Psych

conceptions ofwhat is real and what isn't. By examining the rich diversity and complexity of human cultural expressions, you may also begin to grasp more fully the potential and possibilities for your own life.

What Is Culture?

When people hear the word culture, they often think about the material goods or artistic forms produced by distinct groups ofpeople-Chinese food, M iddle Eastern music, Indian clothing, Greek architecture, African dances. Sometimes

people assume that culture means elite art forms such as those displayed in museums, operas, or ballets. But for anthropologists, culture is much more: It encompasses people's entire way of life.

Culture is a system of knowledge, beliefs, patterns of behavior, artifacts,

and institutions that are created, learned, shared, and contested by a group of people. Culture is our manual fo r understanding and interacting with the people and the world around us. It includes shared norms, values, symbols, mental maps of reality, and material objects as well as structures of power­

including the media, education, religion, and politics-in which our under­ standing of the world is shaped, reinforced, and negotiated. A cultural group

may be large or small, and it may have within it sig nificant diversity of region,

Al l humans must eat. But what we eat, how we eat, and w ho we eat with are shaped by local cultures. (Top left) a street market in Bangkok; Thailand; (right) an interfaith Passover Seder with Muslims and Jews in Guba, Azerbaijan; (bottom left) planning a business startup in London.

culture: A system of knowledge, beliefs, patterns of behavior, artifacts, and institutions that are created, learned, shared, and contested by a group of people.

WHAT IS CULT U RE? 35

-enculturation: The process of learning culture.

religion, race, gender, sexuality, class, generation, and ethnic identity. I t may not be accepted by everyone, even those living in a particular place or time. But ulti­

mately, the culture that we learn has the potential to shape our ideas of what is normal and natural, what we can say and do, and even what we can think.

Culture Is Learned and Taught

Humans do not genetically inherit culture. We learn culture throughout our

lives from the people and cultural institutions that surround us. Anthropolo­ gists call the process of learning culture enculturation. Some aspects of cul­ ture we learn through formal instruction: English classes in school, religious instruction, visits to the doctor, history lessons, dance classes. Other processes

of enculturation are informal and even unconscious as we absorb culture from

family, friends, and the media. All humans are equally capable of learning culture and of learning any culture they are exposed to.

The process of social learning, passing cultural information within popu­

lations and across generations, is not unique to humans. Many animals learn social behavior from their immediate group: W olves learn hunting strategies

from the wolf pack. Whales learn to produce and distinguish the unique calls

of their pod. Among monkeys and apes, our closest biological relatives, learned behaviors are even more com mon. Chimpanzees have been observed teaching

their young to create rudimentary tools, stripping bark from a twig that they then insert into an anthill to extract a tasty and nutritious treat. But the human

capacity to learn culture is unparalleled.

Culture is taught as well as learned. H umans establish cultural institutions as mechanisms for enculturating their members. Schools, medical and legal

systems, media, and religious institutions promote the ideas and concepts that

are considered central to the culture. Rules, regulations, laws, teachers, doctors,

religious leaders, police officers, and sometimes militaries promote and enforce what is considered appropriate behavior and thinking.

Culture Is Shared Yet Contested

No individual has his or her own culture. Culture is a shared experience devel­

oped as a result ofliving as a member ofa group. Through enculturation, humans learn how to communicate and establish patterns of behavior that allow life in

community, often in close proximity and sometimes with limited resources. Cultures may be shared by groups, large and small. For example, anthropolo­

gists may speak oflndian culture (1 billion people), of U.S. culture (300 million

people) or of the culture of the Yanomami tribe (several thousand people) liv­ ing in the Amazonian rainforest. There may be smaller cultures within larger cultures. For inst ance, your college classroom h as a culture, one that you must

learn in order to succeed academically. A classroom culture includes shared

36 CHAPTER 2 CULTURE

- How is cutture learned and taught? Here, kindergartners learn

Mandarin Chinese at the New York Chinese School.

CULTURE IS SHARED YET CONTESTED

No individual has his or her own culrure. Culrure is a shared experience developed as

a result ofliving as a member ofa group. Through enculruration, humans learn how

to communicate and establish patterns of behavior that allow life in community,

often in close proximity and sometimes with limited resources. Culrures may be

shared by groups, large and small. For example, anthropologists may speak oflndian

culrure (1 billion people), of U.S. culrure (300 million people) or of the culrure of

the Yanomarni tribe (several thousand people) living in the Amazonian rainfor­

est. There may be smaller culrures within larger culrures. For instance, your oollege classroom has a culrure, one that you must learn in order to succeed academically. A

classroom culrure includes shared understandings ofwhat to wear, how ro sit, when

to arrive or leave, how to communicate with classmates and the instructor, and how

to challenge authority, as well as formal and informal processes ofenculruration.

