Culture Is What We Do

Theories of Cultural Change ANTH 2301 Culture Is What We Do Ahmed works as a carpet vendor in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. People from all over the world visit his stand every day to look at the carpets in his inventory and occasionally purchase some. While anthropologist Patricia Scalco (2019) was studying market trade in Istanbul, she got to know Ahmed. She studied the collection of sales techniques he had developed in response to the needs and expertise of his clients. Ahmed welcomes prospective customers and directs them to his stand whenever someone stops at the entryway. Ahmed welcomes the customer with a cup of tea and brings out a silver plate. Ahmed strikes up a well planned discussion while the client is browsing in an attempt to find out more about the customer's background, interests, and level of knowledge of carpets. He takes several rugs out of the piles and unfolds them while talking about what makes each one unique. Ahmed sees this exchange as a kind of game he has to play with his clients. European shoppers in this Turkish marketplace are frequently drawn to the handcrafted traditional goods produced locally by rural ethnic groups like the Kurds. However, the majority of carpets that are offered in the Istanbul market these days are manufactured in China, India, and Pakistan. But after selling carpets for many years, Ahmed knows that to make a sale, he has to appeal to Western orientalist fancies by creating a unique narrative around the carpet's creation and provenance. Ahmed, like other vendors in this market, needs to provide for his family, therefore he can't afford to publicly defy his clients' wishes and expertise. Ahmed's work, which focuses on the material culture of carpets, demonstrates the significance of human behaviour and thought in the creation of cultural life. Non-material components of culture include the actions and beliefs of individuals. Ahmed has formed a series of routine speech and gesture patterns from his regular dealings with clients. This type of culture is known to anthropologists as cultural practices. Routine action plans social occurrences (like, ideally, a sale), but routine speech conveys meanings and values (like the "authenticity" of a carpet). Individuals from diverse backgrounds adopt comparable patterns of routine behaviour and communication that become the daily customs of persons living in those situations. How do you prepare for the day in the morning? That is customary behaviour in the culture. When someone visits your home, how do you respond? That is customary behaviour in the culture. When you're hungry, how do you respond? That is customary behaviour in the culture. While some cultural anthropologists are more interested in extraordinary occasions like rituals and festivals, others concentrate on these routine activities as essential to understanding culture. For example, Brazil has Carnival, a yearly celebration of song and dancing, to usher in the Catholic season of Lent. Many cities are filled with parades of dancers dressed in costumes who engage with the public and draw large groups of admirers. Kenneth Williamson (2012), a cultural anthropologist, investigated Salvador, Bahia, a northern Brazilian state, during Carnival. Although the Brazilian Carnival is presented as a national holiday, Williamson discovered that the politics of race play a unique role in the carnival festivities of Salvador, a poorer and predominately Black city. Black dance styles like capoeira, which combines dance and martial arts skills developed by Brazilian enslaved peoples, are included by local Carnival dance groups. The uniqueness of Salvadoran Carnival is also influenced by African-inspired music and religion. In Salvador, funfair has grown more and more commercialised as a travel destination, drawing both Black and White visitors. Black activists in Brazil claim that aspects of Black culture are being taken and used for cultural entertainment with little regard for their rich cultural significance as representations of survival and struggle. In the meantime, the growing tourism industry provides little benefit to the majority of Black Salvadorans. Brazilian Carnival participants and Turkish carpet sellers both practise their cultures on a daily and special occasion basis. Both instances demonstrate how common and contentious thought patterns permeate cultural materials and behaviours. The third component of culture is these modes of thought.