about sociology

1. 1
The Concept of Culture
Think of 10 ways in which we use the word culture
or cultural.
Eg. Culture shock, Canadian culture, multicultural
C. Construction C. Awareness Deviant C.
C. Shock Underground C. Rural C.
Agriculture Pop C. Youth C.
Global C. C. Identity gay/lesbian C
C. Exchange C. Perspective C. Assimilation
Cross-C Elite C. Dead C
C. Diversity C. Sustainability Café C.
Multicultural Canadian C. C. event
To be C. C. Imperialism C. survival
High C. C. Hegemony drug C.
Enculturation C. Evolution Subculture
C. Phenomenon uncultured World C.
Intercultural Consumer C Bacterial C.
Counter C. Safety C Public C..
C. Genocide Corporate C. C. Relativism
The Concept of Culture
A Way of Life
Rural C. Corporate C. Canadian C.
Youth C. Café C.
Non-anthropological/sociological
Agriculture Bacterial C.
A continuum
Global C. World C. C. Evolution Public C.
A set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices
To be C. High C. uncultured C. event
Counter C. Safety C Elite C C. Phenomenon.
drug C. Consumer C C. Perspective gay/lesbian C
A sense of identity and otherness
C. Identity Canadian C
An object (of manipulation)
C. Sustainability C. Genocide Dead C C. survival
C. Hegemony C. Imperialism
A disparagement of difference
C. Shock Deviant C. Pop C.Underground C.
Subculture C. Assimilation
A sense of agency
C. Construction Enculturation
A celebration of difference
C. Diversity C. Awareness Multicultural C. Relativism
Intercultural Cross-C C. Exchange
Edward Burnett Tylor
1832-1917
Culture or civilization,
taken in its wide
ethnographic sense, is
that complex whole
which includes
knowledge, belief, art,
morals, law, custom, and
any other capabilities
and habits acquired my
man as a member of
society. E. B. Tylor 1871
`The sum total of knowledge,
attitudes and habitual behaviour
patterns shared and transmitted by
the members of a particular society'
Ralph Linton (1940).
The pattern of life within a
community, the regularly recurring
activities and material and social
arrangements characteristic of a
particular group'. Ward Goodenough (1957):

2. 2
“Culture is the framework of beliefs, expressive symbols,
and values in terms of which individuals define their
feelings and make their judgements” (Geertz 1957
American Anthropologist 59:32-54).
Geertz 1973: `an historically transmitted pattern of
meaning embodied in symbols, a system of inherited
conceptions expressed in symbolic form by means which
men communicate' (1973: 89).
What is Canadian Culture?
I A M C A N A D I A N !!!
I am not a lumberjack or a fur trader,
And I don't live in an igloo or eat blubber or own a dogsled,
And I don't know Jimmy, Sally, or Susie from Canada,
Although I am certain they are really, really nice.
I have a Prime Minister, not a President.
I speak English and French, not American.
And I pronounce it "about" ... not "a-boot".
I can proudly sew my country's flag on my backpack.
I believe in peacekeeping not policing;
Diversity not assimilation;
And that the beaver is a truly proud and noble animal!
A tuque is hat; a chesterfield is a couch.
And it is pronounced ZED not ZEE, ZED!
Canada is the second largest landmass,
The first nation of hockey,
And the best part of North America!
Culture is Relative
Culture is a way of life
Material
Objects
Ideas
Attitudes
Values
Behavior
Patterns
“Everything that people have, think, and do as
members of a society” (Ferraro, 2003)
Topical:Culture consists of everything on a list of topics, or
categories, such as social organization, religion, or economy
Historical Culture is social heritage, or tradition, that is passed on to
future generations
Behavioral Culture is shared, learned human behavior, a way of life
the total way of life of a people
Normative Culture is ideals, values, or rules for living a way of
thinking, feeling, and believing
Functional Culture is the way humans solve problems of adapting to
the environment or living together
Mental Culture is a complex of ideas, or learned habits, that inhibit
impulses and distinguish people from animals
Structural Culture consists of patterned and interrelated ideas,
symbols, or behaviors
Symbolic Culture is based on arbitrarily assigned meanings that are
shared by a society
Culture reified
Values
Norms
Ideas/Beliefs
Attitudes
Symbols
Traditions
Artifacts
Dimensions of Culture

