Language and Culture

Culture is made up of a number of symbolic systems, which allow us to find meaning in our experiences. Language, Race and gender of three of these systems which seem particularly important to understand right now.

Language and Culture are intimately connected, but what is the nature of this relationship?

• no relationship
• language determines culture (Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis)
• Culture determines language
• Language and culture are part of a larger cognitive system (influence each other)

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis states that language determines the way we think by setting up cognitive structures through which we interpret the world around us. This in turn patterns our thoughts and behaviors.

Anthropologists analyze human language across time and space and always with a mind to its relationship to culture. They may also study primate communication for a window into early human language as well as a way to identify the unique features of human language. 

The parts of language are:

• phonology: the study of sounds that each language has in its phonetic inventory and how these sounds are put together in speech
• phonemics: the rules for determining significant features of sounds which carry meaning
• morphology: the study of the smallest units of meaning. )words -free morphemes and affixes, bound morpheme) and how to structure these
• syntax: rules for structuring phrases
• semantics: rules for transmitting and interpreting meaning.
• paralingusitics: additional features including nonverbal communication, tone, loudness, mood, voice, silence, etc.?

Language & Culture: Boundaries

wherever we see a difference in culture, we will see a difference in Language. Therefore, we see language vary by

• ethnic group
• gender
• socio-economic status
• age/generation
• occupation
• etc.

Language & Power:

Language as a very important symbolic system in culture. Therefore whoever controls language, and the rules for using language holds much power in society. Language is also a strong marker of Identity. When someone criticizes the way you speak, it is felt as a criticism of you. We are judged by the way we speak because language forms carry social meaning (MARKED)

• Standard vs nonstandard
• Language vs dialect vs accent
• "...a language is a dialect with an army" (Gumperz)
• distinctions
• mutual intelligibility
• national/cultural boundary
• political definition
• creole (Basilect) vs Official (Acrolect) languages

The Arbitrary Relationship Between Language and Meaning:

Meaning is determined by the (sub)culture in which the language is contained. Language is the largest symbolic system in culture. This can be seen in the relationship between the parts of language and their meanings, which is arbitrary (not intrinsic). 

NonVerbal Communication (Birdwhistle)

• proxemics
• kinesics
• microsignals

2nd grade class photo

RACE AS A SOCIALCONSTRUCTION:

• Jeffery Fish and the notion of HYPODESCENT
• Haiti
• Latin America
• New Orleans

What's in a NAME?

Who is Rachael Dolezal?

Racial Draft?

Gender as a "Cultural construct": Does this all mean that race and gender are not REAL?

GENDER AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION

Anthropology, Sex, Gender, Sexuality: Gender is a Social Construction

WALK LIKE A MAN

When social scientist say gender is a social construction they do not mean:

1. in no way denying that humans vary biologically in many different ways, or claiming that biology is irrelevant;
2. not trying to say that these social effects are somehow not real or important; and
3. not saying that they are necessarily subject to extensive individual manipulation.

The reality of social constructions is something anthropologist Jeremy Trombley succinctly tackled:

We have to get past the idea that things that are socially constructed are somehow not real. I encountered it again today in something I was reading. “X is socially constructed” or “X are social constructs” as if to say they are only or just social constructs–as if to say X is not real. But social constructs are real–that’s what makes them so powerful. Race, Class, Gender–these are all social constructs, but it is because they are socially constructed that they have tremendous effects on the lives of people who live in a particular society.

Clarifying Sex, Gender, and SexualityWith that in mind, we can return to the issue of sex and gender. Initially, social scientists sought to distinguish sex from gender. (1) sex: “observable physical characteristics that distinguish the two kinds of human beings, females and males, needed for reproduction” (Lavenda and Schultz 2015:375). As is clear in this definition, sex is mostly experienced as dimorphic, although the textbook does talk about various ways “genetic or hormonal factors produce ambiguous external genitalia.” So there are some ways biologically in which we might talk about a male-female continuum, or even contemplate other-sex categorizations. 

Understanding human sex differences would be incomplete without considering gender, or “the cultural construction of beliefs and behaviors considered appropriate for each sex” (Lavenda and Schultz 2012:365). Social scientists introduced the term gender as a way of talking about all those expectations and beliefs we load onto people with certain physical characteristics. This does not mean there is no biological variation, nor does it mean those beliefs and expectations don’t have very real effects, nor does it mean a particular individual can “generate their own truth” about gender. 

