ANTH-101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Sibling Relationship, Female Genital Mutilation, Evolutionism
Document Summary
The study of culture: an introduction to cultural anthropology and cultural diversity. Culture: sets of learned behaviours, ideas, beliefs, values and ideals that are characteristic of a particular society or population. Features of culture: learned, shared, patterned (integrated, adaptive, symbolic. Ethnocentrism: judging another culture solely on terms of one"s own culture: early evolutionism. Cultural relativism: viewing another cultures customs and ideas within the context of that cultures problems and opportunities: e. g. female genital cutting. A 19th century theory that proposed a unilineal series of stages through which all societies must go (or had gone) in order to reach civilization: cultural evolution from simple to complex, progress was possible for all. Used to explain the widespread cultural diversity witnessed by europeans during the age of expression: cultural diversity (variation) Societies are at different stages of evolution. Savagery: lower savagery: origins of the human race, middle savagery: fishing, use of fire, upper savagery: invention of the bow and arrow.
