ANTA02H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Thick Description, Talcott Parsons, Edward Shils
7 Oct 2015
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Basic tenets of anthropology society, culture & language what is our culture, values etc: fieldwork methodology with emphasis on inductive approach observing pattens in society & build your theeory on how things work. Observation > pattern > tenative hypotheesis > theory: based on empirical evidence (to compare cultures, comparative look at both universals & particulars. Early theories of explanation: evolutionary apporoach from 1850/s & onward. It began as an undifferentiated system & through evolution societies devloped specialized structures, such as gov to perform specefic functions. Cultural relativism/ interpretivist approach countering racist formulations of evolutionary theory. Cultural relativism: all cultures are equal and comparable; no inferior or superior cultures (impossible to rank cultures in an evolutinary scheme) based on thick description in which any aspect of human behavior has more than one meaning. Culture is the learned and shared knowledge that people use to geneate behavior and interpret experience. (spradley and mccurdy)
