MAIN TYPES OF MARRIAGE - From anthropological research the following types of marital unions or patterns have been clearly distinguished: (1) Monogamous Marriage - A Monogamous Marriage is a marital pattern in which one individual gets married to one spouse at a given time in his or her life. - Many western industrial societies practice Serial Monogamy, a form of marriage in which an individual gets married to many spouses during his or her life time, but only to one at a given time. (2)Polygamous Marriage - Traditionally, this is a marital pattern in which one individual gets married to more than one spouse at a given time in his or her life. The following are the main types of polygamous relationships: (3)Polygyny - This is a polygamous marriage in which one man gets married to more than one wife. - The reasons suggested by some scholars For the practice of polygyny include the following: (i) Getting married to many wives allows men to enjoy power and prestige. It enables the husband of pluralistic wives to redistribute his resources among a wider circle of women, thus attracting their loyalty to himself and increasing his power. (ii) Getting married to several wives benefits the wives because it enables co-wives to have lighter workload, enjoy more companionship, and have more sexual and economic freedom, even although households are often patriarchal and authoritarian. Techniques used for minimizing jealousy among co-wives (i) Getting married to co-wives who were all sisters or all children of one woman (sororal polygyny), (ii) Providing independent dwellings or residences for different co-wives. This is especially true of co-wives who are not sisters. - Sororal co-wives are generally lodged in the same dwelling. - Among the Crow Indians sororal co-wives share a tepee. (iii) Distributing economic and sexual favors among co-wives equitably. Advantages Of Polygynous Marriages - Although jealousy is commonly mentioned in polygynous marriages, polygynists think that polygyny has considerable political, economic and social advantages. (i) Polygynous families provide much farm labor and extra food that can be marketed because they tend to be large. (ii) They also exert much influence in society compared to other families, and (iii) They are likely to produce individuals who become government officials. Theories Related to Why People Practice Polygyny (i) Polygyny is a response to a long postpartum sex taboo. - In societies with a postpartum sex taboo, couples must abstain from intercourse until their child is at least one year. - Cultures that enforce this taboo feel that a long postpartum sex taboo ensures that children are widely spaced and permit women to nurse each child longer. - Polygyny is a cultural adaptation to accommodate the postpartum sex taboo because it provide men with many sexual partners at a time when having one wife is insufficient. This is illustrated by the following quotation from a Yoruba woman: ?When we abstain from having sexual intercourse with our husband for the two years we nurse our babies, we know he will seek some other woman. We would rather have her under our control as a co-wife so he is not spending money out side the family? (John W.M. Whiting 1964). (ii) Polygyny is a response to an excess of women over men. Such an imbalance in such a men-women sex ratio can come about as a result of warfare, slave trade and other factors. Because men and not women are generally warriors, warfare takes a greater toll on men?s lives than on females. Given the fact that nearly all men in traditional societies are married, polygyny must be a way of providing spouses for surplus women. (4) Sororal Polygyny - Sororal Polygyny is an arrangement permitting one man to get married to several sisters. Encourages more co-operation and more-understanding among sisterly wives than it would in the case of co-wives chosen from unrelated family backgrounds. Sometimes, however, the reverse is true. - Some anthropological research shows that in polygynous marriages, the co-wives work together; provide welcome company to one another; farm, cook, and eat together, raise kids together, and co-operate in doing many other things. - Polygyny is found among the Tiwi of North Australia. JEALOUSY BETWEEN POLYGYNOUS WIVES - Anthropological studies show that there is both jealousy and no jealousy at all in polygynous marriages. - In the Siwai polygynous society of the Southern Pacific, polygynous men seem to have greater prestige. However, they complain that a household with multiple wives is one of jealousy and difficulty. Sinu, a Siwai polygynist, describes his plight as follows: ?There is never peace for a long time in a polygynous family. If the husband sleeps in the house of one wife, the other one sulls all the next day. If the man is so stupid as to sleep two consecutive nights in the house of one wife, the other one will refuse to cook for him, saying, ?So-and-so is your wife; go to her for food. Since I am not good enough for you to sleep with, then my food is not good enough for you to eat.? Frequently, the co-wives will quarrel and fight. My uncle formerly had five wives at one time and the youngest one was always raging and fighting the others. Once, she knocked an older wife senseless and then ran away and had to be forcibly returned (Douglas Oliver 1955). - Though jealousy is reported in some polygynist societies, it seems to be absent in others. For example, Margaret Mead reported that married life among the Arapesh of New Guinea, even in polygynous marriages, was ?so even and contented that there is nothing to relate of it at all? (Margaret Mead 1935). (5) Polyandry - Polyandry is a marital relationship in which one woman gets married to a group of males. - Polyandrous marriages are known to occur primarily in Tibet, Nepal and parts of India. - Among the Toda of South India (165), polyandry may be an adaptation to a shortage of females, perhaps as a result of female infanticide. Advantages of polyandry: (a) It provides women with at least one standby husband who can take care of their sexual, military and economic needs. (b) It reduces the number of children a man has to support, and (c) It keeps land within the family, when brothers marry the same wife. (6) Fraternal polyandry ? This is the most common type of polyandrous marriage. It is a marital pattern in which one woman gets married to a group of brothers. - Women who practice polyandrous marriages argue that it is the best type of marriage because at any one time they have one or more standby husbands waiting to satisfy their sexual needs. They also argue that it facilitates childrearing for in it very many men raising the children of one woman. - Anthropological studies of polyandrous family structures reveal that in them the co-husbands do not fight over the group-wife. They show that when one husband comes in when another husband is busy with the group wife, he simply looks for a chair, sits down, and patiently waits for his own turn. - Examples of polyandrous marriages are found in Tibet in Northern India. (7) Levirate Marriage - This is a marital pattern in which a woman (widow) is expected to get married to her husband?s brother in the event that her husband dies. (8) Sororate Marriage - This is a marital pattern in which a man (widower) is expected to get married to one of his deceased wife?s sisters. - Some anthropologists consider levirate and sororate marriages to be marriages by inheritance. (9) Marriage by Inheritance ? However, from a strict anthropological point of view marriage by inheritance is one in which a the