CRITIQUE OF FUNCTIONALISM

1. CRITIQUE OF FUNCTIONALISM What is the Functionalist view of Human Nature? What is the Relationship between the individual and the society? How do Functionalists account for change? How do functionalists deal with conflict? How is the function of a given institution determined? Must all institutions have a function?

2. FRANZ BOAS 1858-1942 Boas en route to Baffin Island 1883 and Central Inuit; to study of reflectivity of sea-water

3. CENTRAL ESKIMO (IGULIK) STUDY • Inuit can perceive and name hundreds of colors and qualities of sea-water and surfaces unknown in European languages… • distinctions which can be described ‘scientifically’ in physics and optics • and which are of adaptive value to a sea-mammal hunting culture • Boas’ study: earliest anthropological attempt to describe a non-European ‘ethno-science’ in phenomenological terms

4. Analyst seeks to understand phenomena by grasping how they make sense within the framework of the subject’s thought-world i.e relatively

5. 1885: First expedition to Northwest Coast (Bella Coola) 1886: First collecting trip for American Museum of Natural History (New York City) to Nootka and Kwakiutl — massive documentation of Northwest Coast culture

6. Anti-Evolutionist • Evolutionism assumes what it is trying to prove • Order of cultural traits is arbitrary, eg representative and geometric art forms • positioning individual cultures on the savagery-barbarism-civilization ladder discounts their particularity and integrity • sidesteps the important task of reconstructing unwritten histories for non-Western peoples • Rational psychological explanation is misleading i.e. people did not reason themselves out of their primitive state because one of the fundamental characteristics of people is that they act automatically and unconsciously

7. Anti-Diffusionist • Claims for historical contact for enormously large areas unlikely • Improbable that cultural traits remained unchanged for thousands of years • traits are arbitrarily selected only to prove the theory • No attempt to demonstrate whether similar cultural traits are due to independent invention eg. Marriage patterns • Uninterested in how cultures change

8. CULTURAL/HISTORICAL PARTICULARISM • Three pillarsexplain cultural customs • Cultures can only be understood with reference to their particular historical development. Therefore each culture is unique • Environmental conditions • Individual psychological factors

9. CULTURAL/HISTORICAL PARTICULARISM • idea was not to make a preconceived hypothesis, • but to collect as much data about a particular culture without any theory • general theories of human Behaviour would arise once enough data had been collected • “We refrain from the attempt to solve the fundamental problem of the general development of civilization until we have been able to unravel the processes that are going on under our eyes” • Hallmark of historical particularism became the intensive study of specific cultures through long periods of fieldwork

10. BOASIAN CONCEPT OF CULTURE • superorganic —the product of collective or group life; but the individual has an influence • unconscious — a filter through which reality is perceived, but which is not itself the object of attention • adaptive — culture ultimately helps indivudlas adapt to their environment.

11. ARCHAEOLOGY SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY LINGUISTICS Four Field Approach

12. Influential generation of anthropologists trained under Boas at Columbia University and established Boasian doctrines in North American universities: • Alfred A. Kroeber • Ruth Benedict • Margaret Mead • Rhoda Métraux • Robert Lowie • Edward Sapir • Paul Radin • Alexander A. Goldenweiser • Clark Wissler

13. FRANZ BOAS • Cultural/historical particularism • “race, language, and culture” as independent variables • Relativism • superorganic • Cultural Determinism • Data Collection “without” theory • Emphasis on Fieldwork • 4-field approach

14. Alfred Louis Kroeber (1876-1960) 1897 enrolled in a course in American Indian languages at Columbia Universityoffered by Franz Boas

15. “ no culture is wholly intelligible without reference to the noncultural or so-called environmental factors with which it in relation and which condition it" (Kroeber, 1939: 205). “cultures occur in nature as wholes; and these wholes can never be entirely formulated through consideration of their elements.

16. Cultural and natural areas of Native North America (1939) ARCTIC NORTHWESTCOAST SUBARCTIC PLAINS PLATEAU BASIN EASTERN WOODLANDS PRAIRIE CALIFORNIA BAJACALIFORNIA N-EMEXICO SOUTHWEST NATIVE NORTH AMERICA: CULTURE AREAS MESOAMERICA

17. The Superorganic • “The superorganic or superspsychic or super-individual that we call civilization appears to have an existence, an order, and a causality as objective and as determinable as those of the subpsychic or inorganic” • individuals have very little if any impact on a culture’s development and change • Culture plays a determining role in individual human behaviour. • Culture has an existence outside of us and compelled us to conform to patterns that could be statistically demonstrated • e.g. changes in fashion show that cyclical patterns of change have occurred beyond the influence or understanding of any given individual. Kroeber showed that hem length, height, and width tended to move up and down in regularcycles,

18. Alfred Kroeber • Culture Areas • Superorganic • Deterministic • First American Textbook in anthropology (1923)

19. Culture and Personality seeks to understand the growth and development of personal or social identity as it relates to the surrounding social environment • Ruth Benedict • Margaret Mead

20. 1922 begins teaching at Barnard College as assistant to Franz Boas and meets Margaret Mead Ruth Fulton Benedict 1887-1948

21. Patterns of Culture 1934 Demonstrated the primacy of culture over biology in understanding the differences between people Contrasted the ways of life of the Zuni, Natives of Dobu and Kwakiutl

22. Zuni • Wealth is a sign of greediness. • Individual fame is a sign of selfishness • Solutions • Share all the wealth with other members of the tribe. • Dare not to do anything that brings them individual fame. • Extremely passive.