Although culrure is shared by members of groups, it is ab;o constantly con­

tested, negotiated, and changing. Culrure is never static. Just ·as culrural instiru­

tions serve as strucrures for promoting enculturation, they also serve as arenas for

challenging, debating, and changing core culrural beliefs and behaviors. Intense

debates erupt over school curriculums, medical practices, media content, religious

practices, and government policies as members of a culrure engage in sometimes

dramatic confrontations about their collective purpose and direction.

CULTURE IS SYMBOLIC AND MATERIAL

Through enculruration, over time the members of a culrure develop a shared

body ofculrural knowledge and patterns of behavior. Though anthropologists no

longer think of culrure as a completely separate, unique possession of a specific

What Is Culture? 35

norms Ideas or rules about how people

should behave in particular situations or toward certain other people.

36

group of people, most argue that a common cultural core exists, at least among

the dominant segments of the culture. Norms, values, symbols, and mental maps

of reality are four elements that an anthropologist may consider in attempting to

understand the complex workings of a culture. These are not universal; they vary

from culture to culture. Even within a culture not everyone shares equally in that

cultural knowledge, nor does everyone agree completely on it. But the elements

of a culture powerfully frame what its participants can say, what they can do, and

even what they think is possible and impossible, real or unreal.

Norms. Norms are ideas or rules about how people should behave in partic­ ular situations or toward certain other people--what is considered "normal" and

appropriate behavior. Norms may i nclude what to wear on certain occasions such

as weddings, funerals, work, and school; what you can say in polite company; how

younger people should treat older people; and who you can date or, as the open­

ing anecdote demonstrated, what you can eat when. Many norms are assumed,

not written down. We learn them over time--consci ously and unconsciously­

and incorporate them into o ur patterns of daily living. Other norms are form al­

ized in writing and made publicly available, such as a country's laws, a system of

medical or business ethics, or the code of academic integrity in your college or

university. Norms may vary for segments of the population, imposing different

expectations on men and women, for instance, or children and adults. Cultural

norms may be widely accepted, but they may also be debated, challenged, and

changed, particularly when norms enforced by a dominant group disadvantage

or oppress a minority within the population.

Consider the question ofwhom you can marry. You may consider the deci­

sio n to be a matter of personal choice, but in many cul tures the decision is not

left to the whims ofyoung people. The results are too important. O ften it is two

families who arrange the marriage, not two individuals, although these patterns

are under pressure from the globalization ofWestern cultural practices.

Cultures have clear norms, based on ideas of age, kinship, sexuality, race, reli­

gion, class, and legal status, that specify what is normal and what is not. Let's

consider some extreme cases. In Nazi Germany, the Nuremburg Laws passed in 1935 banned marriage or sexual relations between German Jews and persons with German or related blood. From 1949 to 1985, South Africa's apartheid

government, dominated by white lawmakers, declared marriage and sex between

whites and "coloreds" (people ofmixed race), Asians, and blacks to be a crime under

the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act and the Immorality Act. In the history of the United States, as many as forty states passed anti- miscegenation laws-that

is, laws barring interracial marriage and sex:. Such laws targeted marriages between

whites and nonwhites-primarily blacks, but also Asians and Native Americans. Only in 1967 did the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rule (inLovingv. Virginia)

Chapter 2: Cul ture

that these laws were unconstitutional, thereby striking down statutes still on the books in sixteen states (all the former slave states plus Oklahoma).

Cultural norms may discourage exogamy (marriage outside one's "group") and encourage endogamy (marriage within one's "group"). Think about your own

family. Who could you bring home to your parents? Could you cross boundar­ ies of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, class, or gender? Although U.S. culture

has very few formal rules about whom one can marry--with some exclusions around age, sexuality, and certain kinship relations-cultural n orms still power­ fully inform and enforce our behavior.

Most people, though not all, accept and follow a culture's norms. Ifthey choose to challenge the norms, other members ofthe culture have means for enforcing its

standards, whether through shunning, institutionalized punishment such as fines or imprisonment, or, in more extreme cases, violence and threats ofviolence.