successor of an individual (typically the eldest son) takes over his wife or wives, including his property. - As a rule, the custom of many traditional societies allows the male son or successor to inherit and have sexual relations with all of his deceased father?s wives, except his own biological mother. (10) Same Sex Marriage - This is a marital pattern in which an individual gets married to another individual of his or her own sex. - Studies reveal that same sex marriages involving sexual intercourse are more common in modern industrial societies. - In many traditional societies (for example, traditional societies in Africa) same sex marriages do not involve sexual intercourse, and occur only when a man dies without having a son or male child to inherit his property including his wife/wives. In the latter case, the deceased individual?s daughter is allowed to succeed him, get married to a wife, and permit the so-called wife to bear her a son (whom she can name after her father) with some secret male lover. (11) Ghost Marriage ? Ghost Marriages are marriages in which an individual gets married to the ghost or spirit of a deceased person. They are found among the Nuers of the Sudan. In most societies that practice ghost marriages, it is the woman who is supposed to be married to the ghost of a deceased man. In a ghost marriage, the spouse of the ghost is expected to be sexually faithful to her the ghost husband. Any attempt by the ghost wife to have sexual intercourse with living humans is considered a serious act of infidelity and punishable by law. Some societies which practice ghost marriages, however, expect the ghost wife to very secretly have sex and bear a child who can be named after the ghost so that the ghost?s identity should not be forgotten. (12) Simpua Marriage - This is a marital pattern in which a young girl is adopted and raised by the family members of her future husband. The future husband and girl are raised in a sibling type of relationship. - The purpose of such an arrangement is to give the girl enough time to adjust to her new family through a long association with her husband?s kin. - Research reveals: that most people in simpua marriages are sexually and romantically dissatisfied with one another, that they tend to establish extramarital relations, and that they have higher divorce rates. - Simpua marriages are known to exist in Taiwan. (13) Forced Marriage or Marriage by Capture - This is a marriage in which one individual is forced to get married to another individual. - In most societies that practice marriage by capture, it is traditionally a woman who is captured and forced to marry a man. - Capture marriages are common in India, Africa and other traditional societies. - They take place when the bride attempts to refuse marrying a man whom she originally accepted as her fiancé, or when there is great need for one family to give another family a promised spouse. - As a rule, capture never takes place without the knowledge of the girls parents. In fact, on many occasions the girl?s parents arrange the capture process. - As a common pattern of behavior, the girl?s parents send their daughter alone on a mission knowing that she will be captured and taken away by the family members of her future husband in the process. - Generally, the girl or victim cries and kicks violently during her capture and transportation to her new marital home. - However, after spending one night in the marital home many disgruntled brides ironically display a marvelous sense of happiness and peace, and are reluctant to go back to their original families. It should be noted that in many traditional societies which practice marriage by capture, youths do not have sexual intercourse before marriage. GIFT EXCHANGE DRING MARRIAGE - Marriage involves the transfers of certain goods, rights and obligations. - It establishes alliances between families of the bride and groom so that the family members of both parties can enjoy each others goods or services. - The sort of goods transferred may be gifts, that is, items given to win goodwill. - In some cultures, gift exchange is not necessary to complete the transfer. - In other cultures, however, gift exchange is considered absolutely essential, and can forestall the marriage. - The community in a public ritual or ceremony, normally, witnesses gift giving or exchange. - The 3 main kinds of common marital exchanges include: Bride service, Bride wealth and Dowry. Other kinds of exchange include indirect dowry and female exchange. (1) Bride Service - Bride Service is the work done by the husband, for the wife?s family, in a specific period of time. - Bride service is most common among foragers, like the Ju/hoansi, where accumulating goods is difficult. (2) Bride wealth ? Bride wealth is cash or goods given by the groom?s kin to the bride?s kin - The importance of bride wealth is that it makes the union legal and enables both parties to claim compensation in case the marriage does not work out, or in case rights are violated, thus giving stability to the marriage. - The giving of bride wealth is practiced worldwide, but it is most characteristic among African pastoral societies such as the: Gusii, Turkana and Kipsigis (based on cattle). - Its amount, payment, and scheduling are influenced by several factors. - Some scholars have erroneously made ethnocentric interpretations of bride wealth, calling it bride price, which inaccurately suggests buying a wife. - Some early analysts saw bride wealth as an explanation of the low status of women in some societies. - However, John Ogbu argues that its payment enhances women?s status, making marital rights reciprocal. - A change in this custom may be attributed to modernization, urbanization and wage labor, rather than the practice itself. (3) Dowry - Dowry consists of the presentation of goods made by the bride?s family members to the bride and bridegroom. - This is a less common form of marriage exchange. It varies in meaning and function in different societies. - It may represent a woman?s share of family inheritance which she can use to set up a home, or it may be insurance if her husband dies. - In India, dowry is illegal, but common. Here, it is interpreted as: a voluntary gift of affection to the departing child who can no longer share in the inheritance of her father?s family wealth, and a source of security for the bride. - Ideally, the jewelry remains hers. But, in reality most women have no control of the dowry which goes to their mother in law. (4) Female Exchange - Some societies have the custom whereby a sister or the female relative of the groom is exchanged for the bride. Among these societies are the Tiv of West Africa, and the Yanomamo of Venezuela-Brazil. These societies tend to be horticultural and egalitarian, and in them women contribute highly to primary subsistence. (5) Indirect Dowry - In some cultures of the world, a payment is provided by the bride?s family members to the bride. But this payment originated from the groom?s family members. - This kind of transaction that calls on the bride groom?s father to make goods or payments first to the bride?s father who in his own turn passes most or all of it to the bride is called indirect dowry. - Among the Basseri of Southern Iran, the groom?s father assumes the responsibility of setting up the couple?s new household. He gives cash to the bride?s father, who uses at least some of the money to buy his daughter?s household utensils, blankets and rugs. POST-MARITAL RESIDENTIAL PATTERNS - Once a marriage takes place, the couple has to pick up residence