Module 1

• Cultural anthropology, also known as social anthropology, refers to the analysis and description of cultures
• Archaeology is devoted to the study of material remains of past cultures. By reconstructing extinct forms of life, it seeks to know the ecological environment and the causes that led to its demise. Among the most widespread branches have historical and industrial archaeology.
• Physical Anthropology studies the characteristics of humans through fossils and distinctive features and understand how we became what we are today. Here, you can recognize primatology, human paleontology, forensic anthropology, and population genetics.
• Holistic perspective is a characteristic of anthropology that gathers all aspects of a human group.
• Anthropology is the science devoted to the study of ancient and modern human beings and their lifestyles
• Comparative perspective is a characteristic of anthropology that compares human aspects with those of other groups.
• Anthropological linguistics studies the diversity of languages ​​spoken by the existing human groups, attempts to reconstruct the history of their origin and its relationship with the development of groups. The branches in which this aspect is divided include historical linguistics, descriptive linguistics and sociolinguistics.
• Evolutionist school argues that the societies shall pass through states of development, in that way they could be able to place in some of them
• Edward B. Tylor proposed to explain the evolution of human societies by passing through various stages to reach a developed or superior stage.

  
  

  He also established the bases of the study of the anthropology, when he proposed the first concept of culture
• Lewis H. Morgan is one of the most influential of the evolutionist postulate. In his work Primitive Society (1877)
• Lewis H. Morgan proposes a classification of the evolution of mankind from stages:

  1. Lower savagery
  2. Higher savagery
  3. Barbarism
  4. Higher stage of barbarism
  5. Civilization
• Lower savagery: collection of wild food, nomadic horde and common property of resources
• Higher savagery: hunting and banned marriage among siblings.
• Barbarism: Agriculture and pottery; prohibition of incest.
• Higher state barbarism: polygyny and private property.
• Civilization: Writing; civil government and monogamy.
• Emphasizes particular aspects of the singular history of the studied cultures: “Every culture or society, is the consequence of its own particular process which result of the sum of the aspects who have been build it through the pass of time”

  Historical particularism
• Franz Boas, and one of his main contributions to historical particularism is his demonstration that race, language and culture are elements independent from the human condition and that it is possible to find societies that shared the same racial features, behaviors and different languages.The idea of ​​defined stages with distinctive biological and cultural features finds in this proposal the demonstration that evolution was not a simple process.

• Acculturation, as a concept for diffusionism, is the exchange of cultural features, a result of continuous direct contact between two groups.
• Functionalism: duty of the anthropologist to describe the functions of the customs and institutions for the society studied, means by which we come to understand its origins.
• Structural functionalism of Radcliffe-Brown, who added to the concept of function the place it occupied in the social structure, i.e., the way society was organized as a whole. One of the contributions of this theory is the importance of conducting field work for long periods, learning the language and local customs as the only method that provides valid and reliable data in anthropology
• This posture sustains how it is possible to study an organism thru its physiology and morphology, also it is the same way with the societies

  Functionalism
• Neoevolutionism, by Leslie White, re-examines the evolutionist paradigm as "the existence of a cultural evolution determined by the amount of energy that could be captured and put into execution by person."
• Almost simultaneously, Julian Steward and his cultural ecology proposes to include the influence of the natural environment (climate and natural conditions of the land) with cultural factors, such as technology and the economy.
• Ethnocentrism Means to judge other cultures, practices, behaviors and beliefs by using one’s own culture as a frame of reference.

  This attitude can lead to prejudice, discrimination and intolerance towards other groups.
• Society is a group of people sharing a common habitat that depend on eachother to survive. Within large societies, there are classes, ethnic groups and other subcultures.
• Culture tends to be similar from one generation to another due to enculturation (learning to be a member of a culture)
• It has been found that recipients make a selection and reproduction of the contents received, and this is called the generation gap.
• Extends transmission of cultural features from one society to another. It was considered as the explanation of cultural differences and similarities

  Diffusionism
• How we can compare cultures arises? The universal pattern of cultures
• Method that collects data from enculturation and diffusionismin order to compare cultures.

  universal pattern of cultures
• Composed of activities from an external and behavioral point of view, by which society meets its minimum requirements for subsistence and regulates demographic growth. In this aspect it refers to family, groups of friends and in-law relationship.

  Infrastructure
• It consists of activities from an external and behavioral point of view, through which society is organized into groups that distribute and regulate goods and labor. Here we are talking about companies, their employees and workers

  Structure
• Composed of behavior devoted to artistic, recreational, intellectual and religious activities, such as attending worship practices, the temple or church and carry out in practice the behaviors promoted by religion. It includes all activities from the internal point of view of structure and infrastructure.

  superstructure
• Instead of following a linear evolution, culture is defined from the particular differences of each and the multiplicity of existing cultures.

  cultural relativism.
• The contribution of Gilberto Giménez, is part of the new contemporary currents and studies about culture. 

  He recognize three phases in the concept of culture:

  The Particular Phase (customs).

  The Abstract Phase (models).

  The Symbolic Phase (meanings).
• The Abstract Phase, the one represented by Tylor, the emphasis on customs and culture is left behind; it is now defined in terms of models or patterns of behavior. It considers that culture goes beyond the way in society, and becomes a system of values and standards that regulate the behavior of people belonging to a specific social group.
• Phase that starts in the early seventies of the last century, with the proposal of Clifford Geertz, author who caused a lot of controversy for reducing the concept of culture to the realm of the symbolic. For Geertz, culture is defined as a web of meanings that is, as a complex set of socially established meanings, created to give meaning to the life of the social group that originates them.


  symbolic phase
• Family is the basic unit of human societies.
• Nuclear family consists on father, mother, and child(dren).

  It has 4 vital functions to the functioning of society:

  1.- Sexual relations (satisfies the sexual needs of its members).

  2.- Reproduction (to ensure the protection of women during pregnancy and lactation).

  3.- Education (allows the transmission and persistence of culture in families).

  4.- Subsistence (through a division, by sex, of the activities needed for subsistence, it ensures the economic welfare of the family).