Values. Cultures promote and cultivate a core set of values- fundamental beliefs about what is important, what makes a good life, and what is true, right,

and beautiful. Values reflect shared ultimate standards that should guide people's behavior, as well as goals that people feel are important for themselves, their

families, and their community. What would you identify as the core values of U.S. culture? Individualism? Independence? Care for the most vulnerable?

Freedom of speech, press, and religion? Equal access to social mobility?

As with all elements of culture, cultural values are not fixed. They can be debated and contested. And they may have varying degrees of influence. For

example, if you pick up a newspaper in any country you will find a deep debate about cultural values. Perhaps the debate focuses on modesty versus public displays ofaffection in India, economic growth versus environmental pollution in China, or

land settlement versus peace in the Middle East. In the United States, while the value of privacy is held dear, so is the value of security. The proper balance of

the two is constantly being contested and debated. Under what conditions should the U.S. government be able to breach your privacy by eavesdropping on telephone

calls and emails, or unlocking your iPhone, in order to ensure your safety? Ultimately, values are not simply platitudes about people's ideals about the

good life. Values are powerful cultural tools for clarifying cultural goals and moti­

vating people to action. When enshrined in law, values can become powerful political and economic tools. Values can be so potent that some people are willing

to kill or die for them.

Symbols. Cultures include complex systems ofsymbols and symbolic actions-in realms such as language, art, religion, politics, and economics-that convey meaning to other participants. In essence, a symbol is something that stands for something

else. For example, language enables humans to communicate abstract ideas through

What Is Culture?

values Fundamental beliefs about what

is important, what makes a good life, and what is true, right, and

beautiful.

symbol

Anything that represents something else.

37

- Money is symbolic

1 and only

10 percent of the world's money

exists in tangible form. Here traders move money electronicalty

at Euronext stock exchange in Amstetdam, the Netherlands.

mental maps of reality

Cultural classifications of what

kinds o f people and things exist, and the assignment of meaning to those classifications.

38

the symbols of written and spoken words, as well as unspoken sounds and gestures (see Chapter 4). People shake hands, wave, whistle, nod, smile, give rwo thumbs up,

give thumbs down, give someone the middle finger.These symbols are not univer­ sal, but within their particular cultural oontext they oonvey certain meanings.

Much symbolic oommunication is nonverbal, action-based, and unconscious. Religions include powerful systems of symbols that represent deeper meanings to their adherents. Consider mandalas, the Koran, the Torah, the Christian cross,

holy water, srarues ofthe Buddha-fill carry greater meanings and value than the physical material they are oonstructed 0£ National flags, which are mere pieces of colored cloth, are symbols that stir deep political emotions. Even money is simply a symbolic representation ofvalue guaranteed by the sponsoring govern­

ment. It has no value, except in its symbolism. Estimates suggest that only about 10 percent of money today exists in physical form. The rest moves electroni­ cally through banks, stock markets, and credit accounts (Graeber 2011). Symbols

change in meaning over time and from culture to culture. Not understanding another culrure's oollective understandings-sets of symbolic actions-can lead

to embarrassing misunderstandings and cross-cultural miscues.

Mental Maps of Reality. Along with norms, values, and symbols, another key component of culture is mental maps of reality. These are "maps" that humans construct ofwhat kinds of people and what kinds of things exist.

Because the world presents overwhelming quantities of data to our senses, our brains create shortcuts- maps-to navigate our experience and organize all the data that come our way. A roadmap condenses a large world into a manageable

format (one that you can hold in your hands or view on your portable GPS sys­ tem) and helps us navigate the territory. Likewise, our mental maps organize the

world into categories that help us sort out our experiences and what they mean. We do not want all the details all the time. We oould not handle them anyway. From our general mental maps we can then dig deeper as required.

Chapter 2: Culture

Our mental maps are shaped through enculturation, but they are not fixed.

Like other elements ofculture, they can be challenged and redrawn. Today, glo­

balization continues to put pressure on mental maps of reality as people on the

planet are drawn into closer contact with the world's diversity. We will examine

these transformations throughout this book, especially in chapters on language,

race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and kinship.