somewhere. - The type of residence pattern chosen depends on the cultural demands of the society in which the marriage takes place. - Generally, the most common types of marital residence patterns are as follows: (1) Neolocal Residence - This is a residence pattern in which a newly married couple choose their own dwelling which may or may not be near either set of parents. - Neolocal residence is common in modern industrial capitalist societies. - Its main advantages are that: it leaves the newly married couple independence to study and better understanding each other, gives abundant time to have children if they choose to do so, and permits them to synchronize marital obligations with tight industrial work schedules. Its disadvantages, however, are that it is financially and socially expensive, and sometimes causes great stress to couples who before marriage had strong solidarity relationships with their family members. - Most poor and unemployed newly married couples without money to support themselves often take up temporal residence with the parent of the groom or bride. - In industrial societies the latter is, however, a rarity, and as soon as their financial situation improves the newly married couple leaves immediately. (2) Patrilocal or Virilocal Residence - This is a residence pattern found in patrilineal societies in which a woman, after marriage, goes to live with her husband among her husband?s kins. - This is the most popular type of residence pattern. - However, it is most common among horticultural and intensive agricultural societies. - An example of this post-marital residence type is found among the Nuer of the Sudan. (3) Matrilocal Or Uxorilocal Residence - This is a residence pattern in which a woman, after marriage, lives with her own group and her husband comes to live there with her. - Such a residence pattern is very common in matrilineal societies. - It is particularly beneficial for women, allowing them to form strong social units for work and mutual support. - The husband, in this case, does not give up membership in his own natal group, as do women in patrilocal residence. - He, in most cases, exercises authority in the group of his birth over his sisters and their children because he occupies the important status of ?mother?s brother.? - Because of this status, sometimes powerful mother?s brothers establish residence with their sisters, taking their wives with them. - An example of this post-marital residential type is found among the Hopi of Arizona. (4) Avunculocal Residence - This is a residence pattern found in matrilineal societies in which a married couple live with or near the husband?s mother?s brother. - Such a residential pattern includes a group of brothers and their offspring. - Some authorities maintain that this pattern of residence is associated with warfare and male dominance. (5) Ambilocal Or Bilocal Residence - This is a post-marital residential pattern in which the married couple has a choice of living with or near the parents or kin of either the bride or the groom. - The Dobu islanders, near the Trobriand island, practice this kind of residence. (6) Duolocal Residence - This is a residential pattern in which the husband and wife live with their respective kins, apart from one another. - The Ashanti of Ghana practice this type of marital residence. Among them, husbands and wives may live in the same town, but not in the same household. At dusk one can see young children carrying the evening meal from their mother's house to their father's house. - The advantages of the duolocal residence pattern are that: (a) It helps maintain the production level of both the bride and bridegroom?s families, and (b) It permits caring for the elderly in both families. - The Ashanti of Ghana practice this kind of post-marital residence pattern. DIVORCE - Divorce relates to the decay and annulment of a marriage. - Even though all societies make efforts to prevent divorce, it takes place in many marriages. - Studies show that divorce rates are higher in modern industrial societies than in traditional simple societies, and among matrilineal societies than among patrilineal groups. - Many traditional African societies make efforts to reduce or prevent divorce by employing the following measures: (1) By involving many family members in the marital process: For example, by having one?s family members, instead of an individual, have a voice in mate choice and mate divorce. When many family members choose one?s wife, one does not have the right to divorce such a spouse. One cannot divorce a spouse whom one did not choose for oneself. (2) By dividing bride wealth to the bride?s family member but enforcing the rule that to divorce a bridegroom must get back the bride wealth he paid for the bride: When it comes to time to reclaim the bride wealth in order to divorce, the bridegroom is dribbled or given the run around by the bride?s family members. In the end, the cost of reclaiming bridewealth from reluctant family members outweighs that of keeping a bad wife, and the bridegroom chooses to go with keeping a bad wife. DEATH - Many societies see marriage as a life-long relationship. - However, during marriage death comes by and renders one spouse or the other a widow or widower. (A) Remarriage of Widows and Widowers - Some societies have rules that permit widows and widowers to remarry, for example, levirate, sororate and ghost marriages. Extremist Destructive Measures - However, institutions such as the Roman Catholic Church discourage the remarriage of widows and widowers. - However, some societies, in the event of the death of a spouse, adopt extremist measures involving the destruction of precious items. - Such extremist measures include: - the burning down of the residence of the deceased; - the tearing of garments; - the breaking of guns, machetes, and hoes; and - the killing of cows, goats chicken, and so forth. Wife Killing (Suttee) Among Indians - Other societies required that spouses kill themselves or be killed when their partner dies. A well known example of this was the Sati or Suttee: an Indian practice of self-sacrifice by a widow which required that any faithful wife should, after the death of her husband, strangle herself and follow him to the next world in other to become a demi-goddess (Datta 1988). Wife Killing (Loloku) Among The Figians Similar to the Suttee was the loloku, a Fijian practice which required that the wife or wives of deceased chiefs be strangled and burried with the bodies of their deceased husbands (Williams 1958, 189-190; Mariner 1827, 273). Male killing Among the Natchez Indians - Among the Natchez natives of the Mississippi region, the reversed practice took place: husbands were killed on the death of their wives. - This Natchez practice was associated with matrilineal societies in which female aristocrats married commoners. File: CHAPTER 10 INHERETANCE - After death, material property and titles must be handed onto the next generation. - Most societies have two arrangement for such a transfer, the Rules of Premogeniture and Ultimogeniture. (1) Primogeniture - This is an arrangement which permits the oldest child of a deceased male individual to inherit most or all of his property, including his wives. - In this rule the younger children are assumed to be dependent on the eldest, or are left to seek their fortunes on their own. (2) Ultimo geniture - This is an arrangement which permits the youngest child of a deceased male to inherit most or all his property. Ultimo geniture is practiced by groups which fear that the oldest children could develop