AN220 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Lewis H. Morgan, Evolutionism, Trans-Cultural Diffusion
Document Summary
Diffusionism: view that similarities in culture could be explained by borrowing from a common source. Social structure (durkheim): the integrated assemblage of formal groups and social roles that make up a society. Cultural relativism (boas): an approach that stresses the importance on analyzing cultures in their own terms rather than in terms of the culture of the anthropologist. Historical particularism (boas): the theory that each way of life is a unique result of its particular historical conditions. Ethnocentrism: a set of misunderstandings and prejudices based on the idea that ones own belief system provides the only accurate and moral view of the world. Structural functionalism: the theory that social structure determines peoples thought and behaviour and that culture functions primarily to uphold the unity and continuity of society. Interpretive anthropology: culture as a system of symbols, multiple layers of meaning. Ethnosemantics: culture as a meaning system, classified through language (focus on linguistic and cognitive categories)
