01anth103 intro kirwin_f19a

Cultural Anthropology
An Introduction
Cultural Anthropology ANTH 103 College of the Canyons
FALL 2019
A.R. Kirwin, MA
Copyright ©2015 Angela Rockett Kirwin
KIRF

Quote of the Day
“We have the choice to use the gift of our life
to make the world a better place.” .
~ Jane Goodall, DBE (1934 -)
Jane Goodall and Prof.Kirwin, Santa Barbara, CA 2008
Jane (2017) 2:49 min. Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRlUJrEUn0Y

Quote of the Day
Extra Credit: 1 point
Extra Credit Assignment:
• Quote from a famous anthropologist or social science who
contributed greatly to the field of anthropology.
• One (1) volunteer each class meeting max.
• Worth 1 point.
• Include the following:
1. Quote
2. Anthropologist’s name and years alive (born - died)
3. Contributions to anthropology
© 2015 Angela R. Kirwin
All rights reserved.

Quote of the Day Extra Credit (1)
© 2015 Angela R. Kirwin
Franz Boas
Zora Heale Hurston
Ruth Benedict
Margaret Mead
Bronislaw Malinowski
E.E. Evans-Pritchard
Max Gluckman
E.B. Tyler
Victor Turner
Arjun Appadurai
Hortense Powdermaker
Julian Steward
Louis Leakey
Jane Goodall
Daniel Lieberman
Hyung Il Pai
Marvin Harris
Fredrick Barth
Sherry Ortner
Ruth Butler
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Eric Wolf
Michel Foucault
Pierre Bourdieu
Lee Berger
Robin Dunbar
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw
Donald Johanson
Dian Fossey
Biruke Galdigas
Leath Mullings
Ruth Behar
Lila Abu-Lughod
A.L. Kroeber
Ella Cara Deloria
Jen & Jean Comaroff
Antonio Gramsci
Roy Rapport
Mary Douglas
Junichiro Itani
Stephen Jay Gould
Annette B. Weiner
Berhane Asfaw
Yohannes Haile-Selassie
Robert M. Sapolsky
Richard M. Wrangham
George Horse Capture
Arthi Devarajan

Quote of the Day Extra Credit (1)
Example:
1. QUOTE: "If we were to select the most intelligent, imaginative,
energetic, and emotionally stable third of mankind, all races would be
present.”
2. WHO: Franz Boas (1858–1942)
3. WHY FAMOUS: He scientifically disproved racist beliefs and
the pseudoscience called eugenics; Founder of 4 sub-fields
of anthropology; “Father of Anthropology” He researched
and tried to preserve the traditional cultures of the Inuit and
Northwest Coast Indians in Washington State (Kwakiutl). He
founded theoretical perspective of Historical Particularism
aka: Cultural Relativism.© 2015 Angela R. Kirwin

Overview Questions
1. What is Anthropology?
2. What are the four subfields of Anthropology?
3. Who is the “Father of Anthropology”?
4. What are the three distinguishing features of Cultural
Anthropology?
5. What do anthropologists do ?
6. What is globalization, and why is it important for
Anthropology?
7. What is the scientific method? (REVIEW)
Biological Anthropology, Linguistics,
Archaeology and Cultural Anthropology
1. Concept of Culture (Symbolic and Material elements)
2. Holistic
3. Comparative
 Franz Boas, his four-field approach and Cultural Relativism

1. What is anthropology?
Anthropology: The study
of humanity, from its
earliest origins millions of
years ago to its present
worldwide diversity (Bonvillain
2013,3).
Copyright © 2015 Angela R. Kirwin
Bronislaw Malinowski and Trobriand
Islanders in 1918.