3. 3
Characteristics of Culture
Culture is learned
Culture is unconscious
Culture is shared
Culture is integrated
Culture is Symbolic
Culture is a way of life
Culture is Dynamic
Culture is Relative
Culture is learned
How do we learn our culture?
Enculturation
Culture is unconscious Culture is shared
USA 89%
French Canada 81%
English Canada 77%
United Kingdom 71%
Italy 69%
France 59%
Australia 25%
Such findings signal that Canadian values, ideas, and attitudes
should not be relied upon when planning marketing forays into
foreign consumer markets
Everyone should
use a deodorant
Culture is Relative Culture is Integrated
Kinship
Medicine
Law &
politics
Economics
Religion

4. 4
Culture is Symbolic
A wink or a twitch
1896 1918 1924 1935 1955
1960 1970 1986 1990 2005
Culture is Dynamic
To communicate - makes the actions of individuals
intelligible to others
A tool
gives meaning to differences
Identity
Adaptive
Why do humans have Culture?
What is its function?
Can culture be maladaptive?
Is Culture Public
or Private?
Ishi ?-1916

5. 5
What is society?
`A distinct and relatively autonomous community
whose members' mutual social relations are
embedded in and expressed through the medium of
culture'.
`Any portion of a community regarded as a unit
distinguishable by particular aims or standards of
living or conduct'. i.e. culture
`A group of people who occupy a specific locality
and who share the same cultural traditions or
culture.'
Society
Young Huli girls of
Papua New Guinea
dressed for
traditional dance
Imagine you wanted to
understand how tourism
had affected Huli culture.
1. What would you do to
prepare yourself for the
fieldwork?
2. What would you do when
you got there?
3. What would you do when
you got back?
FIELDWORK BEFORE YOU GO
1.Funding
2.Health Precautions
3.Language
4.Personal Affairs
5.Authorization/Permission
6.Research – Group and Topic
“Imagine yourself suddenly set
down surrounded by all your gear
on a tropical beach close to a native
village while the launch or dinghy
which has brought you sails away
out of sight….Imagine yourself then,
making your first entry into the
village….Some natives flock around
you, especially if they smell tobacco”
(Malinowski 1922)
kitchen in a local house
special dinner for a visitor
“I looked up and gasped
when I saw a dozen burley,
naked, sweaty, hideous men
staring at us down the shafts
of their drawn arrows! I am
not ashamed to admit that
had there been a diplomatic
way out, I would have ended
my fieldwork then and
there….I wondered why I
ever decided to switch from
physics and engineering in
the first place. “Chagnon
1983

6. 6
Mt Hagen
Local street
General store
The market
“to grasp the native’s point of view,
his relation to life, to realise his vision
of his world”. Malinowski 1922
What is the goal of Fieldwork?
CONDUCTING FIELDWORK
1. Establish Rapport
2. Find an “Informant”
3. Learn Language
4. Take notes, photograph, conduct census,
interview, analyze documents, case histories
5. Participate and Observe
Stages of Field Research
1.Selecting a Research Problem
2.Formulating a Research Design
3.Collecting the Data
4.Analyzing the Data
5.Interpreting the Data
– basic propositions about human nature and
motivation, and about the nature of society and
culture which guide the inquiry.
– the process of observing and
producing published descriptions of
societies, in whole or in part
ETHNOGRAPHY:
METHOD:
– how the ethnographer selects and treats
the data of observation
THEORY:
Deduction

7. 7
Induction
!
!
Deductive Methodology
Theories
Observations
Inductive Methodology
Logical
Deduction
Hypotheses
InterpretationsPatterns
Hypotheses
Generalizations
Meaning and Interpretation
Mandan Rain dance George Catlin
Manifest and latent Functions Intended versus unintended consequences
Martin Luther

8. 8
Ego's cross cousins (in yellow) are distinguished from his parallel
cousins (in green) as the children of opposite and same sexed
parental siblings, respectively.
In many societies the ideal is to marry one’s cross cousin, as he/she
will belong to a different lineage (for alliance purposes), or parallel
cousin, as the cousin will be in the same lineage (for inheritance
purposes). Although the ideal, in actuality only 10% of marriages
will be of the ideal type.
The Ideal versus the Actual