ANT 252 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Clifford Geertz, Edward Burnett Tylor, Cultural Anthropology
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2. 1 culture and giving meaning to human lives. Culture is learned, uses symbols, is dynamic, and is integrated with daily experience. It shapes people"s lives and is shared by groups of people. Eb tylor was a founding figure of cultural anthropology. He defined culture as that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society . Enculturation - the process of learning the cultural rules and logic of a society. Tylor and boas both agreed on the learned part. Clifford geertz proposed that culture is a system of symbols through which people make sense out of the world. Symbols are things that people in a given culture associate with something else, often something intangible (like motherhood, family, god, or country) Geertz"s concept of culture, called the interpretive theory of culture, claims that culture is embodied and transmitted through symbols.
