- Jan 2017
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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With his 5 wives
Polygyny
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- Nov 2016
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artstor.wordpress.com artstor.wordpress.com
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Americans celebrate Halloween on October 31 by trick-or-treating, displaying jack-o’-lanterns (carved pumpkins) on their porches or windowsills, holding costume parties, and sharing scary stories.
Is this another reference to Western culture influence on the rest of the world?
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- Sep 2016
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lawrenceacademy-my.sharepoint.com lawrenceacademy-my.sharepoint.com
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we think of culture as a cogni-tive map
Culture has directions, but does not have requiements
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People did not act toward the things themselves, but to their meanings
people have more a connection, whether positive or negative, with their own abstract meanings of things than the physical thing itself.
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human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them.”
Because in different cultures, things mean different things to people,their actions will also differ.
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sym-bolic interactionism, a theory that seeks to explain human behavior in terms of mean-ings
Looking deeper into why people behave the way they do
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The ethnographer observes behavior but goes beyond it to inquire about the meaning of that behavior.
Ethnographers search deeper than just what can be seem on the surface.
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Although cultural knowledge is hidden from view, it is of fundamental impor-tance because we all use it constantly to generate behavior and interpret our expe-rience
Dramatic and unexpected changes in cultural knowledge: culture shock
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If an ethnographer wanted to understand the full cultural meaning in our society, it would involve a careful study of these and many other cultural artifacts.
Studying one part of culture means also studying every other part of culture that makes up the first part.
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three fundamental aspects of human experience: what people do, what people know, and the things peo-ple make and use
Staple aspects of different cultures
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Ethnog-raphy starts with a conscious attitude of almost complete ignorance
By being able to put aside feelings of knowledge towards a culture it is easier to gain perspective it is easier to start from square one to get better insight
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naive realism, the almost universal belief that all people define the real world of objects, events, and living creatures in pretty much the same way.
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obligations they felt toward kinsmen and discover how they felt about friends.
Obligations: social expectations which change between cultures and social positions, as well as microcultures
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tores and storekeepers were at the center of the val-ley’s communication system
Gathering places differ in different places with different social statures. Culture of communication and social communicating expectations.
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Rather than studying people, ethnography means learning from people
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The goal of ethnography, as Malinowski put it, is “to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world.”
Not to just study the culture, to study from within the culture. (English lit, one story) Ethnographers look past culture's "one story" to live in people's individual stories
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sten to students discuss the classes they hoped to get, and visit departments to watch faculty advising students on course selection. She would want to observe secretaries typing, janitors sweeping, and maintenance personnel plowing snow from walks.
If she observed from the points of view of so many people on the campus, she would not gain the full perspective of a single group of people: she could become biased or have knowledge that not everyone she's observing has access to. Researching the school from so many points of view could backfire and create a different kind of outside opinion.
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ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism: "the belief and feeling that one's own culture is best." This can also stand in the way of an ethnographer and their work by creating a bias against the society's principles or beliefs.
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