Anthropology began as a hobby for 19th century scholars who wrote travel diaries commenting on other cultures without conducting fieldwork. Early anthropologists constructed theories of cultural evolution to explain differences but later emphasized understanding each culture on its own terms through first-hand data collection. Bronislaw Malinowski established participant observation as the method for fieldwork in the early 20th century. Leslie White and Julian Steward viewed culture as adapting to the environment and harnessing resources. Modern anthropology utilizes both scientific approaches that see culture as adapting to the environment and humanistic approaches that emphasize cultural uniqueness. Ideational perspectives focus on ideas and symbols shaping behavior, while adaptive perspectives emphasize technology, ecology, demography and economics.

2.  started as a hobby of wealthy scholars in the 19th
century
 wrote travel diaries
 armchair anthropologists
– read other peoples accounts of their travels and
commented on the other cultural systems
 19th century anthropologists constructed stages of
cultural progress to explain cultural differences
 called unilineal evolution (Lewis Henry Morgan)
savagery → barbarism → civilization

3.  Looked for the past influences on a particular culture
that shaped its trajectory
 Emphasized that each culture has its own unique
past and must be understood on its own terms
 Need more information and must go out an collect
own data, not read others accounts of their
experiences because they are incomplete and biased
and written by untrained casual observers
 Franz Boas

4.  Cultural features should be explained in terms of the
function they perform
 How ideas and actions contribute to the well being
of the individual or the persistence of the society as a
whole
 Bronslow Malinowski
 Set forth the rules still followed form doing
fieldwork in the early 20th century – participant
observation

5.  Focused on the harnessing of energy
 Increases in the amount of energy harnessed would
lead to cultural complexity
Leslie White
– studied technological progress throughout human
history
Julian Steward
– though local environment and technology together
shaped a culture

6.  Modern anthropologist utilize a variety of
perspectives in approaching culture
 These can be divided into 2 categories – scientific
and humanistic
 Scientific approaches believe that culture can be
explained as an adaptation to the natural and social
environment (cultural materialism)
 Humanistic approaches emphasize the uniqueness of
culture and resist generalizing about human culture
as a whole
 Focus on description and interpretation instead of
explanation

7.  Ideational perspective
 Focus on ideas, symbols, and mental
structures as driving forces in shaping
human behavior.
 Adaptive perspective
 Isolates technology, ecology, demography,
and economics as the key factors defining
human behavior.

8.  This perspective emphasizes ideas,
thoughts, and shared knowledge and sees
symbols and their meanings as crucial to
shaping human behavior.
 According to the ideational view of culture,
one cannot comprehend human behavior
without understanding the symbolic code
for that behavior.

9.  An adaptive perspective is primarily concerned
with “culture as a system.”
 Social and cultural differences are viewed as
responses to the material parameters of life,
such as food, shelter, and reproduction.
 Human behaviors are seen as linked
systemically, such that change in one area
(technology) will result in change in another
area (social organization).

10. The End