23. Dobuan The Dobuan…is dour, and passionate, consumed with jealousy and suspicion and resentment. Every moment of prosperity he conceives himself as having wrung from a malicious world by a conflict in which he has worsted his opponent. The good man is one which has many such conflicts to his credit… paranoiac and mean spirited

24. Kwakiutl • Overbearing • Vigorous • Zest for life • Strive for ecstasy in ceremonies • self-aggrandizing • Megalomaniac paranoid

25. Why are they so different? • Can’t be “fixed human nature.” • Why not? • Suppose - Newborn Zuni baby is raised by Dobu parents (or vice versa). • How would this baby behave when he or she becomes adult? • Like their adoptedparents.

26. Culture and Personality • A set of core values shapes larger cultural practices resulting in a distinctive pattern of culture • cultural differences were multifaceted expressions of a society’s most basic core values • cultural values relative • Societies have a dominating cultural personality • Culture is “Personality writ large” • The goal of anthropology was to document these different patterns

27. Culture and Personality “We have seen that any society selects some segment of the arc of possible human behaviour”… and in so far as it achieves integrations its institutions tend to further the expression of its selected segment and inhibit opposite expressions”. • Integrated • Holistic • Deterministic • Individual psychology is plastic, i.e. Is molded principally by cultural experience

28. During World War II, Benedict worked for the Office of War Information, applying anthropological methods to the study of contemporary cultures. • 1946 The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture

29. Culture and Personality - Critique • Where’s the history? • How are culture & individual psychology related? For example, does culture somehow 'cause' individual personality? • Is individual behaviour patterned? How? What best accounts for the observed patterns? • Circular -- Basic personality structure was inferred from some aspects of behaviour then used to explain other behaviour • linked anthropology with psychology

30. 1922 Barnard College under Boas, Meets Ruth Benedict. • 1925-26 8 months Fieldwork in Samoa Margaret Mead 1901-1978

31. Coming of Age in Samoa 1926 • Is adolescence a universally traumatic and stressful time due to biological factors or is the experience of adolescence dependent on one's cultural upbringing? • nature vs nurture

32. based on a detailed study of 68 girls between 8 and 20 in three contiguous villages • Mead described sexual relations as frequent and usually without consequence – or issue • The basic conclusion was that adolescence in Samoa was not a stressful period for girls • Because, in general, Samoan society lacked stresses

33. “This tale of another way of life is mainly concerned with education with the process by which the baby, arrived cultureless upon the human scene, becomes a full-fledged adult member of his or her society. The strongest light will fall upon the ways in which Samoan education, in its broadest sense, differs from our own. And from this contrast we may be able to turn, made newly and vividly self-conscious and self-critical, to judge anew and perhaps fashion differently the education we give our children (1928: 13)

34. 1983 Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth • Mead did not spend enough time in Samoa and lived in naval dispensarywith an American family rather than in a Samoan household • was not familiar with the Samoan language • ignored violence in Samoan life, • Failed to consider the influence of biology on behavior Derek Freeman (1916-2001) • Mead had been lied to by two of her female informants and thus came to erroneous conclusions about Samoan culture and the sexual freedom of the girls • She also went to Samoa with preconceived intention of showing that culture, not biology, determined human responses to life’s situations.

35. Growing Up in New Guinea1930 • Mead wanted to study the thought processes of children in preliterate cultures and the way they were shaped by adult society. • developed psychological tests to administer to the children of Pere New Guniea • collected approximately 35,000 pieces of children's artwork.

36. central idea: that differences between peoples are usually cultural differences imparted in childhood • specific child-rearing practices shape personalities that in turn give specific societies their essential natures

37. Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935) • sought to discover extent temperamental differences between the sexes were culturally determined rather than innate biological • Mead found a different pattern of male and female behavior in each of the cultures she studied, all different from gender role expectations in the United States at that time.

38. The gentle mountain-dwelling Arapesh, • Arapesh child-rearing responsibilities evenly divided among men and women The fierce cannibalistic Mundugumor • a natural hostility exists between all members of the same sex”. Mundugumor fathers and sons, and mothers and daughters were adversaries. The graceful headhunters of Tchambuli, • While men were preoccupied with art the women had the real power, controlling fishing and manufacturing • Mead's contribution in separating biologically-based sex from socially-constructed gender was groundbreaking, gender roles."

39. 1942 And Keep Your Powder Dry, a book on American national character for War effort • National Character studies • Small scale techniques applied to large scale societies • Culture at a distance • guide government and military policy • early 1960s a vocal commentator on contemporary American life.

40. Characteristics of Mead’s anthropology • Relativism • Ahistorical • Holistic • Participant observation • Romanticism • Humans select their culture, choosing some traits and ignoring others.