Tylor's Classic Definition
For more than a century culture has been the pivotal concept in cultural anthropology, especially in North America. However, it was the pioneer British anthropologist, Edward B. Tylor (1832-1917), who first defined culture in an anthropological sense at the beginning of his 1871 book Primitive Culture as:
"... that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society."
Commentary
The essential elements of Tylor's classic definition may be elucidated by rephrasing it in contemporary language:
Culture is a complex and dynamic system of habitual ideas, actions, and their material products which is socially patterned and learned as well as customarily shared by the members of a human society.
In the above sense, culture in general is an attribute of the human species (Homo sapiens); that is, of all normal human beings and societies. However, at another level, that of population, each society is distinguished by its own particular culture. Thus, today there are between 6,000 to 7,000 distinctive cultures remaining in the world, although the majority are increasingly threatened or endangered. Each particular culture was considered by anthropologists to be a unique and equally worthy variation on the universal themes of culture in general. That is, all cultures have economic, social, political, religious, and aesthetic ideas and practices. This cultural relativism is in essence a democratization of culture. Accordingly, American anthropologists like Franz Boas (1858-1942) and his students constructed the pluralistic and relativistic concept of culture as a critical and crucial alternative to unilinear evolutionism and "scientific" racism. (For an extensive analysis of definitions of culture see Kroeber and Kluckhohn 1952).
There are, however, complexities and difficulties with the idea of culture, and at least the main ones should be cited here. First, anthropologists no longer view cultures as necessarily discrete, bounded, homogeneous, and stable systems. Second, societies are increasingly multicultural (or better, multiethnic) as are individuals, given the disintegration of whatever degree of isolation may have existed previously among societies. Third, in many ways globalization is a force of cultural homogenization, although often it appears to be mostly superficial. Finally, anthropologists differ as to whether they concentrate on material and/or mental aspects of culture, and whether they can scientifically explain or only humanistically interpret aspects. Still others, so-called postmodernists, pursue a more politicized approach to culture as contested constructions of identities. Yet others, like some British social anthropologists and sociobiologists, may even deny that culture has any significance. Unfortunately, some adherents to these various approaches go to the extreme of viewing their own as exclusively valid and useful, one way of fueling careerism, but at the expense of promoting understanding.
In conclusion, culture remains an important and useful concept for most anthropologists, especially in North America, even though some have critically challenged it in recent decades.
References
Barnard, Alan, and Jonathan Spencer, 1996, "Culture," Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Alan Barnard and Jonathan Spencer, New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 136-142.
Bidney, David, 1967, Theoretical Anthropology, New York, NY: Shocken Books.
Borofsky, Robert, ed., 1994, Assessing Cultural Anthropology, New York, NY: McGaw-Hill.
Carrithers, Michael, 1992, Why Humans Have Culture: Explaining Anthropology and Diversity, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Carrithers, Michael, 1997, "Culture," The Dictionary of Anthropology, Thomas Barfield, ed., Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 98-101.
Gamst, Frederick C., and Edward Norbeck, eds., 1979, The Idea of Culture: Sources and Uses, New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Geertz, Clifford, 1973, The Interpretation of Culture, New York, NY: Basic Books.
Goodenough, Ward, 1996, "Culture," Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology, David Levinson and Melvin Ember, eds., New York, NY: Henry Holt and Co., 1:291-299.
Harris, Marvin, 1968, The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture, New York, NY: Thomas Crowell.
Harris, Marvin, 1979, Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture, New York, NY: Random House.
Keesing, Roger M., 1974, "Theories of Culture," Annual Review of Anthropology 3:73-97.
Kroeber, Alfred L., 1952, The Nature of Culture, Cicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Kroeber, Alfred L., and Clyde Kluckhohn, 1952, Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions, New York, NY: Random House.
Malinowski, Bronislaw, 1944, A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Moore, Jerry D., 1997, Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists, Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
Sahlins, Marshall, 1976, Culture and Practical Reason, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Stocking, George W., Jr., 1968, "Franz Boas and the Culture Concept in Historical Perspective," American Anthropologist 68:867-882.
