ANTHRO 3AC Study Guide - Final Guide: Liminality, Marcel Mauss, Cybernetics
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ANTHRO 3AC FINAL EXAM REVIEW
1. Habitus (Mauss)
o The habitus according to Muass refers to aspects of culture that are
anchored in the body or daily practices of individuals, groups,
societies, and nations.
o This includes the totality of learned habits, bodily skills, styles, tastes,
and other non-discursive knowledge that might be said to "go
without saying" for a specific group.
o The habitus can be summed up to language and comportment.
o It is the physical embodiment of cultural capital, the deeply ingrained
habits, skills, and dispositions that we possess due to our life
experiences.
o Mauss suggests that skills we have are not all natural, but rather
learned through our experiences.
o That culture is not just the food, fashion, language, etc. it's the way
we express ourselves physically, the learned ways in which we move,
sit, walk, etc.
2. Structure (for Victor Turner, vs. for Marx, vs. for Radcliffe-Brown, vs. for
Lévi-Strauss)
o Structure for Levi-Strauss:
• Structure as binary oppositions that organize many things like
cultural and social practices
• What we know about the external world we apprehend through
our senses
• We segment and order the products of culture to imitate
nature- emulated through binary oppositions (everything in
twos and opposing each other)
• The human brain is accustomed to think in binaries
• Draws on the concept of system from cybernetics.