Mental maps have two important functions. Fint, mental maps cla.ssif; real­

ity. Starting in the eighteenth century, European naturalists such as Carolus

Linnaeus (1707- 1778) began creating systems of classification for the natural

world. These systems included five kingdoms subdivided into phylum, class,

order, family, genus, and species. Through observation (this was before genetics),

these naturalists sought to organize a logical framework to divide the world into

kinds of things and kinds of people. In a similar way, our cultures' mental maps seek to classify reality-though often a culture's mental maps are drawn from the

distinct vantage point of those in power.

A culture creates a concept such as time. Then we arbitrarily divide it into mil­

lennia, centuries, decades, years, seasons, months, ·weeks, hours, morning, aftemoon, evening, minutes, seconds. Categoties of time are assumed to be scientific, universal,

and "natural." But mostly they are cultural constructs.The current Gregorian calen­

dar, which is used in much of the world, was introduced in 1582 by the Catholic

Church, but its adoption occurred gradually; it was accepted in the United States

in 1756, replacing the earlier Julian calendar, and in China in 19'49. Until 1949 and still today, much of China relies on a lunar calendar in which months and days align

with the waxing and waning of the moon. New Yem's Day shifts each year. So do Chinese holidays and festivals. Even in the Gregorian calendar, the length of the

year is modified to fit into a neat mental map of reality. A year (how long it takes

Earth to orbit the sun) is approximately 365 .2425 days long, so every four years the

Gregorian calendar must add a day, creating a leap year of366 days rather than 365. Now check your watch. Even the question of what time it is depends on

accepting a global system of time zones centered at the Greenwich meridian in

England. But countries regularly modify the system according to their needs.

The mainland United States has four time zones. China, approximately the

same physical size, uses only one time zone. Russia has eleven. There is a time

change of three and a half hours when you cross the border between China and

Afghanistan. As these examples demonstrate, categories that seem completely

fixed and "natural" are in reality flexible and variable, showing the potential role

of culture in defining our fundamental notions of reality.

Mental maps of reality become problematic when people treat cultural

notions ofdifference as being scientifically or biologically "natural." Race is a key

example. As we will see in Chapter 5, the notion of race is assumed in popular

culture and conversation to have a biological basis.There is, however, no scientific

What Is Culture? 39

- What does it mean to be a child laborer in your culture? (/eh) a

boy in Dhaka, Bangladesh, makes balloons for export; (right) a girl in

Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, works at a brick-making factory.

40

basis for this assumption. The particular racial categories in any given culture do

not correlate directly to any biological differences. Although most people in the

United States would name whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and perhaps Native

Americans as distinct races, no genetic line marks clear differences among these

categories. The classifications are created by our culture and are specific to our

culture. O ther cultures draw different mental maps ofthe reality ofhuman phys­

ical variation. The Japanese use different racial categories than the United States. Brazilians have more than 500 racial classifications.

Second, mental maps assign meaning to what has been classified. Not only do

people in a culture develop mental maps of things and people, they also place

values and meanings on those maps. For example, we divide the life span into

categories- infants, children, adolescents, teenagers, young adults, adults, and

seniors, for example- but then we give different values to different ages. Some

carry more respect, more protection, and more rights, privileges, and responsibil­

ities.In the United States, these categories determine at what age you can marry, have sex, drink alcohol, drive, vote, go to war, stand trial, retire, or collect Social

Security and Medicare benefits. In considering the earlier discussion of time, we can see how these classifica­

tions gain value and meaning. U.S. culture puts a premium on time, discourages

idle leisure, and encourages people to work hard and stay busy. "Time is money!"we

often hear, and so it should not be wasted. Assuming that our mental maps ofreality

are natural can cause us to disregard the cultural values of others. For instance, we

may see as lazy those whose cultures value a midday nap. This effect of our mental

maps is important for anthropologists to understand (Wolf-Meyer 2012).

To fully grasp the anthropological understanding of culture, we will examine

the historical development of the culture concept before turning our attention to

more recent notions ofculture as a system of meaning and as a system of power.

Chapter 2: Culture

How Has the Culture Concept Developed in Anthropology? The concept of culture has been central to anthropology ever since the English

anthropologist Edward Bumett T ylor (1832- 1917) crafred his definition

in the opening paragraph of his book Primitive Culture in 1871: "Culture or

Civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which

i ncludes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and

habits acquired by man as a member of society."

Tylor understood culture to be a unified and complex system of ideas and

behavior learned over time, passed down from generation to generation, and

shared by members of a particular group. Over the past century and a half, cul­

ture has become more than a defini tion; i t is now a key theoretical framework for

anthropologists attempting to understand humans and their interactions.

