SC2218 Lectures 10-11

1. SC2218: Anthropology and the Human Condition Lecture 10: History, Culture, Change Lecture 11: The Poetry of Culture Eric C. Thompson Semester 1, 2008/2009

9. From Social Science to History and Interpretation “ Social anthropology is a kind of historiography… It studies societies as moral systems and not as natural systems… it seeks patterns and not scientific laws, and it interprets rather than explains.” (Evans-Pritchard 1950) “ The analysis of (culture is) not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive on in search of meaning.” (Clifford Geertz, 1973)

14. 1st Generation Cultural Structures (Grammars, Words, Styles, Signifiers) 1st Generation Agents (Subjects/Individuals) (Drawing on the Structures to relate to others , influence action , interpret meanings – their own and others ) Culture as an Iterative Process Agents are “Subjects” of (“subject to”) cultural structures – they cannot operate meaningfully outside of the structure. Cultural Structures are emergent structures, dependent on the agents for their existence.

15. 1st Generation Cultural Structures 1st Generation Agents (Subjects) 2nd Generation Agents (Subjects) 2nd Generation Cultural Structures Culture always changes, because agents never reproduce it “perfectly”

18. Post-structuralism and Agency How do we move beyond analytical structures, categories, and stereotypes that limit our ability to see an understand contemporary realities? How do we account for human agency – the potential of people to affect and change their social conditions of life? POST-STRUCTURALISM : an attempt to move anthropological analysis beyond the analytical confines of structures and categories.

28. What “Structures” are found in Jabberwocky?