ANTH1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Cultural Anthropology, Biological Anthropology
8 May 2018
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Week 1: CULTURAL DIFFERENCE: AN INTRODUCTION (1)
• Problems with how to talk about culture
o Too often the difference of another culture is listed as a set of beliefs, rituals and recipes
o We argue through anthropology we discover and understand beliefs and values as
embedded in the circumstances of other people's lives and livelihoods
• What is culture?
o Over the course of the semester, we will discuss they ways that culture is:
• Shared
• Learned
• Symbolic
• Material
• Integrated
• Anthropology is the study of humanity (anthros=human; ology= study of)
o How humans evolved a species (physical or biological anthropology)
o How humans have lived at different points in time (archaeology)
o How humans communicate with each other (linguistic anthropology)
o How to understand the diversity of human culture across the globe (cultural
anthropology)
• What is culture?
o All humans are capable of using technology and symbol systems; this is what
distinguishes humans from other mammals.
o Humans in different cultures use technology and symbols in vastly different ways; this is
what distinguishes humans from each other.
• The Paradox of culture:
o What unites us as human beings is thus also what divides us into different cultures
o From this fundamental observation, cultural anthropology focuses on the differences
between cultures and on the ways in which they can be compared.
• Culture produces human beings
• A unified set of structures embedded in people's lives
• Individuals are apart of groups with a shared element rather than an individual "has" culture
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