The Evolution of AnthropolgyThe Evolution of Anthropolgy

Explaining Human BehaviourExplaining Human Behaviour

Psychology: unconscious motivations Psychology: unconscious motivations

Neuropsychology: brain chemicalsNeuropsychology: brain chemicals

Anthropology: culture is everything Anthropology: culture is everything

Understanding OurselvesUnderstanding Ourselves

History

ReligionScience

Literature

Anthro

Human Behaviour

Human Behaviour

How do we explain?

Evolution of AnthropologyEvolution of Anthropology

E mile Durkheim Culture is the productOf people interacting with institutions Functions like parts of a machine or body

E mile Durkheim Culture is the productOf people interacting with institutions Functions like parts of a machine or body

Franz Boas Collect data study people scientific approach Develop hypothesis and Gather data

Franz Boas Collect data study people scientific approach Develop hypothesis and Gather data

Charles DarwinEdward TylorHebert SpencerEvolutionary ideas about culture

Misuse of Darwin’s ideaSurvival of the fittest=justificationFor inequalities

Charles DarwinEdward TylorHebert SpencerEvolutionary ideas about culture

Misuse of Darwin’s ideaSurvival of the fittest=justificationFor inequalities

Social DarwinismSocial DarwinismScientific StudyScientific Study FunctionalismFunctionalism

More EvolutionMore Evolution

Biology is the common unifier

Biology is the common unifier

Marvin Harris Cultural relativism

Marvin Harris Cultural relativism

Cultures develop in adaptation to a specific geography and ecologyExample: Jared Diamond

Cultures develop in adaptation to a specific geography and ecologyExample: Jared Diamond

Neo-evolutionary Neo-evolutionary Cultural MaterialismCultural Materialism Cognitive approachCognitive approach

Evolutionary view:Social DarwinismEvolutionary view:Social Darwinism

• Before Darwin, religious ideas were the source of our understanding about ‘evolution’ and man’s behaviour

• Hebert Spencer + Edward Tylor misused • Darwin’s ideas to justify

Laissez-faire social policies

Eugenics and ‘scientific racism

come from this time

Might = RightMight = Right

• Justification for colonialism• Days of the slave trade

Eugenics + Scientific RacismEugenics + Scientific Racism

People who can dominateothers are inherently superior

Dangerous armchair anthropologist

Scientific ApproachScientific Approach

• Franz Boas • Geologist, scientist • Collected data + scientific method• Study of European immigrants• They’re not inferior, just bad diets• Primitive languages are not primitive,• Just different• Beginnings of cultural relativism

Structural FunctionalismStructural Functionalism

• Emile Durkheim• Sociology influences anthropology• Culture is like a machine/body • Interdependent parts• 5 institutions work together • Culture = homeostasis• Brings respect for cultural differences• Doesn’t explain war, chaos, revolutions

Rain DanceRain Dance

• What’s the point if it doesn’t work?

• Manifest vs latent function

• It works in hidden ways

Neo-Evolutionary ApproachNeo-Evolutionary Approach

• Different paths to evolution• Function of how we extract energy from

the planet• Culture = adaptation to its ecology• Jared Diamond• Lots of energy=larger social group

Beginnings of cultural relativismBeginnings of cultural relativism

• Hunter/gatherers produce less than farmers

• One is not necessarily better than the other

• Question of adaptation to context• Beans in the Arctic?• Strategy for survival = ecological context

Cultural MaterialismCultural Materialism

• From Marxist thinking• Culture is understood by the material

restraints on it• Pigs in Fertile Crescent• Sacred Cows in India

12 units of vegetable protein = 1 unit of meat protein

12 units of vegetable protein = 1 unit of meat protein

Meat is a luxury Pigs destroy roots

Feminist AnthropologyFeminist AnthropologyWhat about the gatherers?

Women interpret history differently• Tools or relationships?

Culture is ...you finish this sentenceCulture is ...you finish this sentence

Culture is...Culture is...

inherited

transmitted

Evolution

biologicalecological

?