1. What is anthropology?
Anthropo
“Mankind”
Based on Greek words:
Anthropos
ἄνθρωπος
“man or human being”
Copyright © 2015 Angela R. Kirwin
-logy
“study of”
Logia
λέγω
“to speak”
Jane Goodall, DBE and friend in
Gombe, Tanzania

1. Cultural Anthropology
2. Linguistics
3. Archaeology
4. Biological Anthropology
From top: Ruth Benedict (Cultural), Ferdinand de Saussure (Linguistics),
Timothy Pauketat (Archaeology), Jane Goodall (Biological Anthro-Primatology)

1. Cultural Anthropology: Study of human cultural
behavior, especially the comparative study of living and recent
human cultures.
©2015 Angela Rockett Kirwin

Cultural anthropologists create written
descriptions about culture and people called
“ethnographies”
Ethnography: A systematic observation
and documentation of a people’s culture.
– Ethnographies are biased interpretations of the
author
– Ethnographies are traditionally written
Franz Boas hunting
seals on Baffin Island.

Ethnography: A systematic observation and
documentation of a people’s culture.
Ethno
“folk, people, ethnic group”
Greek:
ethnos
ἔθνος
“folk, people”
-graphy
“write”
grapho
γράφω
“write”

2. Linguistics: Study of language and
communication, and the relationship
between language and other aspects of
culture and society
Franz Boas, Northwest Coast Indian
languages in late 1880s and 90s.
John P. Harrington, Chumash languages
recorded in early 1900s in Santa Barbara,
Ventura, etc.

Two types of linguistic anthropology:
1.Historical Linguistics: Study of a
language’s change over time in order to trace
human migrations, ethnic relationships, and cultural
changes.
2.Sociolinguistics: Study of a language’s
grammar and usage and how language affects
culture and culture affects language.
•Study of how inequality is enforced via language.

3. Archaeology: The study of past cultures
through the material (physical) remains people
left behind.
Archaeologists find:
Artifacts (small or portable stuff)
Left to right: Chumash shell beads (VEN-4), Budweiser bottle from 1880s (VEN-1071), Mission wall
constructed of river stones and Roman cement recipe around 200 years ago (VEN-4). Ventura, CA
Features (buildings, walls..)

Prehistoric Archaeology: The
study of cultures of the distant
past through the material
(physical) remains people left
behind.
• Before written records in a region.

Historic Archaeology: The study of the
more recent past through an
examination of physical remains,
artifacts, and features as well as
written or oral records.
• Time with written records in a region.
Top: “Prehistoric archaeology” Chumash shell beads (VEN-4) of unknown date, possibly before
European contact/Historical Period, Bottom: “Historic Archaeology” Ventura Mission’s East
Quadrangle wall constructed of river stones and Roman cement circa 1782-1815 (VEN-4). Ventura, CA

Two archaeology careers outside of academia:
• Cultural Resource Management (CRM)
– Archaeologists work to preserve and protect
historic sites and structures, prehistoric sites, and
artifacts in collections.
– Job descriptions: Cultural consultants, urban
planning managers, GIS technicians, Native
American construction site monitors, etc.
– Preservation of cultural resources.
• Public Archaeology
– Contracted archaeologists assess the potential
impact of construction on archaeological sites.
– Salvage artifacts and features.
– Ensure compliance of laws.

4. Biological Anthropology:
The study of human origins and contemporary biological
diversity; aka: “Physical Anthropology”

Subfields of Physical Anthropology:
1. Paleoanthropology
2. Medical Anthropology
3. Forensic Anthropology
4. Primatology

1. Paleoanthropology
The study of the fossil record
of human evolution, especially
skeletal remains and DNA, in
order to understand its process.
Two Types of evidence:
1.DIRECT EVIDENCE
– Bones and teeth
2.INDIRECT EVIDENCE
– Tools
– Microbiological analysis
– Contextual:
– Dating Methods
– DNA analysis
“Dmansi Skull 5”
H. erectus (1.8 ma)
“Peking Man”
H. erectus
(500-200ka)
“Java Man”
H.
erectus/Pithacanthropus
erectus (700ka)
“Atapuerca” H. erectus/
H. antecessor (1.2ma)

2. Medical Anthropology: A
combination of cultural and biological
anthropology, with a focus on health
and disease in current human
populations.
•Analyzes different cultural approaches to health
and healing and systems of power
•Contradicts biomedical (Western medicine’s)
perspective that health and illness is solely an
individual responsibility