Turner, Terence, 1993, "Anthropology and Multiculturalism: What is Anthropology that Multiculturalists Should be Mindful of it?, Cultural Anthropology 8(4):411-429.
Tylor, Edward B., 1871, Primitive Culture, London, England: Murray, 2 volumes.
Tylor, Edward B., 1881, Anthropology: Introduction to the Study of Man and Civilization, New York, NY: Appleton.
White, Leslie E., 1959, The Evolution of Culture, New York, NY: Grove Press.
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SOME GENERAL PROPOSITIONS ABOUT CULTURE CHANGE
Introduction
Below are eight general propositions or abstract principles about culture change quoted from Lurie (1968), an essay still well worth reading. These principles provide some historical perspective on progress in the anthropological understanding of culture change up to that time. In particular, they reflect late 19th century evolutionism, early 20th century diffusionism, and early to mid-19th century functionalism. In the late 20th century the emphasis has shifted, among other directions to political economy which is the focus of this course (for example, Bodley 1999). However, while there are discontinuities in the history of anthropological thought, there are also significant continuities as elements of these previous approaches persist in various forms. (Items inserted in brackets below are from the instructor).
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General Propositions
1. Change and persistence are both implicit in the nature of culture [evolutionism].
Although major sequences of growth were perceived, their reconstruction depended upon the existence of what were deemed "survivals" of older elements in otherwise more evolved settings and the existence of whole groups exhibiting total life-ways exemplifying early evolutionary stages.
2. Culture change is crescive, building upon itself [evolutionism].
Whatever shortcomings existed in the bald evolutionary scheme [savagery to barbarism to civilization]..., and criteria of progress such as the bow, agriculture, and writing, they established a habit of anthropological thought to expect change to follow from preceding conditions. Whether change is thought of in highly localized terms of a given culture or in regard to overall sequences, it is a logical and continuing process depending upon a pre-existing cultural inventory.
3. Culture is learned [evolutionism].
This principle growing in part out of the early evolutionary concept of "psychic unity of mankind," has proven of inestimable value. It permits the social scientist to eliminate confidentially any theories of cultural differences, and by implication, culture-change, resting on assumptions of innate biological superiority or inferiority of intellect. It means that from an operational or developmental point of view, we must look only to universal human thought processes, such as the ability to solve problems, and the nature of culture itself to explain change. Paradoxically, the principle has also been a source of controversy in theory building. Developmental theories have often used it to mean that the individual, man, as the great agent of culture, is irrelevant as a simple constant, with culture itself providing the significant variables to be dealt with. In at least some operational formulations, however, the study of individuals in culture cannot be dispensed with but is deemed highly relevant in terms of, for example, motivational psychology, conditioning, frustration-aggression levels, to attain as full an understanding as possible of the dynamics of culture change.
4. Change can be initiated from within a give culture or borrowed from another culture [diffusionism].
This important and, to us, obvious principle is owed to scholarly differences of opinion in the formative years of the discipline. It laid the foundation for explicit and ultimately refined concern with process as well as sequence, and generalizations concerning conditions underlying acquisition or rejection of innovations.
5. Culture is more than the sum of its parts [functionalism].
Culture is integrated and the interrelationship of parts as well as parts themselves explain how culture operates as an adaptive complex for human survival. In this context, function is used in a mathematical sense. As one angle of a triangle is changed, at least one other must change to retain the triangular structure. This does not mean that all cultures everywhere are similarly or even perfectly integrated, but change tends to work in the direction of maintaining integration. As we have seen, change is implicit in the nature of culture. If one part is changed in terms of additions, alterations, or deletions, reverberations are felt throughout the system. Such effects must in turn be dealt with to maintain effective integration so that culture, in the persisting phase of its nature, can carry out its adaptive responsibilities. Innovations, inequities of power or goods, or loss of a resource may all create dysfunctional situations, hence more changes are set in motion to bring about a more satisfactory state of affairs for the group concerned. Recognition of this fact underlies another principle.
