Anthropology PDF

ANTHROPOLOGY INTRODUCTION Anthropology is a relative newcomer to the debate on selfhood. It emerged as a subject from the imperial ambitions of European states during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and was initially an effort to identify the weaknesses and failings of other cultures so that...

ANTHROPOLOGY INTRODUCTION Anthropology is a relative newcomer to the debate on selfhood. It emerged as a subject from the imperial ambitions of European states during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and was initially an effort to identify the weaknesses and failings of other cultures so that they could be exploited and subjugated. It was only in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries that anthropology threw off its intimate links with the national and religious organisations it had been serving, and began to ask the big question that has informed its research ever since: ‘ What does it mean to be human? Anthropology does express a unique view on the issue of selfhood: the anthropological approach both starts and finishes with the group. The self needs to be seen as a socially defined phenomenon, created by both the impression of the group upon the individual and the expression of the individual upon the group. Humans have a unique relationship with other members of their species, both communicatively and socially. Our capacity for group living and group institutions exceeds that of every other animal on the planet. Anthropology therefore has an important voice in the discussion of selfhood. LESSON PROPER MARCEL MAUSS - Remaining the same person and turning chameleon by adapting to one’s context seems paradoxical. However, French anthropologist Marcel Mauss has an explanation for this phenomenon. According to Mauss, every self has two faces: personne and moi. Moi refers to a person’s sense of who he is, his body, and his basic identity, his biological givenness. Moi is a person’s basic identity. Personne, on the other hand, is composed of the social concepts of what it means to be who he is. Personne has much to do with what it means to live in a particular institution, a particular family, a particular religion, a particular nationality, and how to behave given expectations and influences from others. He studied non-Western societies all over the world and proposed the “Total Social Phenomenon”, which tackles that every sector in a community or society should cooperate to have a well-balanced living. LANGUAGE Has something to do with culture. It is a salient part of culture and ultimately, has a tremendous effect in our crafting of the self. This might also be one of the reasons why cultural divide spells out differences in how one regards oneself. If a self is born into a particular society or culture, the self will have to adjust according to its exposure. Language and culture are intertwined. A particular language usually points out to a specific group of people. when you interact with another language, it means that you are also interacting with the culture that speaks the language. you cannot understand one’s culture without accessing its language directly. When you learn a new language, it not only involves learning its alphabet, the word arrangement and the rules of grammar, but also learning about the specific society’s customs and behavior. when learning or teaching a language, it is important that the culture where the language belongs be referenced, because language is very much ingrained in the culture. CLIFFORD GEERTZ An American cultural anthropologist who defined culture as “a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes towards life. Basic premises of his work, "The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man," The Interpretation of Cultures. (1966), include the following: Look for what makes people/cultures different, not the same; it is more effective to analyze human nature by noting the differences between cultures that arise over time and space than to try to form vague notions of universals Culture reveals the link between what man is capable of and how he actually behaves, which in turn helps define human nature. Culture is the "accumulated totality" of symbolic patterns that appear in different societies.