3. Forensic anthropology
The application of standard scientific anthropological
techniques to assist in the detection of a crime; an applied
science that incorporates biological anthropology and forensic
science.
• Forensic anthropologists work for:
– Criminal justice to solve crimes.
– Disaster agencies to identify
human remains for families
• They analyze human skeletal
remains to:
– Identity the victim
– Discover time since death
– Cause of death
– Manner of death

19th Century “Armchair Anthropologists”:
1.Evolutionists.
• They tried to apply Darwin’s theory of natural
selection of species to the evolution of humans
into different sub-species or races.
2.Extremely ethnocentric.
• Believed that Christian peoples and cultures
from Western Europe were superior/civilized.
Indigenous people were inferior/primitive.
3.Most didn’t do fieldwork
4.Only studied indigenous societies.
5.Their information was used to exploit indigenous peoples and justify
their cultural assimilation or removal.
6.Studied human bones to determine superior types and used racial
categories to classify people.
Sir Edward Burnett
Tylor. (1832-1917)

Franz Boas (1858–1942)
Fieldwork:
• Native Inuit (Baffin Island,
Canada)
• Kwakiutl (Vancouver, Canada)
• Columbia University
• Used scientific method to disprove
the popular beliefs of Western
European superiority by
measuring and interviewing
immigrants in New York.Franz Boas hunting
seals on Baffin Island.

Contributions to American anthropology:
1. Cultural Relativism
• All cultures and peoples are different but relatively
equal to each other.
2. Historical Particularism
• Cultural differences are due to their particular
histories and not a level of evolution from primitive
to civilized (Northern European) cultures.
3. Scientific method
• He discredited idea of racial superiority of Northern
European Protestant Christians
4. Four-field approach of American
Anthropology
5. Salvage Ethnography: Technique to
document traditions of Native Americans
6. Public Anthropology.
Franz Boas
(1858–1942)

Franz Boas (1858–1942)
Public Anthropology: The use of anthropology to address
social issues and promote positive cultural change.
“Boasians”:
Ruth Benedict
(1887-1948)
Margaret Mead
(1901-1978)
Zora Neal Hurston
(1891-1960)
Alfred L. Kroeber
(1876-1960)

1. Cultural Anthropology
2. Linguistics
3. Archaeology
4. Biological Anthropology
Franz Boas practiced all four fields of
anthropology:
(1858–1942)

“Franz Boas – Shackles of Tradition”
“Franz Boas – The Shackles of Tradition”
[VIDEO] 52:20 min. 1990s “Strangers Abroad” Series
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOvFDioPrMM

4. What are the three distinguishing features of
Cultural Anthropology?
1. Concept of “Culture”
(Definition and it’s two elements:
Symbolic Culture and Material Culture)
2. Comparative Perspective
3. Holistic Perspective
Bronislaw Malinowski, Trobriand Islands,
1918
Three features of cultural anthropology:

4. What are the three distinguishing features of
Cultural Anthropology?
Distinguishing feature #1
Anthropology’s definition of “culture” and
its two elements: symbolic and material
Copyright © 2015 Angel R. Kirwin All rights
reserved.
Culture: The learned values, beliefs, and rules
of conduct shared to some extent by the
members of a society [or group] that govern
their behavior with one another. (Bonvillain 2013)

4. What are the three distinguishing features
of Cultural Anthropology?
Distinguishing feature #1 cont.
Anthropology’s definition of “culture” and
its two elements: symbolic and material
1. Symbolic (intangible)
2. Material (tangible)
Margaret Mead, Samoa, 1926
Norms, values, symbols, and mental
maps of reality (perspectives). Ideas
people have about themselves, others,
and the world, and the ways that
people express these ideas.
Material world created by people,
manmade stuff, body adornment.
Tool, clothing, ornaments, buildings,
etc. made by people. (Bonvillain 2013)

Holistic Perspective
Holistic Perspective: The perspective in
anthropology that views culture as an
integrated whole, NO part of which can be
completely understood without considering the
whole.
Example: Social lives (family, friends, classmates, work) 
Education  Economic lives ($$)
 Religious lives (beliefs, group, traditions)
Social status  Social lives  Education…

