ANTH 1150 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Cultural Ecology, Historical Particularism, Subculture
1 Nov 2012
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Document Summary
Culture is adaptive: refers to a process of adjustment that plants and animals make to their environment that increase their rates of survival, leads to improvement of that species over time. Culture is learned: we"re not born knowing how to behave properly in the society we were born into, we must learn, adopted and modified by each generation. Cultures change and interact: cultures are not static, every culture has a history and is modified, no culture is isolated. Was used as synonym for civilization before the 20th century. Learned socially acquired traditions of thought and behaviour found within human societies. Emic: describes culture from the participants pov--observer uses concepts and distinctions that are meaningful and appropriate to the participants. Etic: describes the culture from the observers perspective--observer uses concepts and distinctions that are meaningful and appropriate to the observer. Social institutions function to fulfill biological and psychological needs.
