What is Culture

W1 CULTURE A) WHAT IS CULTURE? Culture is a system of knowledge, beliefs, patterns of behavior, artifacts and institutions that are created, learned and shared by a group of people. It includes norms, values, symbols, mental maps of the reality and material objects, so as structures of power which reinforce, shape and challenge our understanding of the world.! Culture is learned, and the process of learning culture is called enculturation. Some aspects may be learned from formal institutions, such as a religious instruction. However, others may be learned from informal ones. This enculturation process is not unique to humans, however it is in the human race where we Þnd an amazing capacity to learn culture.As well it is learned, culture is also taught, through cultural institutions.! Culture is a shared experience arising from the community. However, this culture is constantly contested, negotiated and changingÑit is never static.! In the process of understanding a culture, we may refer to four elements, which vary from culture to culture, even sometimes inside a same one. This elements are:! " 1. Norms: ideas or rules about how people should behave in particular situations or " " " toward certain people. Some norms may be assumedÑwe learn them over time and " " " incorporate them into our patterns of daily living; but others may be formalized. Cultures " " have clear norms, based on the ideas os age, kinship, sexuality, race, religion, class and " " legal status that specify what is normal and what is not. These norms can also discourage " " exogamy and encourage endogamy, among other examples. Most people accept and " " " follow these norms, but if they chose to challenge them, other members would enforce "" " their standards.! " 2. Values: fundamental beliefs about what is important, what makes a good life and what " " is true, right and beautiful. They reßect shared ultimate standards that should guide " " " peopleÕs behavior, as well as goals that people think are important. They are not Þxed too" " Ñthey can be debated, as well as they can have varying degrees of inßuence. Values are " " powerful cultural tools for clarifying cultural goals and motivating people to action, even to " " die for them.! " 3. Symbols: something that stands for something else within a certain culture. Most " " " symbolic communication is nonverbal, action based and unconscious. Religions include " " powerful systems of symbols that represent deeper meanings to their adherents. National " " ßags are symbols with deep political emotions. Even money, with no real value, means " " " something to us due to its symbolism. Symbols, however, change over time and form from " culture to culture.! " 4. Mental Maps of Reality: cultural classiÞcations of what kinds of people and things " " " exist, and the assignment of meaning to those classiÞcations. Our mental maps are " " " shaped through enculturation, but they are not ÞxedÑthey can be challenged or redrawn. " " Nowadays, globalization is putting more pressure on mental maps of reality as people are " " increasingly connected. Mental maps also have two big functions: ! " " -Classifying reality: a culture creates conceptsÑcategories that may seem Þxed "" " " that are in reality ßexible, showing the role of cultural in deÞning our notion of " " " " reality. "However, the problem arises when these differences are believed to be " " " " scientiÞcally or biologically ÔnaturalÕ.! " " -Assigning meaning to what has been classiÞed: people in a culture develop map " " " upon things and people, and they also place values and meaning onto these maps.! Anthropology is constantly challenging the notion of ethnocentrism, the belief that oneÕs own culture os even superior. Nowadays, and due to the globalization, multiculturalism is a closer phenomenon, and anthropology seeks to broaden peopleÕs worldview. ! These anthropologists adopt a cultural relativist approach to counteract ethnocentrism. This approach calls for the suspension of judgements while trying to understand a groupÕs beliefs and practices within their own cultural context. Thus, anthropologists seek to objectively represent the diversity of the human race. However, they also have to deal with situation in which the cultural practices they study do not match their own ideas of fairness or justice. The commitment to a research strategy of cultural relativism does not require anthropologists to ignore their own sense of the good or bad or ignore human rights violations. This can be shown in the American Anthropological AssociationÕs (AAA) Declaration on Anthropology and Human Rights, which draws W1 heavily in UN documents. This statement also warns against an over-reliance on the uniformity of Western tradition.! B) HOW HAS THE CULTURE CONCEPT DEVELOPED IN ANTHROPOLOGY? The concept of culture was Þrst used by Edward Burnett Taylor, who in 1871 stated a deÞnition: culture or civilization (É) is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, moral, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by a man as a member of society. He understood culture as a uniÞed and complex system of ideas and behavior learned over time, passed down from generation to generation, and shared by the members of a particular group.! EARLY REVOLUTIONARY FRAMEWORKS Burnett Taylor, James Frazer