Introduction to Culture (from: http://anthro.palomar.edu/culture/culture_1.htm

What is Culture? Culture is the full range of learned human

behavior patterns. English Anthropologist Edward B. Tylor in his

book, Primitive Culture, published in 1871. culture is "that complex whole which includes

knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society."

Culture is adaptive Culture is changing. Our written languages, governments,

buildings, and other man-made things are merely the products of culture and reflect cultural patterns

Layers of Culture Three layers or levels of culture

Most obviously is the body of cultural traditions that distinguish your specific society. E.G.: when people talk of Italian, Samoan,

or Japanese culture, they are referring to the shared language, traditions, and beliefs that set each of these peoples apart from others. In most cases, those who share your culture do so because they acquired it as they were raised by parents and other family members who have it.

The second layer of culture a subculture In complex, diverse societies in which people come

from many parts of the world, they may maintain their original cultural traditions and become part of an identifiable subculture. E.g.: Chinese-Canadians, Caribbean Canadians Members of each of these subcultures share a

common identity, food tradition, dialect or language, and other cultural traits that come from their common ancestral background and experience.

As the cultural differences between members of a subculture and the dominant national culture blur and eventually disappear, the subculture ceases to exist except as a group of people who claim a common ancestry. E.g.: German and Irish Canadians today. Most of

them identify themselves as Americans first. They also see themselves as being part of the cultural mainstream of the nation.

The third layer of culture consists of cultural universals. These are learned behavior patterns that are shared by all of humanity collectively. No matter where people live in the world, they share these universal traits. Examples of such "human cultural" traits include: 1. communicating with a verbal language consisting of a

limited set of sounds and grammatical rules for constructing sentences

2. using age and gender to classify people (e.g., teenager, senior citizen, woman, man)

3. classifying people based on marriage and descent relationships and having kinship terms to refer to them (e.g., wife, mother, uncle, cousin)

4. raising children in some sort of family setting 5. having a sexual division of labor (e.g., men's work

versus women's work) 6. having a concept of privacy 7. having rules to regulate sexual behavior

8. distinguishing between good and bad behavior

9. having some sort of body ornamentation

10. making jokes and playing games 11. having art 12. having some sort of leadership roles

for the implementation of community decisions

Culture and Society Culture: complexes of learned

behaviours Society: groups of interacting

organisms They are connected in that culture is

transmitted in a society

Characteristics of Culture Culture is Adaptive

Humans are still adapted to the warmer climates of Africa from where we evolved roughly 2.5 million years ago

Use of cultural and technological skills like hunting, fire, clothing and agriculture has enabled humans to survive outside the environment our bodies have been adapted to

Culture has allowed the human population to grow from less than 10 million to 6.5 billion in 10 000 years

Humans have developed survival related cultural and technological skills to adapt to environmental demands faster than natural selection could alter our bodies This has effected the natural selection of

humans E.g.: humans don’t need thick layers of fat

to survive in Artic conditions

Culture is Learned Culture is non-instinctive

Born with predisposition to learn language and culture

But humans are not genetically programed to learn a particular culture

Culture is cumulative New cultural skills are added on what was learned

in previous generations

The time between major cultural inventions has become shorter since the development of agriculture roughly 10 000 years ago The larger human population growth is likely a cause

and consequence of this is culture growth

Agriculture allowed our human ancestors to have a more controllable and dependable food supply and resulted in settled communities and led to further developments in technology and political organization as specialization was possible

Culture Changes Culture changes over time

As new cultural traits are added some old ones are lost because they are no longer useful The rate of change and the aspects

of change varies from society to society

Change can happen as a result of invention within a society and/or diffusion of cultural traits from one society to another

Change in one aspect of a culture will change another aspect because culture is integrated

Culture is integrated E.g.: Kapauku Papuans, mountain people of

New Guinea studied by Leopold Pospisil in 1955 Economy relies on plant cultivation, along

with pig breeding, hunting and fishing Men achieve political power through business

of pig breeding and pig breeding relies on sweet potatoes grown in garden plots Women are responsible for gardening

activities and caring for pigs So to raise many pigs a man must have

many women in the household and this is accomplished through polygyny

But for each wife a man has to pay a bride price and wives have to be compensated for their care of pigs So it takes pigs to get wives which are need to raise

pigs So it is the trait of entrepreneurship that produces

leaders in the Kapauku Kapauku emphasize patrilineality and this is stressed

by the wives living in the husbands’ villages and not the other way around

Another factor conducive to polygyny is a surplus of women This is reflected in one of their rules of

warfare, which is prevalent among the Kapauku: men get killed but women to not This provides for the imbalance of sexes that

provides favourable conditions for polygyny Kapauku emphasize patrilineality and this is

stressed by the wives living in the husbands’ villages and not the other way around

Both endemic warfare and patrilineality promote male dominance and thus it is not surprising that positions of power in Kapauku society is held by men This type of male dominance arises under the

particular circumstances of the Kapauku and the relationship between men and women would be different if the circumstances would have been different

People are Not Aware of Their Culture We are unaware of our own

culture because we are so close to it and know it so well When we come into contact with

another culture we become aware that our own patterns of behaviour are not universal

Ethnocentrism: when one judges another culture in terms of the values and customs of his/her own culture E.g: European attitudes towards

polygyny and Middle Eastern attitudes towards European female dress

When studying another culture, one must adopt a cultural relativity approach Study the culture in relation to that

culture itself and not his/her own Allows us to understand how a practice like

polygyny cab function and support culture E.g.: Masai

We Do Not Know All of Our Own Culture No on knows everything about his or her

own culture E.g.: gender specific knowledge,

knowledge limited to specific social classes, occupations, religious groups or other special purpose associations

Culture Gives Us a Range of Permissible Behaviour Patterns Culture tells how to behave is particular

situations E.g.: What to wear based on gender and

situation, how to behave as a husband, wife, parent, child, etc.

Cultures No Longer Exist in Isolation Most societies are integrated somehow

into the global community Virtually all societies are now acquiring

cultural traits from the economically dominant societies of the world