ANTH 2001H Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Franz Boas, Historical Particularism, Ethnocentrism
15 Dec 2016
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Document Summary
Cultural anthropology is the study of all contemporary human societies and cultures. Society is a specific group of people (organized life in groups), while culture is the specific traits of a group of people. Three key components of culture are cultural knowledge, cultural artifacts, and cultural behaviour. Surface culture vs. deep culture is equal to culture that is obvious, versus culture that is not instantly obvious (i. e. under the surface). The origins of anthropology and the concept of culture: started with sir edward tyler (1832-1917), who is commonly referred to as the founder of cultural anthropology. He penned the psychic unity of humankind" which is the idea that all humans (no matter where) share a biological ability to use culture. Before this, culture was thought to be based purely on race, but tyler posed that all humans possess a universal capacity for culture, but that people differ in the particular culture that they create.
