Essay Culture & Humanity EXAM 2: ANTH 152 LCC Wai`anae Moku: Fall 2020

Anthropology 152 
 Week 6: Fall 2020

Overview

• Franz Boas • Father of Anthropology

• Cultural Meaning, Social Organization, Social Structure

• Kinship Variation • Kinship Project • Summary Points

Franz Boas

• As noted in handout on Boas by Monaghan/Just reading • As they note, he is the “father” of American

Anthropology in late 1800s-early 1900s • He has interesting ideas, activism, and ethical

commitments that continue to be important today

• As founder, his studies were in another field: psycho-physics

Franz Boas
 Human Diversity and Equality

• Boas is a founding father of the ethnographic method. • Keep in mind while fieldwork seems perhaps an obvious way to learn

from people today (live with them), For Boas, a European, to live with Indigenous peoples who at that time were marginalized and left to “die” in reservations this was deeply radical. • Boas considered Indigenous cultural worlds and peoples as

equally important as Western cultures and peoples. • This conflicted with the racist worldviews at the time in Europe

and in the US. • Boas founded the idea that you need to understand a culture in

its own terms rather than another culture’s terms and by living with the people one is trying to learn about.

Franz Boas: Psychophysics

• His research in psychophysics among Inuit peoples (arctic peoples sometimes known as Eskimo) revealed Inuit perceived different colors of sea water than Europeans. • Boas, foundationally, argued that the

differences were a result of cultural differences between the peoples, and not racial differences between them. • This challenged “racism” at his time.

Franz Boas 
 Kulterbrille

• Note Monaghan and Just introduce his idea of “kulturbrille” (pg. 38) • For Boas, each people engages the world around

them in terms of their “kulturbrille” (cultural glasses). Dif ferent peoples have dif ferent kulturbrille which today we would characterize as different “worldviews”

• In our class, we are in a sense learning different “kulturbrille” for understanding the meaning and value of food, kinship, marriage, and other dimensions of human being is relative to culture

Franz Boas: Cultural Contexts

• Cultural Contexts of human differences • Following Boas to this day, anthropologists seek

to understand say differences in “food”, “dance”, “marriage, etc. between peoples as an effect of cultural differences and not racial ones given by biological dimensions of human being (genetics).

• Much of what we continue to examine in anthropology, and how we analyze it, is rooted in his foundational studies and progressive philosophy.

Cultural Meaning vs Social Organization

• Thus far, we have focused o n h o w t h e c u l t u r a l meaning of various “things” varies (animals, mountains, bodies, etc.) • I h a v e t r i e d t o

introduce you to how t h e m e a n i n g a n d v a l u e o f v a r i o u s things varies cross- culturally

• Social Organization • Anthropology is also

interested in how the social organization of human l i fe var ies cross-culturally

Society

Some anthropologists, separate society from culture. These are also conceived as different “angles” to understand “the same complex thing”

Society is constituted by social structures that can be understood as

“rules and regularities that govern human social behavior, the ways people associate with one another, and how activity is organized” “or “the patterned and predictable social relations of a cultural group”

Functions of Social Structures

The social structures of a society, in part, maintain the “social order” of society/ culture. Of course, some may see that as a good order and others a bad order. This leads us to realize a politics in social structures.

Some examples of Social Structures include:

Marriage Kinship: We will focus on this for now.

Gender Economy

Political System

Kinship: FAMILY

• Societies differ in h o w t h e y g i v e meaning and value (categorize) and organize fami ly (kinship).

Plurality in

Kinship

• Kinship systems differ in: • the categories used to give

meaning and value to kinship • How they organize families (by

emphasizing one or both sides of a family, for example). • Emphasizing the importance

on one side (dad or mom’s side for example) compared to the other.

• S o c i a l O b l i g a t i o n s t o w a r d relatives • Obligations that members of

one culture regard as normal may be absent or different in other cultures.

Broader Significance of Kinship Diversity

Biology reproduces human being, but it does not assign meaning, value, and organization to your descendants. That is accomplished through kinship systems

While all people live in kin groups of some kind, the kind one has depends upon culture.

Different Social Groups have, on some level, different Symbolic Realities, and principles of social organization as a result of differences in kinship social structure and meaning/value

Kinship does not reduce to biology, but is entangled in culture (a symbolic order).

Broader Significance of

Kinship Diversity

• Kinship and Subjectivity • T h e d i f f e r e n c e s o f

kinship systems entail d i f f e r e n c e s i n subjectivity as well.

