History of Anthropology 10/5/14

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ANTH 101
Term Definition
Culture Total way of life of a society
Ethnocentrism
Cultural
relativism

Polygenism Humans are different species;

Notes:

Cultures total way of life of a society
1. Learned enculturation
2. Shared not uniform
a. We are a single culture in the U.S. but we have a lot of differences within our
culture
3. Always changing no one trapped in time
a. No such a thing as a stone age tribe; they are modern like everyone else
b. Everybody is modern
We all have the capacity to be multicultural

From Horace Miners Body Ritual of the Nacirema, he looks at common American culture
from the perspective of an outside observer, treating its peoples economy, daily rituals,
medicine, and interest with privacy as foreign, bizarre concepts that are strange to the
observer.
- He exposes how anthropologists view different societies by flipping the script and
putting Americans on the anthropological scope
He parodies ethnocentrism. Obviously we are concerned with more than just hygiene

Anthropologists must give a fair perspective of the insiders perspective

History of Anthropology
1) Armchair Period 1700s mid 1800s
a. scientific revolution and the Enlightenment
b. people moved away from religious explanations of the world and started
developing the scientific method
c. people were still ethnocentric because theyve never met people from other
cultures, prior to colonialism and the altantic slave trade
d. anthropology by wealthy British men who dont travel, reading books by
merchants, military and clergy often filled with bias
e. it was at this point that humans developed polygenism that humans are
different species
i. can justify slavery and colonialism I dont have to worry about how I
treat other races because I dont have to worry about treating my
horse like a human
2) Cultural Evolutionism late 1800s
a. Darwin writes his evolution book
History of Anthropology 10/5/14
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ANTH 101
b. Societies evolve through stages
i. Savagery
ii. Barbarism
iii. Civilization defined by urbanization, industry
c. This justified fighting native Americans because the US was helping them
become civilized
3) Maturing Profession 1900 mid 1900s (1960)
a. Franz Boas Father of American Anthropology
i. Born in Germany, was Jewish
ii. Gets PhD in geography, could make maps, but couldnt get a job
iii. Hired by a prospecting company, sent to Baffinland in Canada, a cold
place by the Arctic Circle
iv. Grossly underprepared for the winter, rescued by the Inuit, who took
pity on him
v. He learns the language and learns the culture, leading him to pursue
cultural anthropology
vi. Columbia hires him to teach Cultural Anthropology, leading him to
create cultural relativism which teachers that no culture is
superior to another all makes sense for the environment he also
argues against racism
vii. Demands fieldwork instead of reading about cultures in a book
viii. Trains entire 1
st
generation of American cultural anthropologists
4) Reflexive (Reflecting) Anthropology 1960s present
a. Hippies, drugs, Vietnam, whatever
b. Reforms in fieldwork
i. Require permission
ii. Do no harm
1. be careful that publicizing might endanger their way of life
iii. Must benefit community
c. Live out the ideal of all races being equal
d. Question the idea of truth
i. discovery involves the observer, which makes people observing the
same culture find different things