Anthropological School of Thoughts
Anthropological School of Thoughts
Anthropological School of Thoughts
of thoughts
What is Theory?
KEY COMPONENTS
DEFINATION Definitions for the central
concepts used for
A set of related explanation or prediction
hypotheses that Logical connections
provide a better between concepts to create
explanation than a system of explanation
any single and/or prediction
Explanation and/or
hypothesis. prediction
The development of
assumptions that affect the
way a problem or issue is
viewed.
The World of Theories
Theories can be based on logic, ideas or belief without the use of
empirical evidence
Grounded theories are derived from empirical evidence, and are
continuously tested against new empirical evidence
Many different and sometimes conflicting theories can coexist and be
used for different purposes
Theories are the basis from which world views are developed and
changed
General Types of
Materialist Theories Theories
Focus on practical, concrete economic
factors such as technology and
distribution systems as the shapers of
culture.
Ideological Theories
Focus on ideas, beliefs and symbols such
as religion and values as the shapers of
culture.
Why we need social
scientists:
Intuition is believing something to be true
because a persons emotions and logic
support it
Cultures evolve in
proportion to their
Neoevolutionism White, Steward
capacity to harness
energy.
Psychological
Anthropology in Brief
Anthropologists need to explore the
relationships between psychological
and cultural variables.
Concluded that nurture was more
important than nature with regard
to personality and gender traits.
Focused on socialization and
enculturation of children.
Margaret
Mead
and
Ruth
BenedictRuth Benedict Benedict
Margaret Mead
devoted much of her described whole
long and cultures in terms of
distinguished career individual personality
in anthropology to characteristics.
the study of how
culture affects the
process of growing
up.
Psychological
Anthropologists
Interested in exploring relationship
between culture and the individual.
Benedict studied Native Americans
and wrote about the Japanese during
World War II to make them intelligible
to Americans
Meads early research brought her to
Samoa to study emotional problems
associated with adolescence.
Later she studied male and female
gender roles in New Guinea.
Neoevolutionism in
Brief
Cultures evolve in
proportion to their
capacity to harness
energy.
Culture is shaped by
environmental
conditions.
Human populations
continuously adapt to
techno-environmental
conditions.
Leslie White
Anthropological Theories
and Their Proponents
School Major Assumption Advocates
Cultures must be
Frake,
Ethnoscience described in terms of
Goodenough
native categories.
French
Structuralism
Culture as Mental Structures
Human mind tends to see things in
terms of two forces which are
opposite to other e.g. day and night.
Its goal is to seek those rules that
underlie each cultural trait or
custom. binary opposites differ
from society to society and are
defined in a particular culture in a Structures of meaning
way that is logical to its members within myths. Myths
Ie) shoes are good when you consist of (1) elements that
wear them outside but bad if you oppose or contradict each
put them on the table. other and (2) other elements
that "mediate", or resolve,
those oppositions.
Ethnoscience
An attempt at
cultural description
from a totally emic
standpoint, using
only the concepts
and categories of
the people being
studied.
Ethnographic
Interviews to elicit
native categories.
Charles Frake
Anthropological Theories and
Their Proponents
School Major Assumption Advocates