into bullies or tyrants. (3) Individual?s will - Inspite of the above-mentioned two arrangements, many societies resolve the question of inheritance not just from the ages of the children of a deceased individual, but from the will made by the deceased during his life time. - Individuals differ in the criteria used in selecting the next of kin. While some focus on morality, other focus of strength, and others on how helpful a child has been to the parents. CHAPTER 10 INEQUALITIES: CLASS & CASTE INTRODUCTION - DEFINITIONS Social Stratification - Social Stratification is a relatively fixed, ranked, or hierarchical arrangement in society in which groups (of people) have differential access to resources, power and perceived social wealth. - Social stratification is a cultural universal since all societies have ranked or hierarchical classes of individuals and groups. - However, the systems of social stratification vary cross-culturally. OUTCOMES OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION - Social stratification leads to: (a) social differentiation, the process by which different statuses develop in groups, organizations, or society, and (b) the unequal distribution of statuses (socially) and roles. - Statuses are defined positions in ranked societies, and duties are expectations which go with statuses. FORMS OF STRATIFICATION - The most important forms of stratification known in sociology are as follows: (a) The Estate System, (b) The Caste System, and (c) The Class System. (A) THE ESTATE SYSTEM - The Estate System of stratification is found mostly in agricultural societies. - It was popular in the Europe during the Middle Ages, especially in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. - The European Estate System consisted of 3 hierarchical estates, as follows: (I) First Estate Or Nobles This made up only 5% of the total population. - Members included wealthy and powerful landed aristocrats or nobles, with hereditary statuses. - In the Estate System, the nobles or aristocrats did not have any formal occupation, and considered working humiliating. - They were surrounded by a host of attendants or servants who waited on them. - Many of them spent their time - appreciating art, - enjoying music and dance, and - listening to stories and poetry. - They also enforced the law of premogeniture (from Latin meaning ?first born?) in order to assure their land holdings from division by feuding heirs. - While their eldest sons inherited much landed property and other precious items, their younger sons were trained to occupy honorable professions set for gentlemen such as: being priests army officers, lawyers and doctors. (II) Second Estate - This estate consisted of clergy or priests. - Its members dressed elaborately, took care of the spiritual needs of the society, and enjoyed a lot of prestige. (III) Third Estate, Commoners or Serfs - Formed the lowest strata of the society. - Consisted of a majority of men and women in society. - More especially, commoners, serfs and peasants. - Members had little or no property, and worked on the farms of rich landlords or aristocrats for protection and a yearly stipend. (B) THE CASTE SYSTEM - It is a system of stratification in which: - Membership is based on ascription, - Destinies determined solely by one?s birth, - Statuses and roles fixed or in-mobile, - Social interaction restricted by rigid class hierarchies, and - No possibility of upward mobility through individual achievement impossible. Examples Of Caste Systems - Caste Systems existed in the following parts of the world: - In India, before the arrival of Westerners, - In South Africa under the apartheid system, and - In the Southern States of the United States during the Jim Crow era (i.e. from the end of slavery to the 1960s). The Caste System Of India - The best known example of the caste system in the world was found in precolonial India. - The Caste System of India was officially abolished in 1950. - However, today, its vestiges still remain in the remote villages of India. - It?s durability and survival stems from the fact that it is connected to the Hindu religion. - - By the Caste System, the Indian society was divided into 4 great casta or vernas: - Brahman ? made up of priests and scholars, - Kshiatriya ? made up of nobles and warriors, - Vaishya ? made up of merchants and artisans, and - Shudra ? made up of cultivators and laborers. - A fifth verna or caste, the Harijan or Untouchables was found at the bottom of society. - The harijans were considered so low that many people did not even see them as human. - Members of the Harijan were responsible for: - sweeping the streets, - disposing (burning) the corpses of dead animals, - digging latrines, and - doing other degrading jobs. - Each Verna or Caste was subdivided into hundreds of jati or sub-castes whose members specialized in specific occupations. (C) THE CLASS SYSTEM Characteristics - The Class System is an open system characterized by: - achieved statuses and roles, - inequality of power, wealth and prestige, and - upward mobility involving a change of one?s status and roles. - However, despite this posibility of upward mobility, most Americans experience little or no change in social class during their lifetime. The Social Class System & Life Chances - The Class System is characterized by differential social classes, whose members have different life chances. - A Social Class is the structural position groups hold in the social stratification system, relative to the economic, social, political, and cultural resources of society. - Social Class is strongly related to political and social attitudes, and friendship (for example, wealthy people in the U.S. are more typically Republicans and Democrats). How Sociologists Measure Social Class In Class Systems - By using a conceptual measurement known as SES or Socio-Economic Status. - SES takes into consideration the following indices: - income, - education, - occupation, and - residence. - The above-mentioned variables of SES tend to be related, since a person with a good education and good occupation tends to earn a high income and live in a wealthy neighborhood. EXPLANATIONS OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION OR THE CLASS SYSTEM (A) THE CONFLICT EXPLANATION - Karl Marx (1818-1883) studied the class system in capitalist societies in Europe, and saw social stratification typically as the product of an economic or class disparity, leading to class conflict. - He defined classes in terms of their relationship to the means of production, or the way by which good are produced and distributed. - Marx identified the following classes under the capitalist system - the Bourgeoisie or Capitalist Class (Big business owners who possessed the means of production), - the Petty Bourgeoisie (small business owners or managers), - the Proletariat or Working Class (wage earners), and - the Lumpen-proletariat (the underclass, or those who were extremely or permanently poor). - Marx argued that as the Capitalists continue to exploit the Working Classes for their own profit, class struggle would occur and the proletariat would eventually depose the bourgeoisie to establish a classless society. - Marx?s error was that he did not foresee the emergence of a large middle class that could forestall proletariat success. (b) Max Weber?s Explanation - Max Weber (1864-1920) saw social stratification as the result of 3 dimensional variables: economic or class interests, social or status interests, and political or party interests - - Class (the economic dimension), - Status or Prestige (the cultural dimension), and - Party or Power (the political dimension). - For him, a person can rank high in 1 or 2 dimensions and low on another. - Weber defined: - Class as how much access an individual or group had to the material goods of society, and measured it by income, property and other financial assets, - Status as the social judgement or recognition given to a person or group, and - Party as the ability to impose one?s will on others even in the face of opposition. (c) Marx and Weber - Even though Marx and Weber had differential views on stratification, they both recognized: - the importance of the economic basis of stratification, and - the significance of class in determining life chances. - However, Marx argued that individuals act primarily for economic interest, while Weber believed that one?s position in the stratification system is the result of economic, social and political interest. (B) THE FUNCTIONALIST PERSPECTIVE OR EXPLANATION - The Functionalist Theory views social stratification as coming from the nature of the society itself. - It views society as consisting of an interdependent system of individuals and institutions with one complementing the other, leading cohesion, cooperation and stability. - It assumes that social inequality is good for the society in which it exists because it motivates people to fill the different positions in society needed for the survival of the whole system. - Herbert Gans argued that poverty is not a problem, and that it is functional to society since it contributes to social stability in many ways: - It benefits the wealthy both economically and socially , - Makes the lower class is a source of cheap labor, - Provides the lower class an opportunity to purchase use goods that no one else wants, and - Provide the wealthy with a chance to view themselves as charitable). - While poverty may be viewed as a social problem, functionalists think that it is necessary in maintaining social stability. (e) The Conflict Perspective On Inequality - The Conflict Theory views society as a system held together by conflict and coercion. - It assumes that social groups vary in terms of the control of resources and power, and that more powerful groups have the ability to use less powerful groups to their advantage and convince others that inequality is legitimate. - The Conflict Theory, based largely on the work of Karl Marx, sees social stratification originating from class conflict and blocked opportunities. - Conflict theorists argue that the consequences of inequality are negative since the talents of persons from less dominant groups are largely wasted. A Comparison Of The Functionalist And Conflict Perspectives - The debate between Functionalists and Conflict Theorists often influences public policy. - Functionalists assume that the most rewarded jobs are the most important and that the best people (e.g. doctors and lawyers) should get the most reward, while - Conflict theorists argue that some vital jobs are the least rewarded (e, g. mothers and trash collectors) and that the contributions of less powerful people and groups are devalued. THE CLASS STRUCTURE OF THE UNITED STATES A: DEFINITIVE COMPONENTS OF U.S. CLASS STRUCTURE (1) Social Class - Social Class is the common position or rank that groups hold in a status hierarchy. - It is measured in terms of: income, occupation and education. (2) Social Attainment - This is the position an individual holds in the social stratification system. - Social attainment is influenced by: class origins, educational level, and occupation. (3) Socio-economic Status (SES) - SES is an individual?s position in the social stratification system. - SES is measured using 4 variables, as follows: Occupation, Income, Education, and Residence. Income - Income includes the amount of money a person receives in a given period of time. Median Household Income - This is the midpoint of all household incomes in a particular society i.e. all household incomes divided by 2. - Not all sociologists agree on the median household income bracket of middle class households in th e U.S. - However, in 1996 the median household income in the U.S. was considered to be $35,492. Prestige - There are two kinds of prestige: personal prestige and occupational orestige. - Personal prestige is the value assigned to people and groups by others. Occupational Prestige - Occupational Prestige is the subjective evaluation people give to jobs. - The most prestigious occupations include: - Supreme Court Justice,, - physician, - professor, and - lawyer. - Middle range occupations include: - electrician, - newspaper columnist, - insurance agent, and - police officer. - The lowest ranking occupations in terms of prestige include: - maid/servant, - farm laborer, - janitor, and - garbage collector. - These rankings reflect social judgements about the values of these jobs to society, but do not reflect the worth of people who hold them. Educational Attainment - Educational Attainment is typically measured in terms of years of formal education. - As educational attainment increases, generally one?s class status increases. - Occupational prestige is strongly related to the amount of education required by a job. (B) UNITED STATES STRATA/LAYERS OF SOCIAL CLASS (I) THE UPPER CLASS - Constitutes 5% of total U.S. population. Yearly income of members of this group is 100, 000 dollars. - Historically, though less so today, it is composed of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs). - Sociologists make a distinction between: Upper-Upper Class - Who are also described as ?bluebloods? and consists of 1% of U.S. population. - Their membership is strictly ascriptive or depended on birth. - The wealth of ?bluebloods? comes mostly from inheritance. Lower-Upper Class - Who are also called ?nouveau riches? or ?new rich? and constitute a majority of Upper Class individuals. - Unlike the Upper-Upper Class the wealth of members of the Lower-Upper Class comes mainly from earnings or working - Thus, they are sometimes called ?nouveau-riches? or ?newly rich?. (II) THE MIDDLE CLASS - This class consists of 50 - 45% of U.S. population. - Household yearly income ranges from 50,000 - 100,000 dollars. - It is the largest class in the U.S. stratification system, and exerts a tremendous influence on U.S. culture. - It is extremely diverse in terms of race and ethnicity. - While the members of the Upper Class, especially the Upper-Upper, work together and know each other by name, such familiarity does not characterize the Middle Class. Also, members of the Middle Class, unlike those of the Upper Class, lack the power of influencing national and international events. - Sociologists usually devide Middle Class members into: - Upper Middle Class, and (III) THE LOWER CLASS This is thew lowest class in the social stratification system. - It consist of 20% of U.S. population. - The lower class consists primarily of: - displaced, unemployed, poor individuals, - Minimum wage workers, and - people with little formal education. - Oscar Lewis calls them people of the ?culture of poverty?, meanwhile - Julius William Wilson calls them the ?underclass.? CONSTITUENTS OF THE LOWER CLASS OR UNDERCLASS - People of color, - women (ferminization of poverty), - children, - the elderly who are permanently unemployed, and who depend on public assistance for economic support. Explaining Lower Class Poverty Ryan - A popular explanation of lower class poverty takes the form of ?blaming the victim? (Ryan 1976). - The blaming the victim approach holds that the poor are poor because they are lazy (Mead 