Gender roles and identity have often come as a duality, but there are a number of societies where “supernumerary gender roles developed that apparently had nothing to do with morphological sex anomalies” (Lavenda and Schultz 2012:368). Many of these cases are from the peoples indigenous to the Americas, which very often had a third-gender (or even fourth-gender) roles for “Two-Spirit Peoples” (which the French denigrated as berdache). These people typically took on tasks appropriate to the other gender; they often but did not always “cross-dress,” and many had special ceremonial roles in their communities. 

BINARY as a social construction?

Of course given this biological sex variation and gender role variation, the question of sexual identity and sexual practices gets really tricky. We have typically thought of heterosexuality as both normal practice and identity. More recently there has been an idea that both homosexuality and heterosexuality are normal variants, and surely there are biologists searching for that “gene for homosexuality.” Others have talked about homosexuality and heterosexuality as a continuum. However, none of that gets at the even crazier range of human variation.

• For example, sex with a “Two-Spirit Person” would be considered neither strictly homosexual or heterosexual. 
• There are also societies in which male homosexual practices are considered vital in order for men to later engage in heterosexual intercourse. 
• Other societies gauge homosexual or heterosexual activity not by the biological sex of the partners but by their role in the sex act–a man can be perfectly “heterosexual” and have sex with other men, depending on the type of sexual practice involved. Hopefully we’ll soon be finding the genes to explain all that stuff…

Many analysts therefore wanted to push the point further, showing how our gendered social expectations actually become embodied, incorporated into our developing motor habits, musculature, and bodies, so that it was not just gender that was socially constructed, but sex too. In other words, the bodies we see as male and female are in part due to social environments.

• For example, many societies actively discourage females from participating in sports or other activities that would build muscle mass, as this would be unfeminine. While there are some who believe such differential expectations have lessened or disappeared in the industrialized world
• technologies like the ultrasound now enable people to frontload gender expectations in ways that would have been impossible in the past–many people have their nurseries appropriately decorated and buy gender-coded baby clothes months before the baby is born!

Anthropology and Human Rights: READ

 

Anthropologists, Cultural Relativism, and Universal Rights

By Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban

Cultural relativism, long a key concept in anthropology, asserts that since each culture has its own values and practices, anthropologists should not make value judgments about cultural differences. As a result, anthropological pedagogy has stressed that the study of customs and norms should be value-free, and that the appropriate role of the anthropologist is that of observer and recorder.

Today, however, this view is being challenged by critics inside and outside the discipline, especially those who want anthropologists to take a stand on key human-rights issues. I agree that the time has come for anthropologists to become more actively engaged in safeguarding the rights of people whose lives and cultures they study.

Historically, anthropology as a discipline has declined to participate in the dialogue that produced international conventions regarding human rights. For example, in 1947, when the executive board of the American Anthropological Association withdrew from discussions that led to the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights," it did so in the belief that no such declaration would be applicable to all human beings. But the world and anthropology have changed. Because their research involves extended interaction with people at the grassroots, anthropologists are in a unique position to lend knowledge and expertise to the international debate regarding human rights.

Doing so does not represent a complete break with the traditions of our field. After all, in the past, anthropologists did not hesitate to speak out against such reprehensible practices as Nazi genocide and South African apartheid. And they have testified in U.S. courts against government rules that impinge on the religious traditions or sacred lands of Native Americans, decrying government policies that treat groups of people unjustly.

However, other practices that violate individual rights or oppress particular groups have not been denounced. Anthropologists generally have not spoken out, for example, against the practice in many cultures of female circumcision, which critics call a mutilation of women. They have been unwilling to pass judgment on such forms of culturally based homicide as the killing of infants or the aged. Some have withheld judgment on acts of communal violence, such as clashes between Hindus and Muslims in India or Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda, perhaps because the animosities between those groups are of long standing.

Moreover, as a practical matter, organized anthropology's refusal to participate in drafting the 1947 human-rights declaration has meant that anthropologists have not had much of a role in drafting later human-rights statements, such as the United Nations' "Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women," approved in 1979. In many international forums discussing women's rights, participants have specifically rejected using cultural relativism as a barrier to improving women's lives.

