Culture: Introduction

In anthropology, the integrated system of socially acquired values, beliefs, and rules
of conduct which delimit the range of accepted behaviors in any given society.
Cultural differences distinguish societies from one another. Archaeology , a branch
of the broader field of anthropology, studies material culture, the remains of extinct
human cultures (e.g., pottery, weaponry) in order to decipher something of the way
people lived. Such analysis is particularly useful where no written records exist. One
of the first anthropological definitions of the term was given by Sir Edward Burnett
Tylor in the late 19th cent. By 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn had
catalogued over 100 different definitions of the word.

The Nature of Culture

Culture is based on the uniquely human capacity to classify experiences, encode

such classifications symbolically, and teach such abstractions to others. It is usually
acquired through enculturation, the process through which an older generation
induces and compels a younger generation to reproduce the established lifestyle;
consequently, culture is embedded in a person's way of life. Culture is difficult to
quantify, because it frequently exists at an unconscious level, or at least tends to be
so pervasive that it escapes everyday thought. This is one reason that
anthropologists tend to be skeptical of theorists who attempt to study their own
culture. Anthropologists employ fieldwork and comparative, or cross-cultural,
methods to study various cultures. Ethnographies may be produced from intensive
study of another culture, usually involving protracted periods of living among a
group. Ethnographic fieldwork generally involves the investigator assuming the role
of participant-observer: gathering data by conversing and interacting with people in
a natural manner and by observing people's behavior unobstrusively. Ethnologies use
specialized monographs in order to draw comparisons among various cultures

Section: Theories of Culture

Investigations have arisen from belief in many different theories of culture and
have often given voice to new theoretical bases for approaching the elusive term.
Many early anthropologists conceived of culture as a collection of traits and studied
the diffusion, or spread, of these traits from one society to another. Critics of
diffusionism, however, pointed out that the theory failed to explain why certain traits
spread and others do not. Cultural evolution theory holds that traits have a certain
meaning in the context of evolutionary stages, and they look for relationships
between material culture and social institutions and beliefs. These theorists classify
cultures according to their relative degree of social complexity and employ several
economic distinctions (foraging, hunting, farming, and industrial societies) or political
distinctions (autonomous villages, chiefdoms, and states). Critics of this theory argue
that the use of evolution as an explanatory metaphor is flawed, because it tends to
assume a certain direction of development, with an implicit apex at modern,
industrial society. Ecological approaches explain the different ways that people live
around the world not in terms of their degree of evolution but rather as distinct
adaptations to the variety of environments in which they live. They also demonstrate
how ecological factors may lead to cultural change, such as the development of

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technological means to harness the environment. Structural-functionalists posit
society as an integration of institutions (such as family and government), defining
culture as a system of normative beliefs that reinforces social institutions. Some
criticize this view, which suggests that societies are naturally stable (see
functionalism ). Historical-particularists look upon each culture as a unique result
of its own historical processes. Symbolic anthropology looks at how people's mental
constructs guide their lives. Structuralists analyze the relationships among cultural
constructs of different societies, deriving universal mental patterns and processes
from the abstract models of these relationships. They theorize that such patterns
exist independent of, and often at odds with, practical behavior. Many theories of
culture have been criticized for assuming, intentionally or otherwise, that all people
in any one society experience their culture in the same way. Today, many
anthropologists view social order as a fragile accomplishment that various members
of a society work at explaining, enforcing, exploiting, or resisting. They have turned
away from the notion of elusive “laws” of culture that often characterizes cross-
cultural analyses to the study of the concrete historical, political, and economic
forces that structure the relations among cultures. Important theorists on culture
have included Franz Boas , Emile Durkheim , Ruth Benedict , and Clifford Geertz .

Section: Bibliography

See studies by G. W. Stocking, Jr. (1968), R. Wagner (1981), M. S. Archer (1988),

A. Hallowell (1988), and R. Rosaldo (1989).