PERSPECTIVES: AN OPEN INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY Nina Brown, Thomas McIlwraith, Laura Tubelle de González The American Anthropological Association Arlington, VA Perspectives: An Open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology by Nina Brown, Thomas McIlwraith, Laura Tubelle de González is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. Under this CC BY-NC 4.0 copyright license you are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material Under the following terms: Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes. 22 THE CULTURE CONCEPT Priscilla Medeiros, Women’s College Hospital
[email protected] Emily Cowall, McMaster University
[email protected] Learning Objectives • Compare and contrast the ideas of ethnocentrism and cultural relativism. • Describe the role that early anthropologists Sir James Frazer and Sir E. B. Tylor played in defining the concept of culture in anthropology. • Identify the differences between armchair anthropology and participant-observer fieldwork and explain how Bronislaw Malinowski con- tributed to the development of anthropological fieldwork techniques. • Identify the contributions Franz Boas and his students made to the development of new theories about culture. • Assess some of the ethical issues that can arise from anthropological research. THOUGHTS ON CULTURE OVER A CUP OF COFFEE Do you think culture can be studied in a coffee shop? Have you ever gone to a coffee shop, sat down with a book or laptop, and listened to conversations around you? If you just answered yes, in a way, you were acting as an anthropologist.