1992). Julius Wilson - Prominent sociologist, William Julius Wilson argues that: - The Underclass or Lower Class People are not there because of their own making; it is the society which has kept them there. - Major economic changes have left large groups of people, especially urban minorities, in vulnerable positions. - He feels that the Underclass has intensified the problem of urban poverty. (C) Distribution Of wealth, Income and Status In The U.S. - In the U.S., the elites control more power and wealth now than was the case in the past, thus accentuating class inequality. - Wealth is the momentary value of everything one owns. It is accumulative and can be passed down to the next generation. - Income is the amount of money brought into a household from various sources, such as wages, investment, income, and dividents during a given period. - The wealthiest 10% control 86% of the nation?s wealth. - Only 1/5 of the nation?s wealthiest people are women. - Most wealthy women have inherited their wealth. - The fortunes of the lower class are declining. - The factors responsible for this decline are: - plant shut downs, - economic downsizing, the - elimination of many government jobs, and - global economic changes. STRATIFICATION AND SOCIAL MOBILITY - Stratification systems differ in the degrees of social mobility they permit. Closed System - In closed class systems movement from one class to the other is virtually impossible. - However, in the open class system, mobility or placement is based on individual achievement, and may change over time. - In many systems of stratification, most people remain in the same class as their parents, since the privileges and disadvantages of class tend to reproduce themselves. - Social mobility is strongly influenced by education. TYPES OF MOBILITY - Social Mobility can occur in many directions, as follows: - Upwards Mobility (occurs when a child achieves significantly more than his parents); - Downwards Mobility (occurs when a child achieves significantly less than his father; - Horizontal Mobility (Occurs when a child achieves at the same level as its parent); - Intergenerational Mobility (occurs, for example, when a child achieves significantly more or less than a parent); and - Intra-generational Mobility (occurs, for example, when an individual gains or loses a substantial amount of wealth). ASSIGNMENT - POVERTY Study the concepts of: - Poverty Line - This is the Federal government?s official definition of poverty (the amount of money required to support the basic needs of a family). -Feminization of Poverty. - The Culture Of Poverty - Oscar Lewis. - Explanations of Poverty - Blaming the victim. - Homelessness. - Welfare. TEST ? CHAPTER 9 From the following questions choose the right option that best answers the question. (1) Social stratification is __________ . (a) a system of structured inequality (b) a universal phenomena (c) strongly influenced by class, race, and gender (d) all of the above (2) While all societies stratify, they vary in _________ . (a) the degree to which stratification exists (b) their complexity (c) the criteria upon which stratification is based (d) all of the above (3) A system of stratification in which the ownership of property and exercise of power is monopolized by an elite who have total control over social resources is called a(n) _________ . (a) estate (b) caste (c) class (d) socialist (4) Feudal societies of the European Middle Ages were an example of a(n) ________ system of stratification. (a) estate (b) caste (c) class (d) socialist (5) In a caste system, one?s place in the stratification is a(n) ______ status. (a) ascribed (b) achieved (c) assumed (d) ambiguous (6) Which of the following is an example of a caste system? (a) South Africa?s apartheid system (b) ?Jim Crow? segregation in the American South (c) the traditional system of stratification in India (d) All of the above are examples (7) In the Indian caste system, the nobles or highest caste that was considered spiritually and socially superior to all other castes were called ________ . (a) Brahmans (b) Elite (c) Kshityras (d) Untouchables (8) Which of the following was NOT one of the primary classes of capitalism according to Karl Marx? (a) the capitalist class (b) the working class (c) the petty bourgeoisie (d) All of the above were primary classes referred to in the Marx?s theory of capitalism. (9) Marx?s lumpenproletariat is a subdivision of the working class that today would include _________ . (a) the underclass (b) the homeless (c) the permanently poor (d) all of the above File: FallExamG.Lines2351 (10) Max Weber analyzed the connections between _____________ . (a) economic, social and political dimensions of stratification (b) class, race and gender as the basis of social stratification (c) co-operation, competition and conflict as social processes affecting social mobility (d) ability, ambition, and sponsorship as factors impacting social mobility (11) Which of the following is/are an important indicator of socio-economic status (SES)? (a) residence (b) occupational prestige (c) education (d) all of the above (12) One thing that becomes most clear with a careful study of the U.S. class system is the fact that _________ . (a) this is basically a middle class society (b) the importance of power is greatly underrated as a determining factor in the class status that one occupies (c) there is enormous class inequality in this society, and it is growing (d) The gap between the rich and the poor is decreasing HCCS NORTHEAST EXAM GUIDELINES ANTHROPOLOGY 2351: FALL (16 WEEKS) GENERAL INFORMATION - The course consists of 3 Examinations (Examination Number 1, Examination Number 2, Examination 3 (which will be a Semester Paper graded over 100 percent), and Examination 4 (Final Examination). Examination Number 1 will consist of: (a) 25 Multiple Choice questions randomly picked from Themes of Anthropology, Chapters 1, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 (2 points each question, 50 points total). (b) 8 fill-in-the-blanks questions randomly picked from Themes of Anthropology, Chapters 1, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 (5 points each question, 40 points total), and (c) 1 Essay Question (10points) Total number of points = 100 points Examination Number 2 will consist of: (a) 25 Multiple Choice questions randomly picked from Chapters 4, Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 (2 points each question, 50 points total). (b) 8 fill-in-the-blanks questions randomly picked from Chapters 4, Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 (5 points each question, 40 points total), and (c) 1 Essay Question (10points) Total number of points = 100 points Examination Number 3 will consist of: (a) A Semester Paper that will be graded over 100% - Thus, it is important to pay particular attention to the Semester Paper. Examination Number 4 (Final Examination) will consist of 45 Multiple Choice questions (90 points total) and 1 essay question (10 points total). It will be composed of: (a) 10 questions randomly chosen from Chapters 1-6 (10 points) (b) 10 questions chosen from chapter 7 (20 points), (c) 10 questions chosen from Chapter 8 (20 points), (d) 10 questions chosen from Chapter 9 (20 points), (e) 10 questions chosen from Chapter 10 (20 points), and (f) 1 Essay Question (10 points) Total number of points = 100 points - All the questions in Examination Numbers 1, Examination Number 2, and the Final Examination, will be taken from the Chapter Summary Notes found in your Course Content File of this course. GUIDELINES FOR EXAMINATION NUMBER 1 EXAMINATION WEEK: Week 4, Monday September 19 to Sunday September 25 EXAMINATION DATES, TIMES and VENUES: Friday, Friday Sept. 23 Venue: At HCC Central Campus in Fine Arts Building (3517 Austin) Time: Start 4.00 p.m. to 9.00 p.m. Last Admit: 7.00 p.m. Duration: 2 hours. Saturday, Sept. 24 Venue: At HCC Westgate Campus (Northwest College): (1550 Foxlake Drive) Time: Start 10.00 a.m.; End 3.00 p.m. Last Admit: 1.00 p.m. Duration: 2 hours Sunday, Sept 25 Venue: At HCC Eastside Campus (Southeast College): (6815 Rustic) Time: Start 10.