SOCI 1P80 Lecture Notes - Friedrich Engels, Franz Boas, Linguistic Anthropology

• School: Brock University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOCI 1P80
• Professor: Jane Helleiner

Document Summary

Anthropology- the study of humanity including prehistoric origins and contemporary human diversity. 4 major fields: biological anthropology- human evolution and other animals, archeology- past cultures based on remains, linguistic anthropology- human communication, origin, history, relationships and change in human language, cultural anthropology- contemporary human culture and social life. Living people and culture in which they live. Decenter own cultural practices and understandings make the strange familiar and the familiar strange (spiro, "90) Became a scholarly discipline in late 19th c. /early 20th c. Bronislaw malinowski (1884-1942) favoured holism and functionalism. Franz boas (1858-1942) introduced idea of cultural relativism (now a global discipline) Concept of culture peoples learned and shared behavior and beliefs (pg 4) Even natural functions (eating, eliminating etc. ) are culturally variable. Culture is based on symbols (ex. alphabet, sounds) * not static, bounded or internally homogeneous * Localization= local culture remaking and transforming of global culture. Internal cultural differentiation structured by class, race, ethnicity, indigeneity, gender, age, region, institutions.