Cultural anthropology: what it is and how it studies the human being.

A summary of this branch of anthropology, which tries to understand human beings in their context.

Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology which, like itself, is very young and still in its infancy.It is a branch of anthropology that, like itself, is very young and still being formed.

Understanding what other cultures are like has never been easy, especially since no one can detach themselves from their own culture in order to try to see other ethnic groups as objectively as possible.

Next we are going to enter in more detail on the definition of this anthropological branch, besides speaking on what it understands as culture, its development as discipline and which is its methodology.

What is cultural anthropology?

The cultural anthropology is an anthropological branch which focuses on the study of human beings through their culture.Cultural anthropology is understood as the set of customs, myths, beliefs, norms and values that guide and regulate the behavior of a given social group.

Cultural anthropology is based on the premise that human beings are social animals, which means that we live in groups. In these groups, in which several individuals have contact, the individual visions of each one are shared, which is represented in their way of behaving and thinking. These, once shared and assimilated together by the group as a whole, make up the culture.

It should be noted that there are certain differences between cultural anthropology and social anthropology.. The latter places more emphasis on how a society is organized, i.e., what its social structure is, while cultural anthropology focuses on culture, leaving aside how it can be organized socially.

Historical background and development of this discipline

Trying to understand what other cultures are like and what characteristics define them has been done throughout history. However, the way it was done in the past was rather lax, and rather than an interest in finding out what other ethnic groups are like, the real reason, on many occasions, was to 'demonstrate' how superior one's own culture was in comparison with others.

Among the first to be curious about the people of other cultures were the Greeks.. Among them we can highlight the figure of Herodotus (484-425 BC), who studied other peoples such as the Egyptians and the Scythians, a Eurasian people.

Several centuries later, in the Middle Ages, there was a certain daring to explore beyond Europe. One of the most striking cases are the expeditions of the Italian Marco Polo, who served as a link between Western and Asian cultures. In his writings he described countless peoples of the Far East, although not without leaving aside his own vision of the world.

However, it was not until the 15th However, it was from the 15th century onwards that the real boom in exploration took place.It was not until the 15th century, however, that there was a real boom in exploration, both of the new continent for Europeans, America, and of such ancient and yet unknown civilizations as Cathay, present-day China, or Cipango, present-day Japan. These explorers, despite their great knowledge of the world, were not expert anthropologists (a discipline that did not yet exist) and could not get out of their minds the undoubted bias they had in their perception of the world.

Regardless of the world they managed to see, these travelers, missionaries, soldiers, settlers and others were still Europeans, which prevented them from having an objective view of non-Western cultures.

Thus, the origins of cultural anthropology are somewhat obscure. Given the limitations in those centuries to travel around the world, many scholars in the field were forced to rely on the testimonies of travelers, who, as we have already said, hardly saw the outside world objectively, reflecting their own stereotypes regarding the ethnic group with which they had established contact.

However, the solution began to take shape already at the beginning of the 20th century. Bronisław Malinowski, a Pole who is a seminal figure in anthropology, carried out a series of works that brought about a major shift in the way cultural anthropology studied the human being. Unlike most of what had been done up to that time, it was decided to investigate the people by going to study them directly, through fieldwork.

This avoided any interpretation based on, in turn, interpretations made by people not trained in the subject, such as the aforementioned case of missionaries and traders. Ethnographic fieldwork, direct study of the people to be studied, became the most widespread methodology.

Although nearly a century has passed since Malinowski's early work, and cultural anthropology has evolved over the years. cultural anthropology has evolved and changed many of its visions, especially those related in the past to a colonialist perspective of everything that was not European, the Polish anthropologist's efforts continue to have relevance and impact today.

• You may be interested in, "What is Cultural Psychology?"

Anthropological method

Cultural anthropology, along with social anthropology, uses participant observation as the best method to study the habits, traditions and other customs of a culture. In this way, the anthropologist obtains first-hand information about the ethnic group being studied. The researcher becomes familiar with the members of the culture he wants to study. and, at the same time, these members also accept the anthropologist's presence and may even accept him as a new member.