The issue of violence against women throws the perils of cultural relativism into stark relief. Following the lead of human-rights advocates, a growing number of anthropologists and others are coming to recognize that violence against women should be acknowledged as a violation of a basic human right to be free from harm. They believe that such violence cannot be excused or justified on cultural grounds.

Let me refer to my own experience. For nearly 25 years, I have conducted research in the Sudan, one of the African countries where the practice of female circumcision is widespread, affecting the vast majority of females in the northern Sudan. Chronic infections are a common result, and sexual intercourse and childbirth are rendered difficult and painful. However, cultural ideology in the Sudan holds that an uncircumcised woman is not respectable, and few families would risk their daughter's chances of marrying by not having her circumcised. British colonial officials outlawed the practice in 1946, but this served only to make it surreptitious and thus more dangerous. Women found it harder to get treatment for mistakes or for side effects of the illegal surgery.

For a long time I felt trapped between, on one side, my anthropologist's understanding of the custom and of the sensitivities about it among the people with whom I was working, and, on the other, the largely feminist campaign in the West to eradicate what critics see as a "barbaric" custom. To ally myself with Western feminists and condemn female circumcision seemed to me to be a betrayal of the value system and culture of the Sudan, which I had come to understand. But as I was asked over the years to comment on female circumcision because of my expertise in the Sudan, I came to realize how deeply I felt that the practice was harmful and wrong.

In 1993, female circumcision was one of the practices deemed harmful by delegates at the international Human Rights Conference in Vienna. During their discussions, they came to view circumcision as a violation of the rights of children as well as of the women who suffer its consequences throughout life. Those discussions made me realize that there was a moral agenda larger than myself, larger than Western culture or the culture of the northern Sudan or my discipline. I decided to join colleagues from other disciplines and cultures in speaking out against the practice.

Some cultures are beginning to change, although cause and effect are difficult to determine. Women's associations in the Ivory Coast are calling for an end to female circumcision. In Egypt, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights has reported the first publicly acknowledged marriage of an uncircumcised woman. In the United States, a Nigerian woman recently was granted asylum on the ground that her returning to her country would result in the forcible circumcision of her daughter, which was deemed a violation of the girl's human rights.

To be sure, it is not easy to achieve consensus concerning the point at which cultural practices cross the line and become violations of human rights. But it is important that scholars and human-rights activists discuss the issue. Some examples of when the line is crossed may be clearer than others. The action of a Japanese wife who feels honor-bound to commit suicide because of the shame of her husband's infidelity can be explained and perhaps justified by the traditional code of honor in Japanese society. However, when she decides to take the lives of her children as well, she is committing murder, which may be easier to condemn than suicide.

What about "honor" killings of sisters and daughters accused of sexual misconduct in some Middle Eastern and Mediterranean societies? Some anthropologists have explained this practice in culturally relativist terms, saying that severe disruptions of the moral order occur when sexual impropriety is alleged or takes place. To restore the social equilibrium and avoid feuds, the local culture requires the shedding of blood to wash away the shame of sexual dishonor. The practice of honor killings, which victimizes mainly women, has been defended in some local courts as less serious than premeditated murder, because it stems from long-standing cultural traditions. While some judges have agreed, anthropologists should see a different picture: a pattern of cultural discrimination against women.

As the issue of domestic violence shows, we need to explore the ways that we balance individual and cultural rights. The "right" of a man to discipline, slap, hit, or beat his wife (and often, by extension, his children) is widely recognized across many cultures in which male dominance is an accepted fact of life. Indeed, the issue of domestic violence has only recently been added to the international human-rights agenda, with the addition of women's rights to the list of basic human rights at the Vienna conference.

The fact that domestic violence is being openly discussed and challenged in some societies (the United States is among the leaders) helps to encourage dialogue in societies in which domestic violence has been a taboo subject. This dialogue is relatively new, and no clear principles have emerged. But anthropologists could inform and enrich the discussion, using their knowledge of family and community life in different cultures.

