ANTHROP 1AA3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Adam Kadmon, Cultural Anthropology, Applied Anthropology
14 Jan 2015
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January 7, 2015: anthropos=humankind, logia= study of, the study of, the systematic study of humankind, both in the past and present. Human culture: learned behaviors and beliefs that shape our human experiences. Examples: religion spirituality, gender, ethnic identity, nationalism, food preferences, etc. Natural/biological but many are not: people feel that things are natural like being canadian but, they are actually not. For example, someone might say that they are canadian by blood and that it"s biological but it"s not: everything is shaped by culture and not biology. Key tenets: ethnocentrism the idea that your culture and its values are somehow right or superior to another. You therefore judge another culture according to the standards of your own. Indigenous kids sent to boarding school, not allowed to practise their culture and speak their native language: western views of cannibalism- eating something that you think would be unethical. Cultural relativism: adopted and promoted by anthropologists, the opposite of ethnocentrism.