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. Last Admit: 1.00 p.m. Duration: 2 hours. Note: - Students have the option to write the Exam on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, according to their choice. - There is a two hour time limit for each exam you take unless otherwise noted by instructor. - A picture ID (driver?s license, HCC ID, Work ID, Passport, etc) is required before you will be allowed to test. - Please, bring a number 2 pencil. Do not bring books unless otherwise noted by Instructor. MULTIPLE CHOICE AND FILL-IN-THE-BLANK QUESTIONS: In Examination Number 1, all Multiple Choice Questions and Fill-in-the-blank questions will come from Chapter Summary Notes on: Themes of Anth 2351, Chapter 1, Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. From Themes Anthropology - Revise all themes presented to you, with particular focus on the Theme of Sciencism. From Chapter 1 (What is Anthropology and Why Should I Care?) Revise the following: - The Definition of anthropology, Nacirema, Goals of anthropology, Anthropology as a holistic discipline, Time and purpose for the emergence of Anthropology, The Scientific Method in Anthropology (Induction, Deduction), Main Sub-fields of Anthropology and various characteristics, Ethnology and ethnography as sub-disciplines of anthropology, and The concepts of ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativity in anthropology. From Chapter 2 (Culture Counts) Revise the following: - E.B. Tylor?s conceptualization of Culture, - Broad Classification/Description of Culture, - Functions of Culture, - The Effects of Lack of Culture (Behavior of Feral Children), - Characteristics of Culture, Cultural relativity and Ethnocentrism. - Cultures Change. From Chapter 3 (Studying Culture & Doing Cultural Anthropology) Revise the following: - Components of culture, - Values of American Culture, - Anthropology and Cultural Diversity, - Culture and Racism in Western Society, - Ethnicity, Primordial and Circumstantivist Models, - Theoretical Perspectives Used in Explaining Culture, - Fieldwork and Ethnography. - The Anthropology of Anthropology, ESSAY QUESTION: With respect to the Essay Question in Examination Number 1, revise the Themes of the Course, and Chapter 1 (What is Anthropology and Why Should I Care?) GUIDELINES FOR EXAMINATION NUMBER 2 EXAMINATION WEEK: Week 9, Monday October 24 to Sunday October 30 EXAMINATION DATES, VENUES & TIMES: Friday, Oct. 28: At HCC Central Campus, Fine Arts Building, (3517Austin). Time: Start 4.00 p.m. to 9.00 p.m. Last Admit: 7.00 p.m. Duration: 2 Hours. Saturday, Oct. 29: At HCC Westgate Campus (Northwest College): (1550 Foxlake Drive) Time: Start 10.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. Last Admit: 1.00 p.m. Duration: 2 hours. Sunday, Oct. 30: At HCC Eastside Campus (Southeast College): (6815 Rustic) Time: Start 10.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. Last Admit: 1.00 p.m. Duration: 2 hours. Note: - Students have the option to write the Exam on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, according to their choice. - There is a two hour time limit for each exam you take unless otherwise noted by instructor. - A picture ID (driver?s license, HCC ID, Work ID, Passport, etc) is required before you will be allowed to test. - Please, bring a number 2 pencil. Do not bring books unless otherwise noted by Instructor. MULTIPLE CHOICE AND FILL-IN-THE-BLANK QUESTIONS: In Examination Number 2, all Multiple Choice Questions and Fill-in-the-blank questions will come from the Chapter 4, Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 Summary Notes found in the Course Content File on the Home Page. From Chapter 4 Summary Notes (Language and Communication) Revise the following: - Definition and Significance of Language. - Functions of Language. - Non-human Primate Communication (Washoe, Lana and Koko). - Difference Between Human and Wild Animal Communication. - Charles Hockett?s Characteristics of Human Language. - Theories of language Origins. - When Children start being sensitive to the languages of their cultures. - The anatomy of language/Biological organs that facilitate verbal communication (Brocca?s Area, Wernicke?s Area, Voice Box, etc , etc) - Structure of language/Main components of language (Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantic, etc, etc) - Sapir-Whorf?s Language Theory. - Theories of language learning (Noam Chomsky, Rene Descartes, John Locke & B.F. Skinner). - Non-verbal Communication (Edward Hall - kinesics, proximics, paralanguage, etc). - Ranking languages and controversy over African American vernacular English. (Popular views on Black Vernacular English ? Max Weinrich, Aurthur Jensen, etc) - Important definitions in linguistic studies. From Chapter 5 (Making a Living: Foraging, Horticultural, Pastoral, Agrarian, Industrial & Post-Industrial Societies), Revise the following concepts: - Definition and Synonyms of the hunting-gathering lifestyle, - Main Types of Foraging Lifestyles (Cold Desert, Arid and Semi-arid, and Tropical Rain Forest Foragers), - Mobility as a main characteristic of hunters and gatherers, - Foragers and demographic (population) conditions, - Technology in foraging societies, - Types of reciprocities or sharing patterns, - Collective ownership of property, - Social organization in foraging societies, - Marriage and kinship in foraging societies, - Divorce, - Leadership, - Conflict resolution, and religion, - Horticultural Lifestyle, - Pastoral Lifestyle, - Agrarian Lifestyle, - Agrarian Lifestyle, - Industrial Lifestyle, and - Post Industrial Lifestyle. From Chapter 6 (Economic Anthropology), Revise the following concepts: - Definition of economic anthropology, - Assumptions of economic anthropology, - Valuable resources of different economic systems, - Organization of labor, - Patterns of distribution or sharing (Reciprocities), - Patterns of redistribution (Kula, Potlatch, Cargo, Taxation, Market and Capitalism). ESSAY QUESTION: With respect to the Essay Question in Examination Number 2, revise Chapter 5 (Making a Living). GUIDELINES FOR EXAMINATION NUMBER 3 Note: - Examination Number 3 will consists of a Typed Semester Paper that will be graded over 100%. - You are expected to turn in your Semester Paper during the 10 week of the course, (between Monday Nov. 1 and Sunday Nov. 7, 2011). GUIDELINES FOR FINAL EXAMINATION EXAMINATION WEEK Week 15 (Monday Dec. 5 to Sunday Dec. 11) EXAMINATION DATES, VENUES & TIMES - Friday, Dec. 9: At HCC Central Campus in Fine Arts Building (3517 Austin): Time: Start 4.00 pm ? 9.00 pm; Last Admission is 7.00 p.m. Duration: 2 hours. - Saturday, Dec. 10: At HCC Westgate Campus, 1550 Foxlake Drive (Northwest College): Time: Start 10.00 am ? 3.00 pm; Last Admission is 1.00 p.m. Duration: 2 hours. - Sunday, Dec. 11: At HCC Eastside, 6815 Rustic (Southeast College): Time: Start 10.00 am ? 