Anthropology and Culture

Categories: CultureReligion

What is culture?

  1. Culture According to UNESCO, the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual, emotional feature of society or a social group that encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs (Chernotsky and Hobbs 187).
  2. Culture Shock is physical and psychological response to cultural difference when traveling away from home (Chernotsky and Hobbs 186).
  3. How do we define cultural and social borders?

People gathered in a place in a need of common practice or survival.

The place may have a geographic boundary which makes them be united. They help each other for food, shelter, and water. It makes their own identity. Every culture has its own characteristics. There is a cultural difference in language, religion and political organization. People's actions are the result of their social and cultural boundary. This social and cultural difference makes one's identity what people always want to preserve. When people find out that others may try to change their basic identity, they may feel uncomfortable and may create a conflict with them who are challenging them.

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So, these social and cultural differences act as a border.

Defining Societya

People gathered into different groups based on their basic need for survival. Usually, people stay together in a common geographical area. In that area, they try to meet their own basic need like water, food, shelter by supporting each other. As they stay together with their means of communication, religion, and societal practices become the same.

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Their food, clothes, culture become the same. They share experiences and indigenous traits. These people act together, and they thus form a society. It also makes their identity. when these people get challenged by others their identity gets challenged. They try to preserve their identity, therefore when they get challenged by others, they try to prevent them forcefully. These create problems in society or state.

Historical Evolution of Identitya

An understanding of the concept of culture developed simultaneously with the rise of the nation-state in the 1600s. Scholars of those days or enlightenment thinkers influenced the idea to build up a society which would be based on personal choice and reason. They also influenced to move away from religion to scientific ways of thinking.

Kuper's Three Schools of thought helps to understand the culture and territorial expansion. They are the Enlightenment view of the French, Romantic/Counter-Enlightenment view of the Germans, Traditional view of the British. Enlightenment view of the French: through the cosmopolitan understanding of the world everyone can be civilized. Romantic/Counter-Enlightenment view of the Germans: this view believe that culture was distinguished by natural and spiritual sources. The understanding of Christianity influences people the idea that people do not need to acquire the other's notion of civilization. The traditional view of the British: the English believed in the classical view of the word. They mainly focused on history.

Class Divisions: The social division or class division. Originated from the birthright or privilege of wealth. Here is some example of class division: the inheritance line of monarchies in Morocco and Saudi Arabia are two examples. The cast system found in the Hindu society of South Asia is another exam of class division which is determined by birthright.

There is different cast in cast system like Brahmin, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras, the Dalit or untouchable, the caste system can lead to violence. The rape and hanging of two young girls in Uttar Pradesh, India was a terrible incident which was the result of this cast system. In the remote area of Nepal women are married at an early age and during their menstruation, they are forced to live to outbuild. They believe it will prevent bad luck to their families. In China who born in rural are get less benefit than who born in the cities. The birth registration system hukou is responsible for that. City dwellers are entitled to public education because they have urban birth registration whereas the village people do not get those facilities because of their rural birth registration. Their education is obtained by privately and that is substandard. The job people do also bring a class division in society.

In the writing of Manifesto of the Communist Party, the writers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels explain why the worker does not get benefits from industrialization, unequal development of industrialization which creating a social border.

How do we study society and culture?

Three key academic fields are sociology, anthropology, and psychology. Sociology: A field of study that focuses on people and their relationship to the societies in which they live (Chernotsky and Hobbs 193). Anthropology: A field of study that examine the physical attributes of human beings as well as their social and cultural characteristics (Chernotsky and Hobbs 193). Psychology: A field of study that seek to understand the motivations behind the decisions people make in terms of their cognitive orientation (Chernotsky and Hobbs 193).

How do people influence other people's cultures?

Cultural diffusion: The spreading of culture beyond a specific group to be embraced by a wider audience (Chernotsky and Hobbs 193). Example: the popularity of the ethnic food sushi around the world, the English language used as a primary language all over the world.

