ANT100: Lecture_2

Culture Difference & Prejudice §

What is the “difference” §

• Race is an example of difference
• Culture difference is not given biologically, it is given by culture itself and history
• Difference is dynamic and changing, prejudice it has to do with difference and similarities
• Prejudice — (偏见) people don’t hate all people that are different.

Culture and Language §

Universal patterns §

• Communication, imagination, identity
• Cultural — What we learn from each other vs. what was “programmed” by genes
• Genes allows humans to “have cultures” because all difference groups of humans have culture (even though its different)
  • Genes enable, but not detersmine culture-specific ways of acting, living and thinking
• Cultural allows humans to form procreative relationships
  • Most importantly, is the marriage patterns (how human reproduce)
• Cultural helps human to recognizing hierarchy - how people understand & fight hierarchy
• Cultural also deals with violence (some resistance within cultures creates violence)
  • Might have to use violence to suppress violence
• The way sharing the giving happens
• Education is also a characteristic of every Cultural
  • Each Cultural’s idea of education is different (associated with language)

Particulars §

• Cultures are significantly different, but not infinitely different

Reflection of the weekly readings §

• “The French complain a lot (?), but are they the only ones
• The article didn’t have enough scientific proof that France is the only country
• But the purpose of complain can be explained scientifically by linguistics

Language §

• ==A distinctively human resource and a central element of Cultural, used for:==
  • Creates meanings, and helps human understand differently (signification)
  • Helps adapting to the natural and social environment
  • Helps humans to structure imagination & shape the way they see the world
• Like cultures, languages have more in common than not
• Very language has the basic grammatic rules (nouns & verbs)
  • All languages’ order of word matters
• Language reflect current social-Cultural contexts

Adaptive values of social transmission §

• Social transmission is much more flexible than genetic transmission:
  • Major cultures & language changes can occur in a generation or two
  • Major language changes can also occur in a generation or two
  • This means that it is much more adaptive than the genetic process
  • Result: if successful, adaptation occurs without human becoming a new species (major change occur within species)
• Gives the potential to remain and preserve in the world

Adaptive value of sociocultural difference §

• Specific languages and cultures develop to cope with specific environmental and social contexts (niches)
  • The natural adaptive process to fit into the environment

Examples of adaptive language §

• Does the word ”love” and “marriage” change the way people treat love itself?

• Potlatch - Northwestern American (Western Canada, including BC)

  • Facility people come together, to give away valuable product. The person who gives the most valuable thing, becomes most respected (leader)
  • Because people there are not rich, so it’s their specific way of determine authority

• Brideswealth/dowry (during marriage)

  • Brides-wealth(彩礼) — men gives something to the women’s family (China)
  • Dowry(嫁妆) — women’s family gives something to the men’s family (Western cultural)

Difference and Conflict §

• “When people is different, they will flight”

  • Differences is a source of conflict, but it doesn’t has to be

• Difference can be adaptive, but also destructive

• ==Within all species, groups can come into conflict, often due to distribution of resources==

  • The resources may be natural or social (can be conscious, but doesn’t have to be)
    • Social conflicts (jobs, political influence, education, right of residence(citizenship, immigration issues))
  • The competing groups may be social classes or ethnoracial(religion, race) groups
    • They may live in same or different locations
  • Due to the conflicts, even if the resources are distributed evenly after, prejudice still remains
    • Prejudices about the other only happens where there is present or past conflict that still effect on the current population

• Differences can lead to prejudice

  • Differences may be accompanied by prejudice about the other (only if there is present or past competition of resources)
  • Prejudice does not come from difference but from its context

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Race §

Defintion §

• If words of difference races did not exit, then the context of race would not exist
  • Diversity would still bother, but we wouldn’t “see” it as racial
• ==Race is a Cultural definition (folk notion), not a scientific notion (no genes determine race)==
  • Race is real, it exist, but it’s popularly defined
• Race is not (only) based on physical appearance, are correlated with genetic traits
  • These differences are not consistency enough to justify scientifically of race
  • There exist more variation other than skin color across within races
    • Skin color became the key feature due to historical reasons
  • The popular definition of race are imprecise and changeable, reflecting the social context and history of conflict

Social application §

• Non-white groups: if any non-white “blood” appears, then it wouldn’t be referred as white
  • ”One -Drop Rule” — if any block blood appears, then it is refered to as black
  • Human do differ differences, which creates Cultural discrimination
• When people refer to white people, it’s not referring to a “color” (in racial terminology)
  • Its a default, or unmarked term (the indicator of privilege)
  • The term ”white” meant freedom and privalige (race would not be a issue)
  • White privilege : “Your life is not made harder when you are white.” (Nasar Meer, Professor of Race)

its real, its invented, but its naturalized §

• Race is a social construction , its not part of nature, but it is determined by society. Its invented, but naturalized by the society

• Social construction - the source of ideas and arrangements that are not given by nature

• Invented - ideas that are the result of social construction - does not mean its not real

• Naturalization - people come to think of what was socially constructed as if it were given by nature

  • Its often imposes socially constructed categories on nature

• Not a personal matter, hard to personal construct

Other examples (national identities, genes roles)

• The role of anthropology is to unravel the social constructedness of invented (but real) categories like race, national identity, or gender and discover their genealogy (condition of possiblity)

Power Relations §

• Racial classification are made in context of relations of power within society
• Difference of skin colour does not necessarily refer to different categories of race
• Race meant imagined common descent
  • Includes: English race, Irish race, Chinese race…
  • ==Black race and white were invented along with slavery in America==

Ex: Casta painting - illustrates the anxiety Mexican experienced with Spanish about their race

• Spanish marries a Mexican women, their child becomes white again

• While entitlement is a systemic discrimination
  • Not always obvious, not just personal, not necessarily conscious, not necessarily internal