6. Cultural components exist for a purpose [functionalism].
In this connection [Bronislaw] Malinowski's early formulations of basic and derived needs were met with scorn. [Alfred] Kroeber, for example, could see little distinction between some of Malinowski's rather fine-spun "psychological needs" to account for every detail of a given culture and the evolutionists' futile and speculative search for the ultimate origins of traits (Kroeber 1948:309). But the point did eventually emerge that a trait is not simply a trait. It forms part of a social and cultural network. No matter how bizarre or seemingly inconsequential, it persists for a reason. If lost, its functional tasks will be met in some other way.
7. Change occurs by analogy of potential innovations to the existing cultural inventory and social system [functionalism].
Cultural inventory is used here to mean the aggregate of definable things, material and nonmaterial, characteristic of a given culture, while social system refers to the patterned integration of the parts of a culture.
8. Cultural change is selective [functionalism].
We can not always predict what analogies will be made in specific cases, but few qualified generalizations can be drawn. All evidence to date seems to indicate that cultural changes on an operational level of analysis occur as they are perceived or interpreted to improve, enhance, enrich, or preserve social identity. Potential innovations are rejected as they evoke distasteful analogies or are threatening to social identity.
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Bibliographic Notes
The source for these propositions is:
Nancy O. Lurie, 1968, "Culture Change," Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, James A. Clifton, ed., New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Co., pp. 275-303.
Recent short articles on cultural change and other key concepts can be found in any good reference work in anthropology including the following:
Alan Barnard and Jonathan Spencer, eds., 1996, Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Change, New York, NY: Routledge, 4 volumes.
Thomas Barfield, 1997, The Dictionary of Anthropology, New York, NY: Blackwell Publishers. (This is a most useful and fairly inexpensive paperback).
David Levinson and Melvin Ember, eds., 1996, Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology, New York, NY: Henry Holt and Co.
For a recent book surveying cultural change see:
Larry L. Naylor, 1996, Culture and Change: An Introduction, Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey.
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GLOSSARY ON CULTURE CHANGE
acculturation - The process of acquiring culture traits as a result of contact with another culture, usually considered to flow from a superordinate to a subordinate society.
adaptation - The process of adjustment of an individual, group, or population to its environment (biophysical and/or sociopolitical). In a biological sense, an adaptation is something that promotes the survival and reproduction of an organism.
advocacy anthropology - Advocacy applies anthropological knowledge by political means for moral ends to combat urgent threats to a local community or society such as serious violations of human rights. Advocacy anthropology rejects the supposed neutrality of science and adopts a stand on some problem or issue on behalf of a host or client group. The most prominent organizations focused on advocacy anthropology include Cultural Survival, International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, and Survival International.
applied anthropology - The application of basic anthropological knowledge, methods, tools, and skills for policy or goals to solve practical problems on behalf of some client, group, or organization. It is usually practiced outside of an academic setting.
assimilation - The absorption of one population, society, or culture by another, often through domination, oppression, and exploitation.
colonialism - The invasion, conquest, and domination of the territory, economy, and culture (including religion) of other societies through coercion and violence (physical and/or structural). Colonialism may be external (between nations) or internal (within a nation).
cultural materialism - A research strategy developed by Marvin Harris which assigns research priority and causal primacy to infrastructure over other components of culture as a system. Infrastructure is the product of the interaction of environment, population, technology, and economy. Materialism in general emphasizes matter over mind.
cultural relativism - Every one of the some 6,000 to 7,000 particular cultures in the world today are viable alternative lifestyles, equally worthy, and can only be understood and judged on their own terms.
dialectical materialism - In Marxist theory the idea that society advances through conflict within the prevailing order, and more specifically, the struggle for change by those who are exploited for their labor by capitalists in an industrial society.
diaspora - A community of voluntary migrants, or people who have escaped from their original homeland into another region or country as economic, environmental, and/or political refugees.
diffusion - The spread of cultural traits, customs, or institutions through space from one society to another over time.
