Cultural Anthropology Case Study Assignment Paper

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
By
Institution
Cultural Anthropology
Anthropologist

Theory

Contribution

Strength/Weaknesses

Approach

Sir Edward Taylor, Lewis Henry Morgan

Evolutionism

They developed comparative study of culture; all societies pass through a series of stages

People perceived them to be ethnocentric. The data used was insufficient in making such a conclusion.

Involves collection of data and formulation of theory.

Grafton Elliot Smith, William James Perry, Fritz Graebner, Wilhelm Schmidt

Diffusionism

They brought the need to develop theory dealing with contact and interactions among cultures.

They failed to answer many questions concerning cultural diffusion.

They suggested that humans were essentially uninventive; deductive approach.

Franz Boas

American Historicism

He included women in anthropology and started using methodology and scientific way of solving problems.

He did very little theory

Involves collection of data and development of theory; Inductive approach

Bronislaw Malinowski, Alfred Reginald Radcliff-Brown
Robert Merton

Functionalism
Structural functionalism
Dysfunction

Every part of a culture has a function.
Some aspects can be dysfunctional

Examining cultural feature enables one to see its connection with other cultural features.

Involves learning local language and value culture from the inside; Emic approach

Edward Sapir
Ruth Benedict
Margaret Mead

Psychological Anthropology

Individuals learn their culture patterns unconsciously.
Each society produces its own personality characteristics.
Emotional turbulences among adolescents are cultural. Gender roles are culturally determined.

Exploring relationship between psychology and cultural variables.

Involves looking at psychological phenomena such as personality, emotions, and cognition.
Interpretive and interactive anthropology

Leslie White
Julian Steward

Neoevolutionism

Culture advances with increasing energy and advanced technology.
Multi-linear evolution. cultural ecology.

Could not explain why some cultures evolve with more energy than others do.

Neoevolution; cultures evolve by harnessing energy or change in environmental conditions.

Claude Levi-Strauss

French structuralism

Interrelated culture and cognition

His theory is too abstract

Involves relation of the human mind with the environme...