Example of holistic perspective
Two Women in Rural Hindu Society, India
Political lives  Social lives (who they marry/if they marry and how
many children they have—or don’t have),  Economic lives 
Religious (or non-religious) lives 
Vandana Shiva, PhD A Bihari Dalit woman
Older Brahmin woman 
Never married/no children 
Inherited wealth & works as
an international public
speaker, author, and anti-GMO
activist  Hindu
Young Former Dalit woman
Married w/children  Peasant
 Converted to Catholicism to
escape rules & caste discrimination

Comparative Perspective
Comparative Perspective: Anthropological approach that
uses data about beliefs and behaviors in many societies to
document both cultural universals and cultural diversity.
Anthropology is fundamentally comparative:
1. Human universals vs. diversity
2. Across geography
3. Across class or ethnicity
4. Across time (culture change & globalization)

Distinguishing feature #3 cont.
Comparative Perspective
Examples of comparisons:
1.Human universals vs. Diversity
Anthropologists collect data in many societies to document the diversity of
human culture and to understand common patterns.
2.Across Geography
Anthropologists collect data from different places
worldwide
3.Across Ethnicity or Class
Anthropologists collect data from different ethnic, religious, national,
racial, or class groups
4.Across Time (Culture Change & Globalization)
Cultures are not static: they change in response to internal and external
pressures. Globalization has increased the speed of cultural change in
most parts of the world.
.

1st example of comparative perspective
1. Universals vs. Diversity
Organic Farmer in rural CA Organic Farmer in rural Bihar, India
Two young women in their 20s who are organic farmers and who do not
receive money for their labor….Culture makes their lives radically
different.

2. Across Geography
Minimum wage work in
Valencia, California, USA
Minimum wage work in Bodhgaya,
Bihar, India

2. Across Ethnicity or Class
Low paid workers in Valencia,
California, USA
Well-paid professionals in
Valencia, California, USA

2nd example of comparative perspective
4. Across Time (due to “progress”)
Farm Woman in 1914 Farm Woman in 2014
Two young women in their 20s and it’s culture change over time
that makes their lives radically different

3rd example of comparative perspective
4. Across Time (due to globalization)
Christmas in Los Angeles, CA Christmas in Bangkok, Thailand
Thailand is less than
10% Christian and over
90% Buddhist
USA is about 70%
Christian

5. What do cultural anthropologists do (and
some of their concepts)?
They study the cultures of human societies and use theories
to explain why people do what they do.
Participant Observation: Living with informants or
participating in their lives in order to understand their culture.
Fieldwork!
– #1 research method
– It distinguishes it from other
social sciences
– Use this research method to
document a culture in a
written ethnography.
Your professor’s participant
observation in 2008 at the
Carpinteria Triathlon.

5. What do cultural anthropologists do (and
some of their concepts)?
Ethnology: Build ethnographic theories that explain cultural
behaviors and forms.
Theories that explain why people do what they do.
– Anthropologist base their theories
on ethnographic research to explain
“why people do what they do”
– Theories based on field work are called
“grounded theories”
Dr. Paul Farmer helped to develop field of critical
Medical Anthropology and coined the term
“structural violence” from his field work with low
income patients in Haiti. 

5. What do cultural anthropologists do?
Indigenous Societies
Peoples native to (or longtime inhabitants of) a
territory who have been socially marginalized as
minority groups in state societies.
Ainu ladies in northern
Japan a long time ago…
Margaret Mead,
Samoa, 1926
John Harrington and
Chumash person in
early 1900s.

It is human to feel that your own society’s culture is “natural”
Ethnocentrism
Tendency for people to believe
that their own culture is
“natural” or “normal” and
other cultures are “abnormal”
or “inferior.”
•Early 20th Century cultural
anthropologists like Bronislaw Malinowski
believed their European culture was
superior.
Bronislaw Malinowski and Trobriand
Islanders in 1918.

Ethical Relativism
Belief that all judgments of what is right and wrong
are relative to a time, place or culture, such that no
moral judgments of behavior can be made.
– Examples:
• Female genital mutilation (FGM) that is currently prevalent in 28 countries
in Africa (Bonvillain 2013:8-9)
• Child labor in rural Bihar, India.
• Child rearing practices of young boys in Papua New Guinea (PNG)

Write ethnographies: Cultural anthropologists
create written descriptions about culture and people
called “ethnographies”

6. What is globalization, and why is it
important for anthropology?
Globalization: The worldwide intensification of
interactions and increased movement of money,
people, goods, and ideas within and across national
boundaries.

