The first premise is that “human beings act toward things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them.” 5
The second premise underlying symbolic interactionism is that the “meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with one’s fellows.
The third premise of symbolic interactionism is that “meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretive process used by the person dealing with the things he encounters.” 7
Third premise is that “meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretive process used by the person dealing with the things he encounters.” cultural knowledge
Symbolic interactionism has its roots in the work of sociologists like Cooley, Mead, and Thomas. Blumer has identified three premises on which this theory rests.
a large portion of our cultural knowledge remains tacit, out-side our awarenes
Explicit culture makes up part of what we know, a level of knowledge people can communicate about with relative ease.
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
Cultural knowledge is a very broad topic hidden from the view, but is also very important because we use it constantly to generate behavior and interpret our experience
Our culture has a large body of shared knowledge that people learn and use to engage in this behavior called reading and make proper use of the artifacts connected with it
Cultural knowledge – what people know (ex. Grammatical rules for a language, meaning of space, lines and columns, how to feel when reading jokes, etc.)
This common activity depended on a great many cultural artifacts, the things people shape or make from natural resources
Cultural artifacts - the things people shape or make from natural resources (ex. The bark of trees are made into paper, glue used to hold pages together, etc.)
All of us were engaged in the same kind of cultural behavior: reading
Cultural behavior – what people do (ex. Everyone on the train was engaged in reading)
When ethnographers study other cultures, they must deal with three fundamental aspects of human experience: what people do, what people know, and the things peo-ple make and use
Ethnographers deal with three fundamental aspects of the human experience : cultural behavior, cultural knowledge, and cultural artifacts
She would have to listen to the members of this college community, watch what they did, and participate in their activities to learn such meanings.
To fully grasp someone's culture, you would have to learn the meanings of real world objects such as love, marriage, animals etc. of that culture
Fieldwork, then, involves the disciplined study of what the world is like to people who have learned to see, hear, speak, think, and act in ways that are dif-ferent
Ethnography is the work of describing a culture
Ethnography – work of describing a culture The goal of an ethnographer is “to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world.”
the almost universal belief that all people define the real world of objects, events, and living creatures in pretty much the same way.
definition of naive realism
Ethnographic fieldwork is the hallmark of cultural anthropology
In order to discover the hidden principles of another way of life, the researcher must become a student
To discover hidden views one must become a student while local people from the area you are studying becomes the teacher, the ethnographer tries to learn about how certain things identified the people
anthropologist goes to where peo-ple live and “does fieldwork.”