diffusionism - The 20th century school of anthropological thought that viewed cultural diversity, change, and history as explainable by the spread of traits from one or a few original centers of discovery and invention to other societies.
ecocide - the degradation or destruction of an ecosystem which may be inadvertent or intentional (e.g., scorched earth policy in warfare).
economic development - Attempts to enhance the technology, economy, and standard of living of a lesser developed country, usually with foreign assistance from a more industrialized one.
egalitarian - A society in which all members of a given age or sex category have equal access to resources, power, and prestige.
ethnic group - Members of the same culture in a multicultural, multiethnic, or plural society.
ethnocentrism - The tendency to view the world from the perspective of one's own culture, often involving biased or prejudiced value judgement based on an attitude of superiority over other cultures. Ethnocentrism is supposedly the antithesis of anthropology itself.
ethnocide - The intentional and systematic destruction of a culture. (A few years ago in the former Yugoslavia "ethnic cleansing" was invented as part of state policy and military practice which the world beyond soon recognized as crimes against humanity).
ethnogenesis - The construction of an ethnic identity in response to cultural contact and change.
Fourth World - Minority groups who are impoverished or marginalized by the domination of other groups or state governments.
functionalism - The school of anthropological theory holding that culture is a system that satisfies biological, psychological, and social needs, and that the components of culture as a system are integrated in some state of dynamic equilibrium so that a change in any component may affect change in others. Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942) was the primary proponent.
genocide - The intentional and systematic destruction of a human population as occurred, for example, to the aboriginal population under British colonialism in Tasmania.
globalization - A term for the growing interconnectivity of the world, and/or a neologism for the expansive process of economic, political, and cultural domination of the world by civilizations, state governments, and especially multinational corporations from the West.
historical particularism - Franz Boas (1858-1942) and his students considered every culture to be a distinctive configuration of traits resulting from its particular historical experience and they rejected speculative schemes of either evolutionism or diffusionism.
human rights - What any individual or group deserves, and does not deserve, simply by virtue of being human. The most fundamental right is self-determination. Human rights have been formalized through a series of international agreements in the United Nations since World War II.
idealist position - According to John Bodley, this is the viewpoint that considers cultural extinction to be the result of a political decision by an external state agency that denies self-determination and other human rights to another society, usually an indigenous society or ethnic minority.
"ignoble savage" - This political ideology is associated with the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) who provided the classic description of the condition of "man in a state of nature" (or prior to civilization) as solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. It is the antithesis of the political ideology of the noble savage (see below).
imperialism - Development and expansion of an empire, or the residual influences over a people or country by a former empire.
indigenous - Usually the descendants of people who originally colonized a region and who have a common territory, history, culture, language, and identity. Indigenous people often consider themselves to be people of the land as in the case of Hawai`i. The meaning of the term is fairly clear in the Americas and Pacific, but less so in Europe, Africa, and even Asia. Indian, aboriginal, or native are synomymous with indigenous, but usually viewed as less neutral terms unless preferred by the people themselves.
industrialization - In general the shift from farm to factory production with all of its consequences (economic, social, political, and ecological). In a more specific sense, the term refers to this process in late 18th century Europe.
life history - An ethnographic research method based on collecting data through extensive interviews with older individuals about their memories of their culture and cultural change since childhood.
linguicide - The intentional and systematic destruction of a language as nearly happened in historic Hawai`i.
millenarianism - A movement for cultural revitalization.
modernization - The economic and social process of becoming materialized, commercialized and industrialized through Western contact.
multilinear evolution - The theory developed by Julian H. Steward (1902-1972) positing a distinct trajectory for each society, but with some limited parallels in patterns, functions, and processes among societies with the same type of subsistence economy in similar environments but with independent histories.
neocolonialism - The continuation of domination of a former colony by its former colonial power despite national independence, such as the case of the French in Tahiti.