Assimilation: The submerging of cultural differences into a broader dominant culture (Chernotsky and Hobbs 193). For example, in the early twentieth the children of the first-generation immigrant in the USA were forbidden to learn their native language so that they can easily assimilate with others in the USA. American television and news shows are shown on networks worldwide.

Cultural imperialism: When one culture is dominated by another culture to the point that the victimized culture is forced to change its cultural practices" (Chernotsky and Hobbs 193). Sometimes people do not have the voluntary choice to adopt a culture. They must adopt the cultural practice and lifestyle of the dominant colonial power. How does globalization influence culture?Critical Ideas: The effect of globalization on culture is significant. The key of these influence are following.

Deterritorialization: The weakening of cultural ties to a specific location (Chernotsky and Hobbs 193). Many of the issues are affected due to deterritorialization. For example, deterritorialization can create new markets for film companies, art impressions, and travel agencies. Terrorism to technological innovation is not limited to its border; therefore, cultural experiences emerging day by day in the world.

Homogenization: The incorporation of a range of cultural forms into a uniform set of values and practice (Chernotsky and Hobbs 196). For example, KFC and fast foods are found all over the world. It can be found in New York, Paris or Doha.

Hybridization: The blending of culture that incorporates the different aspect of each culture to create a new entity (Chernotsky and Hobbs 196). For example, the daily star host Trevor Noah is an example of this hybridization. His mother was a black and father was white swiss German. He raised in South Africa.

Glocalization: The adaptation of local form of expression and identity to outside influence (Chernotsky and Hobbs 199). For example, In India eating beef is sacrilege. So instead of Big Mac, they made Maharaja mac which is made of chicken. In Japan, people can order a teriyaki Mac burger which is made of ground pork and teriyaki sauce. MacDonald's burger adapt the local form of taste.

McDonald's and Globalization

Golden Arches theory of conflict prevention: Thomas Friedman introduced this theory. This indicates that countries who have McDonald's restaurants, they are less likely going for war. They are open to capitalism. Jihad versus McWorld: Political theorist Benjamin brings this idea. Mac world symbolizes the connectivity and diversity among the people of the world. This increase the mutual understanding among the people of different culture and country. McDonaldization: Sociologist George Ritzer uses this term. It means a society which adopts the characteristics of a fast-food restaurant. It is the process which is being adopted by may society in the world.Anthropologist Arjun Appadurai brings the term Global scapes which renders the people identity. The 5 scapes are as follows: Mediascape: Flow of information through the mass media. Financescape: Flow of capital.Technoscapes: Flow of technology.Ethnoscapes: Flows of ideas.

Ideoscapes: Flow of ideas.VII. What are the popular ways in which we express culture? Music and sports are two popular way we express culture. People are sharing music through the internet. Technology made local sound global. A musician can travel easily from one country to another. These easy sharing of music create a musical world which captures the diversity of sound around the world. For example, hip-hop spread across the world and undergo many transformations. Due to these facts, some people fear about globalizing homogenizing effects. They form a nonprofit organization to preserve the uniqueness of music. It is called a global music project. Its aim to provide peace and collaborate action through music and cultural awareness.

Through sports, we can also express culture. Sports like basketball, baseball and soccer are playing an important role in expressing culture. Broadcasting of basketball games done in more than 40 languages in 212 countries. The players act as a cultural icon. Baseball has been adopted in Japan and another world. For soccer, there is FIFA and world cup. OTHER KEY TERM DEFINITIONS IN THE TEXTBOOK: Enculturation: The process by which society learn its culture (Chernotsky and Hobbs 193).Cultural relativism: Cultural understanding in term of the environment in which it exists (Chernotsky and Hobbs 193).

Works Cited

Chernotsky, Harry I., and Heidi H. Hobbs. Crossing Borders: International Studies for the 21st Century. 3rd ed., CQ Press, 2018.

Updated: Feb 19, 2021
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Anthropology and Culture. (2019, Aug 20). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/anthropology-and-culture-essay

Anthropology and Culture essay
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