distribute or post, copy, ©Reuters/Bazuki Muhammad notSociety and 3Do Culture Hardware and Software of Our Social World Depending on what resources are available where we live and what is considered usable and edible, we humans eat a wide range of plants and animals. This inter- national market is bustling with activity as people shop for the kinds of foods that are considered nutritious and tasty in their culture. Copyright ©2016 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. Chapter 3: Society and Culture 57 ME (AND MY FAMILY) LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS AND COMMUNITY Local soccer teams and scout troupe have a microculture. MICRO NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS, INSTITUTIONS, AND ETHNIC SUBCULTURES distribute Ethnic groups have a subculture. MESO or post, SOCIETY A nation has a national culture. MACRO GLOBALcopy, COMMUNITY IN THIS CHAPTER Multinational organizations like the World Health Organization have a global culture. • Society: The Hardware not • Culture: The Software • Society, Culture, and Our Social World Do • Theories of Culture • The Fit Between Hardware and Software 57 Copyright ©2016 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. 58 Part II: Social Structure, Processes, and Control THINK ABOUT IT Micro: Local Community How do microcultures (e.g., your fraternity, study group, or team) influence you? Meso: National Institutions, Complex How do subcultures (such as your ethnic group) and countercultures (such as youth Organizations, and Ethnic gangs) shape the character of your nation and influence your own life? Groups Macro: National and How do your nation’s social structures and culture influence who you are and how Global System you dress, eat, work, and live your life? hat do people around the world eat? Mrs. unique culture that includes what people eat. Food is one Ukita, the mom in the Ukita family, rises aspect of our way of life and what is necessary for survival. W early to prepare a breakfast of miso soup and Ask yourself why you sleep on a bed, brush your teeth, or lis- a raw egg on rice. The father and two daughters eat quickly ten to music with friends. Our way of life is called culture. and rush out to catch their early morning trains to work Culture refers to the way of life shared by a group of and school in Kodaira City, Japan. The mother cares for people—the knowledge, beliefs,distribute values, rules or laws, lan- the house, does the shopping, and prepares a typical eve- guage, customs, symbols, and material products (such as ning meal of fish, vegetables, and rice for the family. food, houses, and transportation) within a society that The Ahmed family lives in a large apartment building help meet human needs.or Culture provides guidelines for in Cairo, Egypt. The 12 members of the extended family living. Learning our culture puts our social world in an include the women who shop for and cook the food—vege- understandable framework, providing a toolkit we can use tables, including peppers, greens, potatoes, squash, toma- to help construct the meaning of our world and behaviors toes, garlic, spices, and rice, along with pita bread and in it (Bruner 1996; Nagel 1994). We compare culture to often fish or meat. The adult men work in shops in one of software because it is the human ideas and input that the many bazaars, while the school-age children attend post,make the society work. Otherwise, society would just be school, then help with the chores. structures, like the framework of a house. In the Breidjing refugee camp in Chad, many Sudanese A society is an organized and interdependent group of refugees eat what relief agencies can get to them—and that individuals who live together in a specific geographic food source is not always reliable. Typical for the Aboubakar area, who interact more with each other than they do family, a mother and five children, is rice or some other with outsiders, who cooperate for the attainment of com- grain, oil for cooking, dried legumes, occasionally some root mon goals, and who share a common culture over time. plants or squash that keep longer than copy,fresh fruits and vege- Most often societies are the same as the countries that tables, and a few spices. The girls and women go into the make up the world. Each society includes key parts called desert to fetch firewood for cooking and to get water from institutions, such as family, education, religion, politics, whatever source has water at the time. This is a dangerous economics, and health care or medicine, that meet basic trip as they may be attackednot and raped or even killed outside human needs. This structure that makes up society is what the camps. we refer to here as the hardware, like the structure of a The Walker family from Norfolk, Virginia, grabs dinner computer. Culture, the software, is learned, transmitted, at a fast-food restaurant on their way to basketball practice shared, and reshaped from generation to generation. All and an eveningDo meeting. Because of their busy schedules activities in the society, whether educating young mem- and individual activities, they cannot always find time to bers, preparing and eating dinner, selecting leaders for the cook and eat together—a behavior that would be unthink- group, finding a mate, or negotiating with other societies, able in most societies around the world. are guided by cultural rules and expectations. In each soci- Although most diets include some form of grain and ety, culture provides the social rules for how individuals starch, locally available fruits and vegetables, and perhaps carry out necessary tasks. meat or fish, broad variations in food consumption exist Society—organized groups of people—and culture— even within one society. Yet all of these differences have their way of life—are interdependent. The two are not the something in common: Each represents a society with a same thing, but they cannot exist without each other, just Culture and Food Copyright ©2016 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. Chapter 3: Society and Culture 59 as computer hardware and software are each useless Menzel © Peter without the other. This chapter explores the ideas of society and culture and their relation to each other, what society is and how it is organized, how it influences and is influenced by culture, what culture is, how and why culture develops, the compo- nents of culture, cultural theories, and policy issues. After reading this chapter, you will have a better idea of how you learn and make use of your society’s culture. SOCIETY: THE HARDWARE The structures that make up society include micro-level positions (parents, students, workers), the groups to which we belong (family, work groups, and clubs), and the Members of the Aboubakar family of Sudan gather here in front of larger groups, organizations, or institutions in which we their tent with a week’s worth of food. participate (education, political, and economic organiza- tions). This “hardware” (structure) of our social world pro- distribute because people must interact with strangers and not just vides the framework for “software” (culture) to function. their relatives. It is important to note that not all societies Societies differ because they exist in different places go through all stages. Some are jolted into the future by with unique resources—mountains, coastal areas, jun- or political events or changes in the global system, and some gles. Societies change over time with new technology and resist pressures to become modernized and continue to leadership. Although human societies have become more live in simpler social systems. complex, especially in recent human history, people have been hunters and gatherers for 99% of human existence. Only a few groups remain hunters and gatherers today. As Evolution of Societies Table 3.1 illustrates, if all human history were to bepost, com- The Saharan desert life for the Tuareg tribe is pretty much as pressed into the lifetime of an 80-year-old person, humans it has been for centuries. In simple traditional societies, would have started cultivating crops and herding animals individuals are assigned to comparatively few social posi- for their food supply only a few months ago. Note the tions or statuses. Today, however, few societies are isolated incredible rate of change that has occurred just in the past from global impact. Even the Tuareg are called on to escort two centuries. adventurous tourists through the desert for a currency new copy, to them and unneeded until recently. In 2012, Al Qaeda in Thinking Sociologically the Islamic (or Arabian) Maghreb challenged the Tuareg’s What major changes took place in your grandpar- control over their desert homeland in a war in northern ents’ lifetimes that affect the way you and your fam- Mali, Africa. The Tuareg, a nomadic tribe living in northern ily live today?not Take a look at the timeline inside the Mali, staged a rebellion from January to April 2012 to gain cover of this book. It will provide some ideas. greater autonomy in their region, called Azawad. Islamic groups joined in the battle, helped the Tuareg gain control, Societies are organized in particular patterns shaped and then imposed strict Sharia law on the region, including Doby factors including the way people procure food, the the Tuareg. A force including French military and African availability of resources, contact with other societies, and troops pushed out the Islamists, and a peace deal was signed cultural beliefs.