Cultural anthropology 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 disassociate themselves from their own culture to try to see other ethnic groups as objectively as possible.

We will now go into more detail about the definition of this anthropological branch, as well as talk about what it understands as culture, its development as a discipline and what its methodology is.

What is cultural anthropology?

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

Cultural anthropology starts from the premise that human beings are social animals, which makes us 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. This, once shared and assimilated together by the group as a whole, makes 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, that is, what its social structure is, whereas 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 is something that has been done throughout history. However, the way it was done in the past was rather lax, and more than an interest in finding out what other ethnic groups are like, the real reason was often to ‘prove’ how superior one’s own culture was compared to others.

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

Several centuries later, in the Middle Ages there was a certain daring to explore beyond Europe. One of the most striking cases is 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 is from the 15th century onwards that there is a real boom in exploration , both towards the new continent for Europeans, America, and for such ancient and yet unknown civilisations 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 the undoubted bias in their perception of the world out of their minds.

No matter what world they managed to see, these travelers, missionaries, soldiers, settlers and others were still European people, which prevented them from having an objective view of non-Western cultures.

Thus, the origins of cultural anthropology are somewhat obscure. Given the limitations on world travel in those centuries, many scholars 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 of the ethnic group with which they came into contact.

However, the solution began to take shape as early as the beginning of the 20th century. Bronisław Malinowski, a Polish man who is a leading figure in anthropology, produced a series of works that marked a major change in the way human beings studied cultural anthropology. In contrast to what had been done mostly until then, the decision was made to investigate the peoples by going to study them directly, through field work.

This avoided any interpretation made from, in turn, interpretations made by people not trained in the matter, such as the case already mentioned of missionaries and merchants. Ethnographic field work, studying directly the people one wants to study, became the most widespread methodology.

Although nearly a century has passed since Malinowski’s first works, and cultural anthropology has evolved and changed many of its visions, especially those once related to a colonialist perspective of everything that was not European, the efforts of the Polish anthropologist are still relevant and have repercussions today.

Anthropological method

Cultural anthropology, together 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 under study. The researcher becomes familiar with the members of the culture he wants to study and, at the same time, these members also accept the presence of the anthropologist and may even accept him as a new member.

By doing so, in addition to seeing first-hand how members of that culture behave, the cultural anthropologist can understand what the functions of a given practice are and what meaning it takes on locally. That is, it allows him to understand the context through which a custom is carried out or why they have acquired a specific habit .

The most effective way to achieve rigorous and comprehensive data collection is to do whatever the culture under study does, i.e. “wherever you go, do what you see”. Thus, the anthropologist will have to try strange foods, learn the language of the region, accept to perform the rituals of the area , observe and participate in traditional games, and so on.

Participatory 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?

Unlike the concept that is most widespread in popular culture, anthropologists understand the concept of culture beyond the sphere of art and entertainment.

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 the 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 following a path that went from a “barbaric” state to “civilization” . It must be understood that classifying a certain culture as barbarian 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 certain ethnic group could have.

Tylor himself claimed that the apex of world civilization was England in the 19th century, the country of which he happened to be a citizen. According to the supremacist vision of the average Victorian Englishman, England was the reference of advanced culture and, therefore, the rest of 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 coined 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 way , going from the least civilized to the most civilized, but rather a different degree of social complexity developed depending on the historical events that the ethnic group in question lived through and how it handled them.

Today, the definition of culture from 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 divided into two distinct categories. The big culture, or big C, and the small culture, small c . To better understand this differentiation, according to Boas, the Argentine culture would be, for example, a large C, while the traditions of the city of La Plata would be understood as small c.

Culture as 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 develops. The environment directly influences the way of being, both behaviorally and in terms of personality and intelligence .

The culture of each ethnic group is a kind of second nature. It is an environment in which certain patterns of behaviour are admitted and there are 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 interiorizes 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 very ridiculous, but the members of the group in question see it as completely normal. This is very variable depending on the historical period.

Bibliographic references:

  • Harris, M. (2011). Cultural Anthropology. Spain. Alianza Editorial.
  • Tylor, E. (1920). Primitive Culture. Vol 1. 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.