and Lewis Henry Morgan leaded the Þrst anthropologists. They tried to organize the data about the diverse cultures accumulated through colonial enterprises. They had an inßuence from DarwinÕs theory of biological evolution (diversity of biological species resulted from gradual change over time in response to environmental pressures), so they stated that the vast diversity of cultures represented different stages in the evolution of human culture. They followed what is called a unilateral cultural evolution, setting all cultures in a continuum savageÑbarbarianÑcivilized.! Next anthropologist generations rejected this thesis as they thought it was too Eurocentric, hierarchical and lacking adequate data. Franz Boas (founder of American anthropology) and Bronislaw Malinowski represent the main schools that moved beyond the evolutionary framework.! AMERICAN HISTORICAL PARTICULARISM Boas rejected the unilateral understanding and invented the historical particularism approach, stating that culture arises from different causes, and so anthropologists could not rely on an evolutionary formula. Evolutionists argued that culture similarities emerged through independent invention as cultures solved the same problems with similar solutions, but Boas turned on the idea of diffusion (borrowing of cultural traits) to explain similarities.! His students Benedict and Mead continued his trace. Benedict explored the ways cultural traits are uniquely patterned and integrated. However, Mead drove her attention to enculturation and its effects on cultural patterns and personality types.! BRITISH STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM Between the 20s and the 60s, British anthropologists viewed anthropology as a science and a Þeld work. They saw human societies as living organisms, in which each part Þts together and has a function. This approach is known as structural functionalism. By isolating as many variables as possible, these anthropologists sought to focus narrowly on the culture at hand. However, later, some other anthropologists such as Turner or Gluckman critiqued earlier functionalism for ignoring dynamics of conßict, tension and change within the cultures they studied.! CULTURE AND MEANING A popular view in Anthropology sees culture as a set of ideas shared by a group of people that provides a common body of information about how to behave, why to behave that way and what that behavior means. Geertz, a representative of the interpretivist approach urged anthropologists to explore cultures as a symbolic system in which simple actions can have deep meanings.! B2) HOW ARE CULTURE AND POWER RELATED? A recent scholarship pushes anthropology to consider the interconnections culture-power. Power be described as the ability to bring about change through action or inßuence, either oneÕs own or that f a group or institution, including the ability to inßuence through force or threat of force. It is also embedded in many kinds of social relations.Wolf urged to see power as an aspect of human relations, arguing that all human relations have a power dynamic. Power in a culture reßects stratiÞcation, or an uneven distribution of resources and privileges. These structures of power organize relationships and create a framework through which access to cultural resources is distributed, so people can participate more in the culture than others. This balance is not Þxed.! W1 POWER AND CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS To understand the relationship culture-power we need to recognize that a culture is more than a set of ideas or patterns of behavior shared among a collection of individuals, as it includes the power institutions these people create to promote and maintain their core values. A wide range of institutions play big roles in enculturation, like school or religion. Also, these institutions work as a location to argue and debate.! HEGEMONY Gramsci described two aspects of power, one which includes political, military or economic power and a second one, involving the ability to create consent and agreement within a population, condition named hegemony. ! Gramsci recognized the power of culture in shaping what people see as normal, natural and posible, and so inßuencing the scope of human action. Cultures also contain a belief system of what is good and wrong. Foucault described this hegemonic aspect of power as the ability to make people discipline their own behavior so that they believe and act in certain normal ways, often against their own interests. ! HUMAN AGENCY Individuals have the power to contest cultural norms, values, maps of reality, symbols, institutions and structures of power, a potential known as agency. By examining human agency, we see how culture serves as a realm in which battles over power take place. Although a group may have greater access to power, resources, rights or privileges, the systems of power they create are never absolute, and their dominance is never complete. Individuals with less resources may contest the dominant power, whether in a visible or diffuse.! For instance, Scott argues that not all resistance is revolutionary and that many acts of everyday resistance can change over time. Through these process of contestation, the values, mental maps (É) that appear to be timeless are actually undergoing constant change.!