EARLY EVOLUTIONARY FRAMEWORKS

Edward Burnett T ylor and James Frazer (1854-1941) of E ngland and Lewis

H enry Morgan (1818- 1881) of the United States were among the leading early

anthropologists who sought to professionalize a field long dominated by wealthy

collectors ofartifacts.They sought to organize the vast quantities ofdata about the

diversity of cultures worldwide that were being accumulated through colonial and

missionary enterprises during the nineteenth century. These anthropologists were

influenced by Charles D arwin's theory of biological evolution , which maintains

that the diversity of biological species resulted from gradual change over time in

response to environmental pressures. Thus, they suggested that the vast diversity

of cultures represented different stages in the evolution of human culture.

Early anthropologists suggested that all cultures would naturally evolve

through the same sequence ofstages, a concept known as unilineal cultural evo­ lution. They set about plotting the world's cultures along a con tinuum from most

simple to most complex, using the terms savage, barbarian, and civilized. Western

cultures were, perhaps too predictably, considered the most evolved or civilized. By arranging all of the world cultures along this continuum, the early anthropologists

believed that they could trace the path of human cultural evolution, understand

where some cultures had come from, and predict where other cultures were headed.

W hile Tylor and others developed the theory of unilineal. cultural evolution

at least in part to combat the prevalent racist belief that many non -E uropeans

were of a different species, the theory has itself been criticized as racist for rank­

ing different cultural expressions in a hierarchy with European culture, consid­

ered the ideal, at the apex (Stocking 1968). Franz Boas, the founder of American

anthropology, and Bronislaw Malinowski, a Polish anthropologist who spent

How H as the Culture C oncep t D evelope d in Anthropology?

- B<i1ish anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor.

unilineal cultural evolution The theory proposed by nineteenth­

century anthropologists that all cultures naturalty evolve through the same sequence of stages from

simple to complex.

41

historical particularism

The idea, attributed to Franz Boas, that cultures develop in

specific ways because of their unique histories.

- American anthropologist Ruth Benedict.

42

most ofhis life teaching in England, represent two main schools ofanthropology

that moved beyond the evolutionary framework for viewing cultural differences.

AMERICAN HISTORICAL PARTICULARISM Franz Boas (1858- 1942) conducted fieldwork among the Kwakiutl indigenous

people ofthe Pacific Northwest ofthe United States and Canada before becoming a professor ofanthropology at Columbia University in New York and a curator of the American Museum of Natural History. Boas rejected unilineal cultural evo­

lution, its generalizations, and its comparative method. Instead he advocated for an approach called historical particularism. He claimed that cultures arise from

different causes, not uniform prooesses. According to Boas, anthropologists could not rely on an evolutionary formula to explain differences among cultures but must study the particular history of each culture to see how it developed. Evolutionist,;

such asTylor, Frazer, and Morgan argued that similarities among cultures emerged through independent invention as different cultures independently arrived at sim­

ilar solutions to similar problems. Boas, in contrast, while not ruling out some independent invention, turned to the idea of dijfoswn-the borrowing of cultural

trait,; and patterns from other cultures-to explain apparent similarities. Boas's belief in the powerful role of culture in shaping human life exhibited

itself in his early-twentieth-century studies ofimmigrantli. His research with the children of immigrant,; from Europe revealed the remarkable effects of culture

and environment on their physical forms, challenging the role ofbiology as a tool

for discrimination. As aJ ewish immigrant himself, Boas was particularly sensitive to the dangers of racial stereotyping, and his work throughout his career served to challenge white supremacy, the inferior ranking ofnon-European people, and

other expressions ofracism. Boas's srudents Ruth Benedict ( 1887- 1948) and Margaret Mead (1901- 1979)

continued his emphasis on the powerful role of culture in shaping human life and the need to explore the unique development ofeach culture. Benedict's popular srudies, Patterns of Culture (1934) and The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946), explored

the ways in which cultural trait,; and entire cultures are uniquely patterned and integrated. Mead conducted research in Samoa, Bali, and Papua New Guinea and

became perhaps the most famous anthropologist ofthe twentieth oentury, promoting her findings and the unique tools ofanthropology to the general American public.