Results of globalization:
1. Increasing Inequality
2. Flexible accumulation
3. Time-space compression
4. Increasing migration
5. Uneven development
6. Rapid cultural change
7. Anthropogenic climate change

Inequality: “A lack of equality or fair treatment in the
sharing of wealth or opportunities” (Cambridge Dictionary
2019).

Flexible Accumulation: The increasingly flexible
strategies that corporations use to accumulate profits in
an area of globalization, enabled by innovative
communication, transportation, and financial strategies
(Guest 2014, 468; Guest 2016, 313).
Examples:
1. International tax havens
2. International call centers with tech support, airline reservations, customer
services, etc.).
3. Offshore manufacturing of computers, cars, and other technologies that has
transformed the local factory assembly line into a global assembly network with
parts made all over the world.
4. Currency exchange rate differences.
5. Offshore farming of cheaper produce grown with lower labor costs
6. Developing country markets for industrial farm grain surpluses.

2. Time-space compression: The rapid innovation of
communication and transportation technologies associated
with globalization that transforms the way people think about
space and time (Guest 2016, 20).
•Internet !
•Cell phones and computers with text messaging apps,
cameras, and social media apps has decreased the time,
distance and expense of both private person-to-person
communications and public broadcasts.

Increasing migration: The accelerated movement of
people within and between countries (Guest 2016, 21).

Uneven development: The unequal distribution of
the benefits of globalization (Guest 2016, 21).

Rapid (cultural) change: The dramatic transformations of economics,
politics, and culture characteristic of contemporary globalization (Guest
2016, 22).
Reactionary nationalist (ethnonationalist) movements to stop
culture change and other effects of globalization:
• Anti-globalization
• Anti-immigration
• Anti-foreign trade
• Anti-offshore manufacturing
• Nationalism (bigotry against ethnic minorities and
immigrants)
• Religious conservatism and fundamentalism

Anthropogenic climate change: ”Changes to the
earth's climate, including global warming [and
extreme weather events] produced primarily by
increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases
created by human activities such as burning fossil
fuels and deforestation" (Guest 2016, 24)
•Anthropogenic: "human-created" or "manmade".

Anthropocene: Proposed new
geologic epoch characterized by the
profound role of humans in changing
the land surface and the composition
of the atmosphere in significant ways
(Larsen 2017, 484).
• It began during the Industrial Revolution
(early 1800s) with the burning of fossil
fuels and de-forestation.
• Anthropogenic: "human-created" or
"manmade".
Mexico City, Mexico.

Most important cultural forces shaping humanity today are:
1. Global warming. Weather patterns are changing and they are
resulting in severe weather events, sea level rise, and prolonged
droughts, which are decreasing agricultural productivity in regions
where most of the people in the world live.
2. Over-population: More people have increased demands on world’s
food supply and more unsustainable use of resources and
population.
3. Technology: Reliance on fossil fuels has reduced human activity as
human labor and movement is replaced by machines, increase of
allergies and immune-system diseases like asthma due to air
population and insufficient beneficial microbes are increasing, drug-
resistant antibiotics are evolving rapidly, and morbidity due to
chronic man-made non-infectious metabolic diseases (obesity,
hypertension, Type II diabetes) caused by poor nutrition, excess
calories and inactivity is rapidly increasing a global epidemic.