"noble savage" - A supposedly romantic ideal of a traditional indigenous society enjoying equality, a quality lifestyle, and social and ecological harmony, often contrasted as a criticism of the characteristics or tendencies of European civilization. This idea is usually associated with the French social philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) of the Enlightenment period, although it has a much older and more involved intellectual history.
plural society - A multiethnic or multicultural society such as contemporary Hawai`i.
political economy - The viewpoint and analytical approach which considers economic and political systems as mutually interacting and reinforcing along a spatial hierarchy from local to regional to national to international to global, and usually involving domination, oppression, and exploitation within and among societies.
postcolonial - A period since the withdrawal of a Western colonial power, or a radical critique of persistent colonial representations of the non-European "other" by Westerners.
postmodernism - In its extreme a radical view that everything is a contested or contestable construction relative to context and power.
"primitive" - A usually pejorative term referring to "savages" or "barbarians" in contrast to Western "civilization." This term has been rejected by most anthropologists since the 1960s.
primitivism - See entry on the "noble savage."
progress - The idea that as society advances from "primitive" to "civilized" the quality of life improves markedly becoming more rational, knowledgeable, scientific, and technological with mastery over nature.
realist position - According to John Bodley, a viewpoint which uncritically assumes that cultural extinction is the destiny of "primitive" or less advanced societies in the face of the inevitable forces of civilization and progress. This viewpoint is often associated with some form of evolutionism, racism, and/or ethnocentrism.
relativistic fallacy - The mistaken idea that it is impossible to make any unbiased moral judgement about the beliefs and behaviors of people in another culture. (Generally this is not admitted as a fallacy by most anthropologists).
representation - In contemporary ethnography the issue of who has the right to speak for or represent someone else, or the critique of problematic characterizations of another culture.
repression - The institutionalized use of violence or the threat thereof to dominate and exploit another social class or group.
revitalization - A process of conscious cultural change, usually primarily religious and involving a local charismatic leader, generally as a reaction to rapid and profound change introduced by external agents, and intended to infuse new vitality and purpose in traditional culture.
revolution - A rapid and profound change, often primarily political and through violent means. In Marxism revolution may refer more specifically to the masses of workers overthrowing the ruling elite class who have repressed them.
salvage ethnography - The field study of another culture to document it in publications and visual media for science and posterity under the assumptions that it is rapidly disappearing or destined to do so and that nothing can or should be done to change that.
scientism - The myopic faith in and worship of Western science as the only means to knowledge, understanding, truth, and well-being.
self-determination - The most fundamental of all human rights, whether for an individual or group.
slaves - An oppressed class of people who are not allowed to own their own labor and its products.
state - A centralized bureaucratic political organization whose authority is backed by a military and/or police force with a legal monopoly on the use of force or violence to maintain order in a large population.
syncretism - The creative mixture and reinterpretation of cultural traits, customs, and institutions.
Third World - A contentious term applied to parts of the world which are not in the First World (the industrialized West) or Second World (the former Soviet bloc) and especially to former colonies of Western states.
tribalization - The process whereby previously autonomous bands and villages develop a common identity and polity regarding territory, history, culture, and language as a result of the encroachment of an alien state.
tribe - In contemporary anthropology a tribe is usually considered to be political unit larger than a clan and smaller than a nation which has a fairly egalitarian social structure that is kinship based. However, often the term is considered to be problematic unless indigenous people themselves use it.
unilinear evolution - The theory that inevitably all human societies advance through universal stages from savagery to barbarism to civilization as developed by some late 19th century anthropologists like Englishman Edward B. Tylor (1832-1917) and American Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881). A correlate was that existing or historic societies reflect earlier stages of human prehistory; for example, hunter-gatherers for savagery or horticulturalists for barbarism.
universal evolution - The theory developed by cultural anthropologist Leslie A. White (1900-1975) and archaeologist V. Gordon Childe (1892-1957) that, without positing the inevitability of universal stages, stresses broad patterns in cultural change over time such as a trend toward increase in energy capture/capita.
world system - The global system of political economy that develops as core societies dominate and exploit peripheral societies.
worldview - A culturally unique system of beliefs, attitudes, and values.