3.00 pm; Last Admission is 1.00 p.m. Duration: 2 hours. - The final Examination of Anthropology 2351 will consist of 45 Multiple Choice Questions (90 points) and 1 Essay Question (10 points) (Total 100 points). - The Examination will be comprehensive and students will be expected to answer questions from Chapter 1 through Chapter10 of the Course Text. - The first 10 of the forty five Multiple Choice Questions will be randomly picked from Chapter 1 through Chapter 6 of the Course Content (i.e. 1 or 2 questions per chapter), and Chapters 7, 8, 9 and 10 will each contribute 10 questions. MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS: From Chapter 1 (What is Anthropology and Why Should I Care?), expect 2 Questions. For the 2 questions revise the following: - The Scientific, Cultural Relativistic and Holistic Perspectives in Anthropology. From Chapter 2 (Culture Counts), expect 2 Questions. For the 2 questions revise the following: - Tylor?s notions of culture, and the Classification/Characteristics of Culture, From Chapter 3 (Studying Culture & Doing Cultural Anthropology), expect 2 Question. For the 2 question revise the following: - The Values of American Culture, Cultural relativity and ethnocentrism. From Chapter 4 (Language and Communication), expect 2 Questions. For the 2 questions revise the following: - Theories of Language Origins and Learning and Language, and wild animal communication (Lana, Koko, Washoe, etc). From Chapter 5 (Making a Living), expect 1 Question. For the 1 question revise the following: - Foraging or hunting-gathering lifestyle. . From Chapter 6 (Economic Anthropology), expect 1 Questions. - For the 1 question revise the following: - Distribution (Reciprocities) and Redistribution in Foraging Economies. File: ANTH 2351: SEMESTER PAPER EXPECTATIONS, From Chapter 7 (Kingship and Descent), expect 10 Questions. For the 10 questions revise the following: - Definition and Functions of kinship. - Symbols of kinship. - Principles of Kinship. - Major Kinship Descent Patterns (Unilineal, Double or Bilateral, Ambilineal, and Parallel). - Major kinship groups (Lineages, Clans, Phratry, and Moiety) - Main kinship relations (Consanguinous, Affineal, Totemic, Fictive, Joking & Avoidance). - Major Kinship Residential Structures (Neolocal, Patrilocal, Matrilocal, Avunculocal, Bilocal, Ambilocal and Duolocal residences). - Major kinship classification modules (Hawaiian, Eskimo, Iroquois, Omaha, Crow, and Sudanese). From Chapter 8 (Sex and Gender), expect 10 Questions. For the 10 questions revise the following: - Gender Definitions/Terms (sex, gender, gender identity, gender role, gender relations, & gender constructs), - Cultural definition of gender, - Gender and Homosexuality, - Transvestism, - Adultery and sexual partners, - The perception and treatment of Third genders or homosexual in U.S. States, and other parts of the World, - Third Genders or Two-spirit humans in Native American Indian Cultures and other parts of the world . - Universal Division of Labor by gender. - Women in the U.S. Industrial Society From Chapter 9 (Marriage And Family), expect 10 Questions. For the 10 questions revise the following: - Definition of marriage and family. - Functions of marriage. - Universal incest Taboo. - Exogamy and Endogamy. - Choice of marital mates. - Marital ceremonies. - Main Types of Marriages (Extensive). - Gift Exchange during Marriage. - Post Marital Residential Patterns. - Divorce & Death. - Inheritance. - Family Types and Domestic groups. From Chapter 10 (Inequalities: Class & Caste), expect 10 Questions. For the 10 questions revise the following: - Definition of Social Stratification, - Outcomes of Social Stratification, - Forms of social Stratification, - Criteria for determining Stratification, - The Caste and Class Systems of Stratification. - The Functionalist and Conflict Theories of Stratification, and - Stratification and Social Mobilities. ESSAY QUESTION: With respect to the Essay Question, revise Chapter 9 (Marriage and Family). ANTH 2351: SEMESTER PAPER EXPECTATIONS, FOR FALL 2011 - Every student taking Anthropology 2351 is expected to turn in a Semester Paper unfailingly. Late papers will not be tolerated. - The Semester Paper for Anthropology 2351 will require the student to do the following: (1) Choose a controversial problem in a society across space and across time as the subject of the semester paper. - Examples of some controversial problems include: - Terrorism, - Capital Punishment, - Biracial Marriages, - Same sex marriages, - Child or Wife abuse, - Abortion, - Multiculturalism, - Illegal Immigration, - Globalization, - Female Circumcision, - Prayer in Public Schools, etc, etc. (2) Give the Rationale for selecting such a problem. - The rationale for choosing to write a semester paper on a particular problem or subject may include the following: - close relationship of the problem and the student's major, - gravity or popularity of the problem at the time of writing, - relative absence of data or knowledge on the problem, - experiential factors, implying that the student at one time or the other was part of the problem, - availability of sources or references on a chosen problem, - new insights on how to resolve the problem, and etc, etc, etc. (3) State sources or researches that have already studied or discussed his or her problem, indicating how his or her own work will be different from previous researches. - This will help the professor know that the student's semester paper is not just a rehash of some previous study on the chosen problem. (4) State a working plan or state how he/she will go about discussing the problem. - This will call on the student to clearly spell out the aspects that will be discussed in the semester paper. (5) Get each aspect of the working plan, as indicated above, and expand on it. - Here the student will be expected to cite existing authors or sources on the problem or on aspects of the problem. The paper should contain at least 5 sources, and should end with a reference or source sheet (Bibliography). (6) Demonstrate a sense of initiative and logical reasoning in the overall conclusion of the paper. (7) Make the paper 3 to 6 pages long ? Font 12 to 14 (Century Gothic). Avoid large font typing and the unnecessary jumping of spaces/lines. Any student who writes a paper that is exaggeratedly too long will fail as a result of too much intelligence. (8) Have a reference or Source sheet as the last page of the semester paper. - The last page of the Semester Paper should read ?Sources,? ?Bibliography,? or ?References,? and should have at least 5 references. - References can be the Titles of Books, Articles, Oral Interviews, Radio or Television Programs, etc, etc. (9) Make all references using the APA Format. All references should be presented in the APA (American Psychological Association) format ? Do not employ footnotes. (10) Avoid the Use of Internet Sources. - Please, avoid using Internet References, but if you must use them, do not use more than 2 of them. (11) Send in the Paper On Time. - It is important that students turn in typed semester papers in time: Monday October 31 to Sunday November 6. Late papers will not be tolerated. (12) Be sensitive to the fact that the paper will be graded on 4 criteria as seen below. - Students are reminded that each semester paper will be graded on the basis of a class test, out of 100 points. - The distribution of grades will be based on the following criteria: - Subject Content of the Paper, - Language (Use of Standard Good English), - Logical Or Orderly Presentation of Material, and - Use of Originality or Sense of Initiative. (13) Make paper 3 to 6 types pages long, double line spacing, and regular font. Print Save to File breanna Course Content