Understanding Culture: Race, Language, and Politics

• These notes cover different aspects of culture, including race, language, politics, identity, and economic systems

Race

• Race is a biologically meaningless term because all humans belong to the same species
• Humans are physically different but cannot be divided into racial categories
• Race is a social and cultural construct, existing and impactful despite not being biological
• Key reasons race is not biological:
• Humans are genetically similar
• Human variation is continuous and cannot be divided into categories
• No group of traits consistently appears in one race and not others
• People of different races can be genetically closer than people of the same race
• Race is a product of historical circumstances, particularly early colonization
• In the 18th century, race was understood biologically, but this classification was built on racism
• Linnaeus and Blumenbach developed initial racial categories
• Scientific racism and eugenics were influential in the 19th and early 20th centuries
• Eugenics attempted to purify humans by allowing only 'superiors' to breed
• Ethnicity refers to common history, culture, language, and shared identity, and is more specific than race

Language

• Language is a defining aspect of human culture that enables complex thought and interaction
• Language is a symbolic system for expressing meaning using words
• The sign is composed of signifier and signified representing meaning
  • Symbols are arbitrary, lacking a natural connection between signifier and signified
• Other signs like icons and indexes have non-arbitrary connections
• Language is both biological (use of body) and socio-cultural (varied across groups)
• The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Linguistic Relativity Principle) posits that language influences worldview
• Linguistic determinism suggests language determines the way people experience the world
• Context affects language use, such as formality
• Non-verbal communication (paralanguage) expresses meaning through sounds and cues beyond words

Politics and Power

• Politics encompasses actions and reactions related to power
• Power means the ability to compel someone to do something against their will
• Politics concerns how power is negotiated, used, and abused
• Power relations exist on individual and group levels
• Power is not distributed equally, leading to inequalities
• Power can be used coercively (force/threat) or persuasively (cultural beliefs/reward)
• Political systems include those that make decisions collectively and those that concentrate power
• Uncentralized systems involve collective decisions in small, homogeneous groups
• Centralized systems have a ruling body with authority, formal laws, and sanctions
• Elman Service's classification of political systems includes uncentralized bands and tribes and centralized chiefdoms and states

Band Societies

• Bands involve mainly hunting and gathering with temporary structures, and frequent moves
• Decisions are made collectively, without centralized authority, and members have equal access to resources
• Leaders are temporary, chosen by skills and communication

Tribe Societies

• Tribes practice horticulture or pastoralism, living in villages tied by kinship/common ancestors
• There is no centralized government, but more official leaders exist

Chiefdom Societies

• Chiefdoms are centralized societies with more population and agriculture
• Official government/leadership is recognized, with a chief and bureaucracy, prestige can be earned or hereditary

State Societies

• States engage in intensive agriculture and have centralized government, laws, and courts
• These are Stratified Societies and include modern and ancient states
• Social stratification is not characteristic of all groups
• Social mobility is the ability to move up or down in social ranking
  • Class is based on wealth/status which is achieved
  • Caste is based on birth

Sex, Gender & Sexuality

• Cultures have norms for individual behavior based on sex/gender
• Sex and gender are distinct
• Sex is biological/physiological
• Gender is a socio-cultural construct based on and varying from sex
• Intersex individuals embody variation
• Gender roles: culturally specific ideas about gender-appropriate behavior
  • These are socially constructed
• Gender can be a social category or individual identity assigned at birth
• Identity: personal sense of gender
• Cisgender: aligns with sex assigned at birth
• Transgender: differs from sex assigned at birth
• Performing gender: expressing gender identity
• Anthropologists view it as active/varied
• Acquired through mimicry and bodily movement during interaction
• Performativity: includes social identity
• Nonbinary genders: more genders a culture recognizes
• Sexuality: how people experience/value physical desire
• Anthropologists study how it’s shaped by social structure
• Fixed sexuality is mostly new
• Sexual orientation: sexual/romantic attraction within culture
• Is culture controlled
• Attitudes toward sexuality vary across cultures

Identities

• Social identity: Who we are and how we stand in relation to others
• Behavior and assumptions are applied
• Focuses on multiplicity
• Identities: are not innate
• Identities: are learned and constructed
• Identities: change and are not fixed
• Identities: are multiple
• Imagined communities: cultivate community/nationality sense
• Groups imagined because they won’t know all the members
• Nature vs nurture: affects us
• Biocultural approach: (biology and culture constructs)
• Importance of self: important quality
• How we understand ourselves
• Different naming practices
• North America: focuses on autonomous individuality
• Some societies: focus on society
• Communicating identity: through interaction
• Forming identities: through social struggle

Food and Economy

• Food Foraging: use available lands to feed
• Food Production: manipulate for food
• Horticulturalists: gardening
• Pastoralists: herding animals
• Industrialism: mechanized for production
• Humans did for 99% of time
• Nomadic live in bands
• Shift from hunting/gathering 10,000 yrs ago
• Ancient, sustainable practice
• Often combined with horticulture
• Evolution theory:
• Savagery-barbarism- civilization
• Technology is driving progress
• Economic activity:
• Production: transformation of raw material
• Distribution: give to people
• Consumption: using of product
• Important: not in capitalist terms
• Production:
• Natural resources and cultural factors are guides
• Non- industrial gender/social hierarchy
• Distribution: how it is given to people
• Exchange modes:
• Reciprocity: equal value
• Redistribution: center receives and divides
• Market exchange: involves money, trade etc
• Money vs gifts:
• Capitalist/commodity: impersonal
• Non capitalist/ gift: require a return and create obligations
• Consumption: economic activity
• Commodity: item consumed is someone who is not its producer
• Can tell about inequalities