• Who we are depends in part on how our i d e n t i t y i s constructed through a kinship system.

• Peop le w ho have ident i ty based in d i f f e r e n t k i n s h i p systems will have d i f f e r e n t subjectivities.

Diversity in Descent

Form of descent How people in a given culture trace their descent.

Bilateral Tracing through both the both male and female lines.

Unilineal descent Tracing descent on either the mother’s or the father’s ancestral line. Two Kinds: Matrilineal, Patrilineal

Cognatic Tracing through either the male or female line.

Unilineal Kinship

• T h e d a r k e r colored side is the side emphasized

KINSHIP PROJECT

• ILLUSTATES HOW KINSHIP (FAMILY) IS CULTURALLY CONSTRUCTED • SHOWS HOW LANGUAGE CATEGORIES

CONSTITUTE ONE`S KINSHIP REALITY • I L L U S T R A T E S P L U R A L I T Y O F

ORGANIZATION OF KINSHIP ON EARTH

BASIC KINSHIP SYMBOLS

MotherFather

SisterBrother

BASIC KINSHIP SYMBOLS

KINSHIP PROJECT 
 Eskimo/American Type

“Eskimo” Kinship terminology
 BILATERAL SYSTEM

KINSHIP PROJECT

• First draw an chart for your family in terms of the “Eskimo/ American” type of kinship system

• Instead of the way it is here do include your aunts and uncles that are spouses like in the prior slide

• Youtube Help • Kinship Diagram help

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i1UF3htLKU • How To Draw a Kinship Diagram

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCrvvrxr7Co

KINSHIP PROJECT

• Note you draw yourself as the “box”; the first chart above does not use the box style, but please do use it.

• Note you should have “three generations” so add one more compared to the one here.

• Please have “spouses” for married people UNLIKE the one here, but like the one above and below.

KINSHIP PROJECT

• Like the one here and above, include a “legend” for the different people. Aunt/Uncle, etc. You do not have to use the codes they give you; code as you wish but give a “legend” for your code.

“Eskimo” Kinship terminology


BILATERAL SYSTEM

• For your charts you would then Provide the code:

• 1=Dad • 2=Mom • 3=Uncle • 4=Aunt • 5=Brother • 6=Sister • 7=Cousin

NEXT DRAW a HAWAIIAN SYSTEM FOR YOUR FAMILY.


• The one provided here is a simpler version than what I want, but it gives you part of the idea.

• Look at your project directions and notice I do not want English t r an s l a t i on bu t t he Hawaiian words.

• Follow me to the next slide to see further details I want.

HAWAIIAN SYSTEM

• Lets include spouses as “Makuahine/Makuakane” and for your generation note “Kane” or “Wahine” for s p o u s e s o f “ c o u s i n s , yourself, or siblings”.

• In your chart, unlike the one pictured in your generation you want to distinguish “kaikua’ana/ kaikana”

• I have also asked you to do the next generation or higher kupuna generation. Lets look at that below.

HAWAIIAN SYSTEM

• As a female, not in my directions you have no kaikuahine (that is for males)

• As a male, you have no “kaikunane” (that is for females)

• Whether female or male, you separate your generation, that is, cousins and siblings same sex as you, as either o lder ( k a i kua ` ana ) o r younger (kaikaina)

NEXT DRAW a MATRILINEAL SYSTEM FOR YOUR FAMILY.


• Notice Father side is not “kin”

KINSHIP PROJECT
 matrilineal

• For Matrilineal systems, you do not have a full “code” like you do in the American/Eskimo system. So for this one just code like this one does your “matrilineal kin”. You can code in colors, numbers or whatever.

• Note “matrilineal” includes mom and mom’s sister’s kids, and mom and mom’s brother, but not his kids.

• Pe o p l e “ i n ” a r e l i n ke d by “mothers”. As a male, you are part of your mom’s matrilineage, but NOT the matrilineage of your own children

For Extra-credit you can DRAW A PATRILINEAL SYSTEM FOR YOUR FAMILY.


• On th i s t ype , mother’s side is not “kin”

KINSHIP PROJECT
 Patrilineal

• For patrilineal systems, you do not have a full “code” like you do in the American/Eskimo system. So for this one just code l i k e t h i s o n e d o e s y o u r “patrilineal kin”. You can code in colors, numbers or whatever.

• Note “patrilineal” includes dad and dad’s brother’s kids, and dad’s sister, but not her kids.