By doing so, in addition to seeing firsthand how the members of that culture behave, the cultural anthropologist can understand what the functions of a given practice are and what meaning it acquires in the place. In other words, it allows him or her to understand the context in which a custom is carried out or why they have acquired a particular habit..

The most effective way to achieve a rigorous and exhaustive data collection is to do whatever the culture under study does, i.e., "where you go, do as you see". Thus, the anthropologist must try strange foods, learn the language of the region, agree to perform the rituals of the area, observe and participate in traditional games, observe and participate in traditional games, and learn the language of the region.observe and participate in traditional games, and a long etcetera.

Participant observation is not an exclusively anthropological method. It is also present in other disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, human geography, political science, among others. What is remarkable about this method is that cultural anthropology has transformed it into the fundamental pillar of its identity as a human science.

What does anthropology understand by culture?

In contrast to the concept widely spread in popular culture, anthropologists understand the concept of culture beyond the sphere of art and leisure.

Culture, anthropologically speaking, is a much broader concept. In fact, this concept has become increasingly complex thanks to findings in fields such as primatology, biology, neuroscience and other sciences related to nature, since anthropology does not only draw on concepts from the social and human sciences.

According to Edward B. Tylor (1832-1917), culture could be defined as all knowledge, science, art, laws, morals, customs and other habits acquired by a human being as a member of a given society.

According to Tylor, every culture evolved along a path from a "barbaric" state to "civilization".. It must be understood that classifying a given culture as barbaric today is something that implies a supremacist and Eurocentric vision, but at the time, and with the cultural bias that Tylor himself must have had, it was seen as an appropriate definition of the degree of cultural sophistication that a given ethnic group could have.

Tylor himself held that the pinnacle of civilization worldwide was England in the 19th century, a country of which he happened to be a citizen. In keeping with the supremacist vision of the average Victorian Englishman, England was the benchmark of advanced culture and, therefore, all other societies were inherently inferior.

This view was criticized by another anthropologist, Franz Boas (1858-1942), of German-American origin. He based himself on the German concept of 'kultur', a word cognate with the English term 'culture' and 'cultura' in Spanish. German kultur was understood as the set of behaviors and traditions, both local and personal, that an individual can manifest.

For Boas, cultures did not evolve in a linear fashion, going from the less civilized to the more civilized, but developed to a different degree.From the less civilized to the more civilized, but rather a different degree of social complexity developed depending on the historical events experienced by the ethnic group in question and how it dealt with them.

Today, the definition of culture from the perspective of cultural anthropology is closer to Boas' idea: culture is an integrated system of symbols, values and ideas that must be studied as if it were an organic being.

Culture can be can be divided into two distinct categories. The big culture, or big C, and the small culture, small C, can be divided into two distinct categories.. To better understand this differentiation, according to Boas, the Argentine culture would be, for example, one of the big C type, while the traditions of the city of La Plata would be what is understood as small c.

Culture as a second nature

Cultural anthropology proposes the idea that in order to understand the human being it is necessary to also know the environment in which he/she develops. The environment has a direct influence on their way of being, both behaviorally and in terms of personality and intelligence..

The culture of each ethnic group constitutes a kind of second nature. It is an environment in which certain patterns of behavior are accepted and there are certain social norms that must be observed. certain social norms that must be observed by each of its members. so that they can develop as subjects fully adjusted to the place they inhabit.

The human being, as he develops as a member of any group, assimilates and internalizes the norms present in the place where he is, becoming something difficult to doubt and seen as something logical.

Some aspects of this type are the ethics and morals present in that ethnic group which, in the eyes of other groups may be seen as something very ridiculous, but the members of the group in question see it as something completely normal. This is highly variable depending on the historical period.

Bibliographical references:

• Harris, M. (2011). Cultural anthropology. Spain. Alianza Editorial.
• Tylor, E. (1920). Primitive Culture. New York: J.P. Putnam's Sons.
• Fisher, W. F. (1997). 1997. Annual Review of Anthropology. 26. 439-64. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.26.1.439.