Cases of genocide may allow the clearest insight into where the line between local culture and universal morality lies. Many anthropologists have urged the Brazilian and Venezuelan governments to stop gold miners from slaughtering the Yanomami people, who are battling the encroachment of miners on their rain forests. Other practices that harm individuals or categories of people (such as the elderly, women, and enslaved or formerly enslaved people) may not represent genocide per se, and thus may present somewhat harder questions about the morality of traditional practices. We need to focus on the harm done, however, and not on the scale of the abuse. We need to be sensitive to cultural differences but not allow them to override widely recognized human rights.

The exchange of ideas across cultures is already fostering a growing acceptance of the universal nature of some human rights, regardless of cultural differences. The right of individuals to be free from harm or the threat of harm, and the right of cultural minorities to exist freely within states, are just two examples of rights that are beginning to be universally recognized -- although not universally applied.

Fortunately, organized anthropology is beginning to change its attitude toward cultural relativism and human rights. The theme of the 1994 convention of the American Anthropological Association was human rights. At the sessions organized around the topic, many anthropologists said they no longer were absolutely committed to cultural relativism. The association has responded to the changing attitude among its members by forming a Commission for Human Rights, charged with developing a specifically anthropological perspective on those rights, and with challenging violations and promoting education about them.

Nevertheless, many anthropologists continue to express strong support for cultural relativism. One of the most contentious issues arises from the fundamental question: What authority do we Westerners have to impose our own concept of universal rights on the rest of humanity? It is true that Western ideas of human rights have so far dominated international discourse. On the other hand, the cultural relativists' argument is often used by repressive governments to deflect international criticism of their abuse of their citizens. At the very least, anthropologists need to condemn such misuse of cultural relativism, even if it means that they may be denied permission to do research in the country in question.

Personally, I would go further: I believe that we should not let the concept of relativism stop us from using national and international forums to examine ways to protect the lives and dignity of people in every culture. Because of our involvement in local societies, anthropologists could provide early warnings of abuses -- for example, by reporting data to international human-rights organizations, and by joining the dialogue at international conferences. When there is a choice between defending human rights and defending cultural relativism, anthropologists should choose to protect and promote human rights. We cannot just be bystanders.

Declaration on Anthropology and Human Rights Committee for Human Rights American Anthropological Association

Adopted by the AAA membership June 1999

This Declaration on Anthropology and Human Rights defines the basis for the involvement of the American Anthropological Association, and, more generally, of the profession of Anthropology in human rights. Comments and queries from members regarding the Declaration’s content are welcome.

Preamble

The capacity for culture is tantamount to the capacity for humanity. Culture is the precondition for the realization of this capacity by individuals, and in turn depends on the cooperative efforts of individuals for its creation and reproduction. Anthropology’s cumulative knowledge of human cultures, and of human mental and physical capacities across all populations, types, and social groups, attests to the universality of the human capacity for culture. This knowledge entails an ethical commitment to the equal opportunity of all cultures, societies, and persons to realize this capacity in their cultural identities and social lives. However, the global environment is fraught with violence which is perpetrated by states and their representatives, corporations, and other actors. That violence limits the humanity of individuals and collectives.

Anthropology as a profession is committed to the promotion and protection of the right of people and peoples everywhere to the full realization of their humanity, which is to say their capacity for culture. When any culture or society denies or permits the denial of such opportunity to any of its own members or others, the American Anthropological Association has an ethical responsibility to protest and oppose such deprivation. This implies starting from the base line of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and associated implementing international legislation, but also expanding the definition of human rights to include areas not necessarily addressed by international law. These areas include collective as well as individual rights, cultural, social, and economic development, and a clean and safe environment.

Declaration on Anthropology and Human Rights

The American Anthropological Association has developed a Declaration that we believe has universal relevance:

People and groups have a generic right to realize their capacity for culture, and to produce, reproduce and change the conditions and forms of their physical, personal and social existence, so long as such activities do not diminish the same capacities of others. Anthropology as an academic discipline studies the bases and the forms of human diversity and unity; anthropology as a practice seeks to apply this knowledge to the solution of human problems.

As a professional organization of anthropologists, the AAA has long been, and should continue to be, concerned whenever human difference is made the basis for a denial of basic human rights, where “human” is understood in its full range of cultural, social, linguistic, psychological, and biological senses.

