Chapter 3Anthropology and Intercultural

Relations

Introduction

• Culture– Human capacity to differentiate– Categorize the world of experience– Assign meanings to the categories

• Common sense– Unstated assumptions shared amongst communities

• Cultural Misunderstandings– Different common senses amongst different groups

• Intercultural Relations– Flows of symbols across the global landscape

Cultural Misunderstandings in an International Milieu

• Complexities of many beliefs or common senses– Misunderstandings occur– Both sides are correct, just different points of view

• Misunderstandings on a larger scale– Not always at the interpersonal level– Happens often in politics

What is Culture?

• Humans generate meanings or models to understand the world around them

• Culture is a learned system of meanings through which people orient themselves

• Culture is…– Symbolic– Shared– Learned– Adaptive

Culture is Symbolic

• Humans understand and manipulate the world using symbols– Words, gestures, clothes…all symbols– Symbol: something that stands for something else

to someone in some respect• Symbols are arbitrary– We know the meaning only if we were taught it

Culture is Shared

• Ideology– Mobilization of cultural symbols to• Create inequities• Sustain inequities• Resist inequities

• Generation of similarity– Establish common beliefs in a community

• Organization of difference– Effort to regulate behavior according to ideology

[Figure 3.1 - Ideology involves the mobilization of cultural symbols toward political ends. Photo by Mark Allen Peterson.]

Culture Is Learned

• Enculturation: Passing on culture to new generations– Formal learning (institution)– Informal learning (watching, listening,

participating)• Embodiment– How we speak, eat, move, etc.– Unconscious behaviors learned through doing.

[Figure 3.2 - Most enculturation involves informal learning—the learning we engage in simply by participating in everyday activities. Photo by Mark Allen Peterson.]

Culture is Adaptive

• Cultural learning is a lifelong process– Adapt to internal and external pressures– Diffusion of ideas through direct and indirect

contact• Culture does not cease to be culture because

it adapts– Globalization does not change cultures, it is an

integration of cultures

Levels of Culture

• Culture is deeper than what is seen– But what is seen does play into culture

• Culture exists on three different levels– Everyday practices– Reasons and logical explanations for those

practices– Assumptions about how the world works

Cultural Practices

• Everyday actions through which people in a particular community get through their day– The things we say– The tools we use– The things we buy– The ways we behave around other people

• This level of culture is sometimes called artifact

Cultural Logics

• Underlying mechanisms behind human action in a certain community

• Nature acts as a constraint to human action

• There is always an explanation for the failure of cultural logics

Worldview

• Refers to the assumptions people have about the structure of the universe– Fundamental principles and values that organize

and generate cultural logics• Expressive culture– How we show ourselves to ourselves– Art, poems, stories, rituals

• Sometimes described as an encompassing picture of reality

[Figure 3.3 - As cultures increasingly come into contact with each other through economic globalization, there is little evidence that a shared world view is coming into existence. Rather, we find an increasing organization of diversity. Photo by Mark Allen Peterson.]

Intercultural Relations

• Cross-cultural encounters have powerful transformative effects on social systems and individuals– Cultural diffusion through trade, books, etc.

• Intercultural relations are about societies and people– Refugees, migrants, tourists, soldiers account are a few of

the many people that influence other cultures• Culture shock

– Unpleasant, sometimes traumatic feeling that comes with cultural misunderstandings

– People deal with culture shock in different ways

[Figure 3.4 - Rituals, play, art, sports, theater, novels and movies are all part of expressive culture, in which world views are articulated and elaborated in symbolic forms. Photo by Mark Allen Peterson.]

Studying Culture: The Anthropological Perspective

• Anthropology is the empirical study of what it means to be human– Not defined by its subject matter– May cover other fields of study

• Defined by perspectives– Comparative– Holistic– Empirical– Evolutionary– Relativistic

Comparative Perspective

• People tend to define what they are accustomed to as normal– Might seem normal to one group but not to

another• Comparison allows for the questioning of

normalcy– Anthropology studies the differences

Holistic Perspective

• Anthropologists assume that all aspects of life are intertwined– Breaking down or simplifying human tendencies

does not make sense• Example: Stephen Lansing’s study of Balinese

agriculture revolution

Empirical Perspective

• Anthropology is a science in which data is collected through observation or interaction– “Fieldwork”

• Participant observation refers to long-term engagements with a host community– Anthropologist enters into everyday life with the

community– Learns through interaction

Evolutionary Perspective

• All communities are in continual processes of historical change– Adapt to population pressures, environmental

changes, wars, technological advancements, etc.• The evolutionary assumption reminds us that

traditions had histories

Relativistic Perpective

• Assumption: all human societies offer data of the same type– Controversial and misunderstood

• One system is not better than another– Reverts to ideas on common senses

• Methodological relativism– Data as institutions that serve particular social functions in a

specific time and place, embedded in complex webs of meanings• Theoretical relativism

– An assumption that all human actions make rational sense when understood in their own contexts

• Philosophical relativism– Whatever people do is right for them

Anthropology and International Studies

• Anthropological perspective’s five key dimensions to international studies:

1. Importance of culture in explaining human actions2. Urges a more sophisticated approach to cultural

boundaries3. Reminds us there are usually more than two points of

view4. Encourages us to think on a smaller scale5. Emphasizes the importance of people in international

studies