Mead turned her attention p<lrticularly to enculturation and illi powerful

effects on cultural patterns and personality types. In her book Coming ofAge in Samoa (1928), she explored the seeming sexual freedom and experimentation

of Samoan young people and compared it with the repressed sexuality of young people in the United States, suggesting the important role of enculturation in

shaping behavior-even behavior that is imagined to have powerful biological origins. Mead's controversial research and findings over her career challenged

Ch apte r 2: Culture

biological assumptions about gender, demonstrating cross-cultural variations in

expressions of what it meant to be male or female, and contributing to heated debates about the roles of women and men in U.S. culture in the twentieth century.

BRITISH STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM

Between the 1920s and 1960s, in a rejection ofunilineal cultural evolution, many British social anthropologists viewed anthropology more as a science and field­

work more as a science experiment that could focus on the specific details of a local society. These anthropologists viewed human societies a.s living organisms, and through fieldwork they sought to analyze each part of the "body." Each part

of society-including the kinship, religious, political, and economic structures­ fit together and had its unique function within the larger structure. Like a living

organism, a society worked to maintain an internal balance, or equilibrium, that kept the system working. Under this conceptual framework, called structural functionalism, British social anthropologists employed a synchronic approach

to control their science experiments-analyzing contemporary societies at a fixed point in time without regard to historical context. By isolating as many variables

as possible, especially by excluding history and outside influences such as neigh­ boring groups or larger national or global dynamics, these anthropologists sought to focus narrowly on the culture at hand.

Early practitioners of this approach included Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942), who used an early form of functionalism in his ethnography of the

Trobriand lslands,Argonauh ofthe Wertern Pacific (1922), discussed in more detail in Chapter 3; and E. E. Evans-Pritchard (1902- 1973) in his classic ethnography ofthe Sudan, 7he Nuer (1940), which we will consider further in Chapters 3 and 9. Later,

British anthropologists, including Max Gluckman (1911- 1975) in his work on ritu­

als ofrebellion, and Victor Turner (1920-1983) in his work on religious symbols and

rituals, ctitiqued earlier structural functionalists for ignoring the dynamics ofconflict, tension, and change within the societies they studied. Their intervention marked a

significant rum in the study ofsociety and culture by British anthropologists.

CULTURE AND MEANING

One predominant view within anthropology in recent decades sees culture pri­

marily as a set of ideas or knowledge shared by a group of people that provides a common body of information about how to behave, why to behave that way, and what that behavior means.The anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1926- 2006),

a key figure in this interpretivist approach, urged anthropologists to explore culture primarily as a symbolic system in which even simple, seemingly straight­

forward actions can convey deep meanings. In a classic example, Geertz (1973c) examines the difference between a winkand

a twitch of the C)e· Both involve the same movement ofthe eye muscles,but the wink

How Has the Culture Concept Developed in Anthropology?

society The focus of early British

anthropological res earch whose structure and function could be isolated and studied scientifically.

structural functionalism A conceptual fr amework positing

that each element of society serves a particular function

to keep the entire system in equilibrium.

_, f . Papua "'· • ·~~ inea· wGu... -- '

I ....J ' -;,:-' I ·.._-_

briand _..ands

' MAP2. I

Trobriand Islands

interpretivist approach A conceptual framework that sees culture primarily as a symbolic system of deep

meaning.

43

" MAP2.2

Bali

thick description A research strategy that combines detailed description of

cuttural activi1y with an analysis of the layers of deep cultural

meaning in which those activities are embedded.

- Preparations for a cockfight outside a Hindu temple in BaJi.

H ow do you ana]yze the deep

webs of meaning at play in any cultural event?

44

carries a meaning, which can change depending on the oontext in which it oocurs. A

wink can imply flirting, including a friend in a secret, or slyly signaling agreement.

Deciphering the meaning requires a complex, collective (shared) understanding of unspoken oommunication in a specific cultural context. Collective understandings of

symbols and symbolic actions enable people to interact with one another in subtle yet

complex ways without constantly stopping to explain themselves. Geertz's essay "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight" (1973a)

describes in intricate detail a cockfight-a common activity even today in local communities across Bali, a small island in the South Pacific. Geertz describes

the elaborate breeding, raising, and training of the roosters; the scene of bedlam

at the fight; the careful selection of the birds; the rituals of the knife man, who

provides the razors for the birds' feet; the fight itself; the raucous betting before

and during the fight; and the aftermath, with the cutting up of the losing cock

and the dividing of its parts among participants in the fight.

