Understanding Culture: Key Concepts in Anthropology

Introductory Terminology

• Anthropology is the human study of archaeology, biological/physical anthropology, linguistics, and cultural anthropology
• Holism studies human societies as the sum of their integrated parts
• Ethnocentrism interprets and judges other societies based on one's own; anthropologists aim to combat this
• Cultural relativism understands groups' beliefs/practices within their cultural context without judgment
• The emic perspective studies a society through the eyes of the people being studied
• The etic perspective studies a society using concepts from outside the culture
• Ethnography describes contemporary human societies
• Ethnographies are written results of cultural anthropologists' fieldwork via cultural immersion

Guest's Three Components of Culture

• Culture is a system of knowledge, beliefs, behavioral patterns, artifacts, and institutions created, learned, shared, and contested
• Culture is learned and taught through enculturation, not genetics, in formal and informal settings
• Culture is shared, yet contested, negotiated, and changing. It is a shared experience through group participation, not individually
• Culture is symbolic and material, defined by norms, values, symbols and mental maps of reality to dictate appropriate behavior in specific situations

Definitions of Religion

• Defining religion is difficult due to vague, narrow, or ethnocentric definitions.
• Analytic definitions focus on religion's expression in culture via rituals/narratives
• Functional definitions focus on religion's social or psychological effects for community
• Essentialist definitions focus on religion's core nature, often its connection to the supernatural

Organization and Characteristics of Religions

• Religions are categorized into denominations (mainstream deviations) or sects (significant deviations with new founders/ revelations)
• Operational religion definitions include: belief in anthropomorphic supernatural beings, focus on the sacred supernatural, supernatural power, rituals, worldview and moral code articulations, social bonds and control maintenance, explanations for the unknown, and a sense of control.

Key Approaches to the Study of Religion

• Evolutionary approach, from Tylor and Marett, argues linear religious evolution from animism to monotheism. Animism, proposed by Tylor, attributes souls to objects. Marett proposed animatism, belief in a diffuse supernatural power. Now considered overly simplistic and ethnocentric
• Marxist approach views religion as a tool for powerful groups to maintain socioeconomic inequality, creating false consciousness among the oppressed. Religion is the "opium of the people"
• Interpretive approach, from Geertz, sees religion as a symbolic system establishing moods and motivations via conceptions of the general order of existence. Meaning is created through society/symbol interaction
• Functionalist approach, from Durkheim and Malinowski, argues cultural forms, like religion, serve specific functions for survival/procreation. Malinowski stated religion offers comfort in uncertain world. Durkheim focused on religion's role in maintaining social cohesion/identity

Religious Rituals

• Rituals are patterned, recurring sequences of behavior
• Religious rituals use of religious symbols representing beliefs and values

Ritual Classifications

• Approaches for studying religious rituals include exploring performance motivations, timing, and classification
• Why are rituals performed? Is it Prescriptive as a religious law, tradition, or authority? Is it Situational to address particular needs or crises?
• When are rituals performed? Periodically on scheduled events? Occasionally when needed?
• What is the ritual Classification? Is it Technological to influence nature? Is it Therapy to address illness with healing or harm? Is it Revitalization to eliminate traditions? Is it Ideological to maintain society such as: social identification or rite of passage

Rites of Passage

• Rites of Passage have three phases: Separation or removal from former status is followed by a Transition that shows readiness for new status before Incorporation with a re-entry into society that showcases the new status.
• Examples of rates of passage are graduation or Islamic salat prayer that is prescriptive, ideological, and therapeutic

Narrative Story Structure

• Narrative stories perpetuate a society's worldview
• Folktales entertain with moral messages via fictional human/nonhuman characters that exists separately of time

Legends and Myths

• Legends represent past events of heroes, ghosts, and treasures. They contain embellishments with generally human characters taking place in present
• Myths tell sacred stories from past that recount real events in a different world with values, norms, supernatural characters, and potential recitations

Types of Myths

• Origin Myths address individual/communal identity and beginnings of time
• Apocalyptic Myths describe catastrophic destruction, signifying an end and a new beginning with elements of origin myths
• Hero Myths illustrate a monomyth or "hero's journey" involving departure, initiation, and return with boons

Symbols

• A symbol is something that stands for something else
• Symbols' meanings are specific to the cultural/societal/religious context
• Language uses symbols like words, sounds, and gestures to communicate
• Forms of communication: icon (similarity), index (association), and symbol (convention)
• Symbols represent things despite limitations of resemblance or correlation and abstract topics offering manipulation of building relationships and better conveying messages
• Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: language shapes thought and worldview. Languages highlight different aspects of reality using a dedicated vocabulary
• Cultural context and symbolic language shape understanding challenging the idea of universal human nature

Colors and Religious Symbolism

• Religious symbols are something which stands for something else in religious contexts
• Their meanings vary depending on religious context and time, as well as being literal or conveying religious values
• Understanding of religious symbols is formed by a cultural/societal/religious background
• Colors can be used in religious symbols and art
• Colors used in religious rituals symbolize particular intentions, values, and beliefs
• Colors are tied to culture's religious beliefs (e.g., Yoruba) and can be symbolic like "feeling blue"

Distinctions Between Shamans and Priests

• Religious specialists exist on a continuum from shaman to priest
• Shamans Role involves direct supernatural/supernatural spirit contact via trance or helpers. Authority derives from aiding individuals/families, typically part-time and chosen by spirits as wounded healers
• Priests represent a community in dealing with deity. Roles and authority derive from religious groups and knowledge, so duties are performed full-time and achieved through divine inheritance or calling

Other Religious Specialists

• Prophets communicate with the gods to be and are intermediaries which results in societal change and charisma emerge to larger deity societies
• Okinawan Kaminchu, or priestesses are kami-sama that emit spiritual energy by "sitting" and receiving offerings and are understood to be deities
• Okinawan Yuta, or Shaman-like Practitioners, communicate with the ancestors to diagnose problems and use ritual remedies
• Korea Shamans is chosen through the sinbyöng mystic illness to perform curing illness, divining, and guiding dead through the gut rite
• Shamans communicate with spirits to determine cause of illness of patients
• Clown doctors share shamanistic qualities by engaging patients in providing distraction
• Cult leaders demand obedience and belief that the group they lead is above the law, compared to the follower ship of high demand groups