Climatological evidence of global warming:
1. Atmosphere: Highest level of CO2 (400 ppm) in over 400,000 years
2. Global sea level rising: It rose about 17 centimeters (6.7 inches) in the last
century.
3. Global temperature rising: The Earth has warmed since 1880. The 20
warmest years have occurred since 1981.
4. Shrinking ice sheets: Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have significantly
decreased in mass.
5. Disappearing glaciers: Glaciers are retreating everywhere. .
6. Extreme heat waves and storms: The number of record high temperature
events in the United States has been increasing, while low temperatures
decreasing, since 1950.
7. Ocean acidification: The acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by
about 30 percent, killing corals and other sea animals. .
8. Decreased global snowfall and the snow is melting earlier. (NASA
2012)

Globalization’s results:
1.Past 40 years
2.Speed “Time-space compression” of Internet, etc.
3.Social penetration (Everybody affected,
anybody can do it)
4.Increasing migration (people, viruses, trends)
5.Uneven development (increased social
inequality and dependency on foreign economic
decisions)
6.Rapid social and economic changes
(communities change)
7.Anthropogenic climate change
People in Plachimada, India are negatively affected by decisions of Coca-
Cola executives in Atlanta, Georgia

Globalization Issue #1
U.S. corporation Coca-Cola’s bottling plant in Plachimada, India
Local protestors in Plachimada,
India who want the local Coca-
Cola bottling plant to stop
depleting their drinking water.
Photos (Guest 2014:4)
Coca-Cola headquarters
in Atlanta, Georgia.
Decisions made here
affected lives of people in
a small rural village in
India.


Globalization Issue: #2
Fast Fashion:
Profits at the expense of human rights abuses
• Globalization of trade has created profit incentives for clothing
manufacturers in the U.S. and other developed countries…
• to outsource production to poorer developing countries
• where unsafe working conditions and harm are the norm.
Cambodian women protesting
“slave labor” sweatshop
conditions in factories making
cheap clothing for the
American market

Globalization Issue: #2 (cont.)
The True Cost
Documentary about human rights abuses of “Fast Fashion”
“The True Cost” (2015) 2:31 min. by director Andew Morgan
LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaGp5_Sfbss
LINK to “The True Cost –Behind the Scenes” 9
min.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW0q8FeSS_U

6. Globalization Issue #3 (cont.)
Marshall Islands:
1. Losing Territory to sea level rise due to climate change
2. Radiation poisoning of locals by U.S. nuclear bomb testing
Holly Barker, applied anthropologist
Consultant to the Marshallese government regarding
losing land to rising sea levels and migration issues. She
also researched effects of U.S. nuclear bomb on people
who have suffered radiation poisoning in Marshall Islands.

6. Globalization Issue: #4
Anthropology Research:
Changes due to globalization
Multi-Sited Ethnographies of Trans-National Communities.
Cultural anthropologists can now study a culture in two
places.
1.Native country
2.Diaspora (migrant) communities in the United States or
other countries to understand their cultures.
More Chinese from Fouzhou,
China live in New York City
than live in their native town in
the Fujian Province of coastal
southwest China

7. What is the scientific method?
(Review)
The scientific method is a process of discovery following
these steps:
1. Research Question (RQ) is defined.
2. Preliminary research is done to collect information
about the topic
3. Hypothesis (H1) is formulated.
4. Research Methodology is formed. Date is collected via
either experiment or observation or both.
5. Analysis of the data is made that either verifies or
falsifies the hypothesis.
6. Conclusion is made that either proves or disproves the
hypothesis

7. What is the scientific method?
(Review for Mini-Ethnographies)
Anatomy of a Scientific Research Paper:
1.INTRODUCTION (1 P due Wednesday, 2/20/19)
a. Topic and why
b. Research Question (RQ) is defined.
c. Hypothesis (H1) is formulated.
2.BODY
a. Research Methodology is formed to operationalize how the data will be collected which
either proves or falsifies the hypotheses. Date is collected via either experiment or
observation or both. ( 2P due Monday, 3/4/19)
b. Literature Review includes definition of terms and theoretical perspective and other
findings due to relevant research (3 P due Monday 3/18/19)
c. Analysis of the data is made that either verifies or falsifies the hypothesis.
3.CONCLUSION: how research either proved or disproved the hypothesis
1.RESOURCES: list of sources cited in the Literature Review and elsewhere in the paper (3 P due)
(Draft paper due Monday, 4/15/19 )
(Final paper due Monday, May 13, 2019 )

Hominidae family
Homo sapiens
Pongidae family
Pan troglodyte
Welcome to Cultural Anthropology!
Bye bye!

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