• People “in” are linked by “dads”. As a female, you are part of your dads patrilineage, but NOT the parilineage of your own children

KINSHIP PROJECT
 Significance

• By drawing the three charts you can begin to see that who counts as family is relative to the cultural system; patrilineal and matrilineal systems do not for example count the same people as “family”; they “organize” family differently • Similarly, you can see that the meaning and value of the same people in the

chart changes meaning depending on which system one uses. • In part the meaning/value change is based on code change, but it is also the

case the systems simply socially organize family differently.

Waya Island, Fiji

• We have a story 
 “An Anthropologist Behaving Badly” that discusses aspects of kinship on an island world of Fiji

• Fiji is south and East of Hawai`i

Waya Island Fiji

An Anthropologist Behaving Badly
 Lisa Humphrey

• This is an interesting story that teaches about how value is organized in terms of Fijian principles of kinship on the basis of the “kerekere” system.

• Kerekere • Roughly translates as “please” • More broadly, kerekere is part of a system of reciprocity that

constitutes Fijian kinship organization and meaning.

An Anthropologist Behaving Badly


Lisa Humphrey

• Humphrey loses a watch and proceeds to retrieve it by engaging in the kerekere system of reciprocity.

• She presents herself as Fijian kin and emphasizes kerekere to get her watch back

• S h o w s h o w k i n s h i p organizes, articulates, in everyday life.

• In other words, how kinship is not just a set of codes for class i fy ing k in but an institution that provides values at the center of social life.


 “Head Candy/


Gut Connection”
 Lynette Hi`ilani Cruz 


• This is an interesting story in which Cruz links genealogical

knowledge of Kānaka Maoli kinship identity

with Hawaiian Sovereignty movements

and struggles

Ku`e Names Project
 Washington DC

• “We are them and they are us” (168) • Shows the politics of kinship identity; by learning the names of

the ancestors of one’s family that protested, one learns a potential political identity to embody and live to follow them in the present

Ku`e Names Project
 Pu`u Huluhulu 


(Mauna A Wākea Access Road)

• “Entails “kuleana”; responsibility to them and their

politics.

• Thus kinship is not only a social

structure, but potentially a tool of

political organization

POSSIBLE 
 EXAM ID TERMS

• Social Structure • Waya Island, Fiji • Kerekere • Ku`e Names Project • Bilateral • Matrilineal • Franz Boas

KEY EXAM 
 ANALYTICAL

STUDY POINTS

• Kinship is an example of a social structure that varies cross-culturally though there are a limited number of types of kinship systems of humanity. • The meaning of kinship varies:

relatives in one system may take on different meaning in another system or lack meaning. For example, the people who are kin in matrilineal systems are not often kin in patrilineal systems.

• The social organization of kinship varies: kinship may be organized, for example bilaterally or in unilineal terms. Being organized around matrilineal kin will be different than being organized around bilateral kin.

• Biology reproduces human being, but it does not assign meaning, value, and organization to your descendants. That is accomplished through kinship systems. Different systems constitute different “Kulturbrille” as Boas would say for framing the world people live and interpret.

KEY EXAM 
 STUDY POINTS

• Kinship does not reduce to biology, but is entangled in culture (a symbolic order)

• W hi le universal l y a l l people live in kin groups of some kind, the kind one has depends upon culture.

• Different Social Groups have, on some level , different Realities, and p r i n c i p l e s o f s o c i a l organization as a result of differences in kinship structure

• Kinship diversity leads to diversity in social life, subjectivity, and identity.

KEY EXAM 
 STUDY POINTS

• Kinship and Subjectivity • The differences of kinship

systems entail differences in subjectivity as well. Who we are depends in part on how our identity is constructed through a kinship system.

• People who have identity based in different kinship systems will have different subjectivities.

• Kinship is part of the cultural construction of “the self”

KEY EXAM 
 ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY POINTS

• In the ethnographic story of Fiji we see how kinship practices ground broader social relationships and values that constitute meaning in the cultural worlds of Fiji. • Kinship then is not just about cultural categories but

broader practices that constitute identity and social organization in a cultural world that can be engaged to address everyday life problems like losing a watch.

KEY EXAM 
 ETHNOGAPHIC STUDY POINTS

• The ethnographic story of Hawaiian Kinship by Cruz shows how kinship social structure that can take on political significance. • Kānaka Maoli genealogical identity is used to

deform American National Identity • Thus, it is not only a structure for social

organization but political organization too.