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Critically analyse cultural relativism
Critically analyse cultural relativism
Why do we need to understand cultural relativism
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Clifford Geertz once said: “Cultural analysis is intrinsically incomplete. And, worse than that, the more deeply it goes the less complete it is.” I recently spent a short amount of time at a busy 5-way traffic circle near my residence. While sitting in one spot for about 25 minutes, I observed many people doing many different things (mainly driving). Observing the various people made me think of what their particular cultures may have been, and from there, I began thinking of culture in and of itself. What is culture? Culture is defined as: Ideas and behaviors that are learned and transmitted. Nongenetic means of adaptation (Park, 2008). Culture plays a vital role in anthropology. After all, anthropology is the holistic, scientific …show more content…
I began to analyze the patterns I saw using some of the anthropological concepts. First, I considered relativism. It would be easy for me to approach some of the young adults (using moral relativity) and inform them of the image they are presenting to the world, but cultural relativity means to study another culture from its point of view without imposing our own cultural views (Park, 2008). There was nothing happening that could have endangered the lives of anyone around these young adults, so I did not feel compelled to step in. Also, I completely understand their point of view. Next, I contemplated holism. Holism is: looking at all aspects of a culture and their interrelationships (Park, 2008). This one was very difficult for me. The people are just parts of a bigger system (their culture), and without knowing their whole background I cannot definitively determine the properties of their given systems. 25 minutes of only observation of an individual part of a system is not nearly enough time to analyze their behavior. One could also analyze my observations using diffusionism which is an outdated concept of cultural evolution that claims major cultural advances were made by one or a few societies and spread from there to all the other societies (Park, 2008). As the subjects of my observations were both American and British citizens, it is possible that cultural advances were made by either the Brits or the Americans, and the other society picked it up from living in close
Robbins, R. H. (2014). Cultural anthropology: a problem-based approach (Second Canadian ed.). Itasca: F.E. Peacock.
How does one define what culture is? Culture is defined as the system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of society use to cope with, their world and with one another - transmitted from generation through learning. This is particularly meaning a pattern of behavior shared by a society or group of people; with many things making up a society’s ‘way of life’ such as language, foods etc. Culture is something that molds people into who they are today. It influences how people handle a variety of situations, process information and how they interact with others. However, there are events when one’s own culture does not play a significant role in the decisions that they make or how they see the world. Despite
Giger (2013) defines culture as a response in behavior that is shaped over time by values, beliefs, norms and practices shared by members of one's cultural group. A person's culture influences most aspects of his or her life including beliefs, conduct, perceptions, emotions, language, diet, body image, and attitudes about illness and pain (He...
Schultz, Emily A. & Lavenda, Robert H. 2005, Cultural Anthropology, 6th edn, Oxford University Press, New York, Chapter 3: Fieldwork.
William Haviland, Harald Prins, Dana Walrath, Bunny McBride, Anthropology: The Human Challenge (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011), 58.
What is culture? Many people ask themselves this question every day. The more you think about it the more confusing it is. Sometimes you start leaning to a culture and then people tell you you’re wrong
Since its inception, the academic discipline of anthropology has gone through constant paradigm shifts. In the nineteenth century, anthropology began as a nomothetic study based upon the development of cultures and societies through the process of evolution. Later on, several anthropologists, particularly Franz Boas, shifted the nomothetic approach of American anthropology into an idiographic approach, which focuses on assessing the development of cultures individually as their own separate entity. (Moore 2012:161) In the twentieth century, however, anthropology ushered in another paradigm shift.
Anthropology proves to be satisfying and intellectually fulfilling to many in the field. However, there are also many challenges and bumps in the road along the way. Napolean A. Chagnon and Claire Sterk faced many of these challenges themselves.
Culture is “the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively” (google). We need to implement a multitude of cultures within communities. Culture is seen everywhere- It’s the different behaviors shown by people, or the way people dress. But slowly, the cultures within some communities are being diminished because of gentrification or because of the fact people are disregarding the other cultures.
Peoples, James, and Garrick Bailey. Humanity: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. 9th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2003. Print.
Ember, Carol R., Melvin Ember, and Peter N. Peregrine. Anthropology. Thirteenth ed. Boston, MA: Prentice Hall, 2011. Print.
Cultures are infinitely complex. Culture, as Spradley (1979) defines it, is "the acquired knowledge that people use to interpret experiences and generate social behavior" (p. 5). Spradley's emphasizes that culture involves the use of knowledge. While some aspects of culture can be neatly arranged into categories and quantified with numbers and statistics, much of culture is encoded in schema, or ways of thinking (Levinson & Ember, 1996, p. 418). In order to accurately understand a culture, one must apply the correct schema and make inferences which parallel those made my natives. Spradley suggests that culture is not merely a cognitive map of beliefs and behaviors that can be objectively charted; rather, it is a set of map-making skills through which cultural behaviors, customs, language, and artifacts must be plotted (p. 7). This definition of culture offers insight into ...
Boas, F. (1930). Anthropology. In, Seligman, E. R. A. ed., Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences. Macmillan: New York.
Culture is the totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects and behavior. It includes the ideas, value, customs and artifacts of a group of people (Schaefer, 2002). Culture is a pattern of human activities and the symbols that give these activities significance. It is what people eat, how they dress, beliefs they hold and activities they engage in. It is the totality of the way of life evolved by a people in their attempts to meet the challenges of living in their environment, which gives order and meaning to their social, political, economic, aesthetic and religious norms and modes of organization thus distinguishing people from their neighbors.
Culture is an important concept in anthropology. Culture is defined as, "sets of learned behavior and ideas that human beings acquire as members of society. Human beings use culture to adapt to and transform the world in which they live." (LS:512). Culture has been used in anthropology to understand human difference, but within this understanding there have been benefits and drawbacks to the ideas of culture. Finally, the study of language and humans as symbol using creatures helps us have perspectives on different parts of the world. All anthropologists share a certain reliance on culture to have a starting point in understanding human experience as a whole.