Geertz argues that such careful description of cultural activity is an essential

part ofunderstanding Balinese culture. But it is not enough. He claims that we must

engage in thick description, looking beneath the surface activities to see the layers

of deep cultural meaning in which those activities are embedded. The cockfight is

not simply a cockfight. It also represents generations of competition among the village families for prestige, power, and resources within the community. It sym­ bolizes the negotiation of those families' prestige status and standing within the

larger groups. For Geertz, all activities of the cockfight reflect these deeper webs of meaning, and their analysis requires extensive description that uncovers those

deeper meanings. Indeed, according to Geertz, every cultural action is more than

Chapte r 2 : Culture

the action itself; it is also a symbol ofdeeper meaning. (Even the seemingly simple

act ofeating, as described in the chapter opener, carries a deeper cultural meaning.) Geertz's culture concept has provided a key theoretical framework for much

of the anthropological research in subsequent decades. But, as we will see in the

following section, it has also been criticized for not adequately considering the relations ofpower within a culture and the contested processes by which cultural

meanings- norms, values, symbols, mental maps of reality- aire established.

How Are Culture and Power Related? For many years, anthropologists focused primarily on culture as a system ofideas,

as represented in the section you have just read. But more recent scholarship has pushed anthropology to consider the deep interconnections between culture and

power in more sophisticated ways (Foucault 1977; Gramsci 1971; Wolf 1982), and the chapters of this book take this challenge seriously.

Power is often described as the ability or potential to bring about change

through action or influence, either one's own or that of a group or institution.

This may include the ability to influence through force or the threat of force.

Power is embedded in many kinds of social relations, from interpersonal rela­ tions, to institutions, to structural frameworks ofwhole societies. In effect, power

is everywhere and individuals participate in systems of power in complex ways.

Throughout this book we will work to unmask the dynamics ofpower embedded in culture, including systems of power such as race and racism, ethnicity and

nationalism, gender, human sexuality, economics, and family. The anthropologist Eric Wolf (1923- 1999) urged anthropologists to see power

as an aspect of all human relationships. Consider the relationships in your own life: teacher/student, parent/child, employer/employee, landlord/tenant, lender/ borrower, boyfriend/girlfriend. Wolf (1990, 1999) argued that all such human rela­

tionships have a power dynamic. Though cultures are often assumed to be com­ posed ofgroups ofsimilar people who uniformly share norms and values, in reality

people in a given culture are usually diverse and their relationships are complicated. Power in a culture reflects stratification- uneven distribution of resources

and privileges-<lmong participants that often persists over generations. Some

people are drawn into the center of the culture. Others are ignored, marginal­ ized, or even annihilated. Power may be stratified along lines ofgender, racial or

ethnic group, class, age, family, religion, sexuality, or legal status. These structures of power organize relationships among people and create a framework through which access to cultural resources is distributed. As a result, some people are able

How Are Culture a nd Powe r Related?

power The ability or potential to bring

about change through action or influence.

stratification The uneven distribution of

resources and privileges among participants in a group or culture.

45

- A young Muslim woman with two French flags pulled over her h ead

covering marches in Paris against a French ban on religious symbols,

including head coverings, in public schools.

46

to participate more fully in the cul ture than others. This balance of power is not

fixed; it fluctuates over time. By eicamining the way access to the resources, priv­

ileges, and opportuni ties of a culture are shared unevenly and unequally, we can

begin to use culture as a conceptual guide to power and its workings.

POWER AND CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS

One key to understanding the relationship between culture and power is

to recognize that a culture is more than a set of ideas or patterns of behavior

shared among a collection of individuals. A culture also i ncludes the powerful

institutions that these people create to promote and maintain their core val­

ues. Ethnographic research must consider a wide range of institutions that play

central roles in the enculturation process. For example, schools teach a shared

history, language, patterns of social interaction, notions of health, and scientific

ideas of what exists in the world and how the world works. Religious institu­

tions promote moral and ethical .codes of behavior. The various media convey

images ofwhat is considered nonnal, natural, and valued. Other prominent cul­

tural institutions that reflect and shape core norms and values include the family,

medicine, government, courts, police, and the military.

These cultural institutions are also locations where people can debate and

contest cultural norms and values. In 2003, an intense debate erupted in France about Muslim girls wearing headscarves to public schools. Although few girls

actually wore headscarves, the con troversy took on particular i ntensity in the

aftermath of the events ofSeptember 11, 2001, the invasions ofAfghanistan and

Iraq, and terrorist incidents in E urope. For many non-M uslim people in France,

Chapter 2: Culture