Thus, the AAA founds its approach on anthropological principles of respect for concrete human differences, both collective and individual, rather than the abstract legal uniformity of Western tradition. In practical terms, however, its working definition builds on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights, and on Social, Economic, and Cultural Rights, the Conventions on Torture, Genocide, and Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and other treaties which bring basic human rights within the parameters of international written and customary law and practice. The AAA definition thus reflects a commitment to human rights consistent with international principles but not limited by them. Human rights is not a static concept. Our understanding of human rights is constantly evolving as we come to know more about the human condition. It is therefore incumbent on anthropologists to be involved in the debate on enlarging our understanding of human rights on the basis of anthropological knowledge and research.

Notes on the Study of Culture

 

Methodology & Fieldwork Stories

• Fieldwork
• Informant (as opposed to a subject)
• Researcher
• insider (native)
• outsider

• male
• female

Both genders may experience limitations based on the rules for social interaction for men and women in the cultures in which they are studying...therefore, anthropologists have often traveled and studied in paris (men and women) and studies of cultures are often repeated to take into account the different experiences in a culture which may be afforded to different researchers.

• Participant Observation: participating as is appropriate and observing while living within a culture for a significant period of time (years)-investigating social life by participating in it. By being there in real situations and observing from a theoretically informed perspective.
• establishing Rapport
• working in unfamiliar/familiar environments (culture shock)
• acquiring a principal informant
• collecting EMIC & ETIC data
• Observation of Real versus Ideal
•  Ethnocentrism as the enemy of data collection
• Ethics:
• responsibility to the communities and people that you study
• responsibility to the academic community to share your data
• responsibility to your funders

• The researcher's Gaze: the problem of power
•  Observer's Bias (Gumperz)
• Being the "TOWN IDIOT"-advantages and disadvantages

• Fieldwork Stories:
• Malinowski in the western pacific
• Argonauts of the Western Pacific (p 8)
• nnn
• nnn
• nnn
• nnn
• Elizabeth Fernea in Iraq
• 
  
• William Mitchell: Fieldwork among the Wape of New Guinea
• Annette Weiner: Revisiting Malinowski's work in the Trobriand Islands

Professor Greene: Field Experiences:

1.Guatemala & Yucatan

2.Belize

3.Beach Channel (LI) & New Orleans

4.USA Communities

(1) What is the temperature matrix of Mayan medicinal plants and how are these indicated in Yucatec & Cakchiquel Maya according to traditional healers

(2) Is there a dialectal difference between Belizean Creole speakers in the North American diaspora? Do these differ from the Creole spoken in belize? What are the proceses that create and maintain these differences?

(4) How do the Garifuna of Honduras remember their pilgrimage from St. Vincent to Coastal Honduras: an ethnohistory through memory. 

(3) Student’s Experiences with embodied practice as mediated by culture: How does culture create self perception of one’s body and how is one’s body a reflection of the culture?

(4) "Happiness"-How do members of modern Western Culture and the Search for Meaningful Experience? Looking to the Eastern Traditions

(5) Drag Queens and Beauty Queens: Enacting Gender in Ritual Spaces

Where it all begins

Conflation

Cultural Appropriation: What Is It?

 CULTURAL APPROPRIATION

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/missamerica/miss-america-cara-mund-hits-the-atlantic-city-beach-for/article_badccd84-0c36-57db-afcb-995fecb67af3.html

And then...The SHOW ME YOUR SHOES PARADE
But, where does this tradition come from?

The parade used to be serious, but now that solemn event is a burlesque of dress up and decorated shoes. Miss Minnesota as "Prince"

And...Then there is the RAINBOW, everywhere, but why?

And..."Here she comes...Miss Missouri" The First out LESBIAN Contestant to make it to the Miss America P

New York Avenue and the Boardwalk was the location of many gay Bars through the 1980's and in particular, Drag Queen hangs. Drag Queens used to hang out of the apartment buildings and off balconies where Ripleys now stand and yell, "She Me Your Shoes!!!!" to terrified contestants who were instructed to smile and look away and not to get flustered by the seedy, and threatening cat calls (as they saw them).

Now, come full circle, but the meaning and history of this event...LOST. This is Cultural Appropriation. When those in power assume the cultural practices of the oppressed and rewrite history in our social memory, to make it their own.

Can you think of other examples of Cultural Appropriation?

Miss'd America: Cultural Appropriation?