Chinese (Mandarin)

Spanish

English

Hindi

Arabic

Portuguese

Bengali

Russian

Japanese

Punjabi

German

Javanese

Malay

Telugu

Vietnamese

Korean

French

Marathi

Tamil

Urdu

Turkish

Italian

Chinese, Yue / Cantonese

Thai

Gujarati

Chinese, Jin

Chinese, Min Nan

Persian, Dari

Persian, Western

Polish

Pashto

Kannada

Chinese, Xiang

Malayalam

Sundanese

Hausa

Odia

Burmese

Chinese, Hakka

Ukrainian

Bihari, Bhojpuri

Tagalog

Yoruba

Bihari, Maithili

Uzbek

Sindhi

Amharic

Fula

Romanian

Oromo

Igbo

Azerbaijani

Chinese, Gan

Dutch

Kurdish, Central

Kurdish, Northern

Kurdish, Southern

Malagasy

Lahnda, Saraiki

Nepali

Sinhalese

Chittagonian

Zhuang

Khmer

Turkmen

Assamese

Madurese

Somali

Marwari

Bihari, Magahi

Haryanvi

Hungarian

Chhattisgarhi

Greek

Chewa

Dakhini

Akan, Twi

Akan, Fante

Kazakh

Chinese, Min Bei

Sylheti

Zulu

Czech

Kinyarwanda

Marwari, Dhundhari

Haitian Creole

Chinese, Min Dong

Ilocano

Quechua

Kirundi

Swedish

Hmong

Shona

Uyghur

Hiligaynon

Mossi

Xhosa

Belarusian

Balochi

Anthropology

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	A <OpenstaxTerm>symbol</OpenstaxTerm> is an object, image, gesture, vocalization, or event conventionally associated with a particular meaning. anthropologist Jennifer Hasty was conducting fieldwork in Ghana during an election year, she noticed that the posters and pamphlets of one politician featured a broom. Confused, she asked a friend why a male politician would choose a humble domestic tool associated with women’s work as his political motif. Making a sweeping motion with her hands, she explained, “Because he is promising to sweep away all the corruption.” Turns out, he was the not the first to use this symbol. Over time, the broom has come to acquire political meaning as a symbolic anti-corruption tool in Ghana.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00001" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/e112870fb5764978023875f3915172d90b408915" alt="A color photograph of a group of about fifteen straw brooms. The brooms have matching handles of smooth wood. The bottom is constructed of a light-colored plant fiber. The fibers are attached to the brooms using dark twine." mediaType="image/jpeg" width="800" height="600" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="800">
	<strong>Figure 3.8</strong> Featured in political posters and pamphlets, brooms like these have taken on special meaning in Ghanian politics, where they are understood as a symbol of a politician’s intent to sweep away corruption. (credit: “Handmade Brooms at Granville Island Broom Co.” by Ruth Hartnup/flickr, CC BY 2.0)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Colors, shapes, gestures, animals, plants—all of these commonly acquire specific cultural meaning. For a Hindu wedding, a bride typically wears a bright red sari, as red is an auspicious color associated with change, passion, and prosperity. White, on the other hand, is typically worn to Indian funerals.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxTerm>Symbols</OpenstaxTerm> are useful cultural aggregates because they provide a kind of shorthand for expressing complex ideas. Consider the American bumper sticker shown in Figure 3.9.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00002" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/09a822fdbc8954d7ccf1f3c5b7ef0ffddbf12646" alt="A color photograph of a bumper sticker on the back of a car, spelling out the word “Coexist” using a variety of symbols. For the letter “c,” a crescent moon representing Islam is substituted. For the letter “o,” the peace symbol is substituted. For the letter “e,” a male/female symbol is used. For the letter “x,” the Star of David representing Judaism appears. For the letter “i,” a pagan/Wiccan symbol is used. For the letter “s,” a Chinese yin-yang symbol is substituted. For the letter “t,” a cross representing Christianity is used." mediaType="image/jpeg" width="800" height="600" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="800">
	<strong>Figure 3.9</strong> This popular American bumper sticker incorporates a variety of religious and social symbols. (credit: “Coexistence” by Rusty Clark/flickr, CC BY 2.0)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Combining symbols from Islam, Judaism, Taoism, Christianity, paganism, women, men, and the peace movement, this sticker aims to promote multicultural diversity. Rather than listing the various religions, identities, and ideologies and describing the conflicts among them, the message simply incorporates their symbols into a word urging mutual tolerance.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Although symbols have conventional meanings, they can mean different things in different contexts or to different people. Although the intended meaning of the above bumper sticker is diversity, some people interpret it as an emblem of radical atheism. In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, some Americans started wearing safety pins to show their solidarity with <OpenstaxTerm>LGBTQIA+</OpenstaxTerm> people, people of color, and others who had become targets of post-election harassment. For some, however, the safety pin symbolized pretentiousness and hypocrisy.
</OpenstaxParagraph>

3.4.1 Symbols

1 What Is Anthropology?

1.1 The Study of Humanity, or "Anthropology Is Vast"

1.1.1 The Heart of Anthropology: Central Narrative and Commitments

1.1.2 Central Commitment #1: Exploring Sociocultural Diversity

1.1.3 Central Commitment #2: Understanding How Societies Hold Together

1.1.4 Central Commitment #3: Examining the Interdependence of Humans and Nature

1.2 The Four-Field Approach: Four Approaches within the Guiding Narrative

1.2.1 Biological Anthropology

1.2.2 Archaeology

1.2.3 Cultural Anthropology

1.2.4 Linguistic Anthropology

1.2.5 How the Four Fields Work Together: The Example of Race

1.3 Overcoming Ethnocentrism

1.3.1 Enculturation and Ethnocentrism

1.3.2 Primitivism and Orientalism

1.4 Western Bias in Our Assumptions about Humanity

1.4.1 Primitivism and Orientalism in Popular Culture

1.4.2 The Bias of Backwardness

1.5 Holism, Anthropology’s Distinctive Approach

1.5.1 Society as an Integrated Whole

1.5.2 Sources of Contradiction, Conflict, and Change

1.6 Cross-Cultural Comparison and Cultural Relativism

1.6.1 Relativism Is Not “Anything Goes”

1.6.2 Morality, Activism, and Cultural Relativism

1.7 Reaching for an Insider’s Point of View

1.7.1 The Challenge of Representing Others

1.7.2 Collaborative Methods of Representation

1.7.3 Working across Cultures toward Common Goals

1.7.4 Suggested Readings

2 Methods: Cultural and Archaeological

2.1 Archaeological Research Methods

2.1.1 Archaeological Techniques

2.1.2 Archaeological Dating Methods

2.2 Conservation and Naturalism

2.2.1 Early Efforts

2.2.2 Salvage Anthropology

2.2.3 Museum Collections

2.2.4 Interpretation and Voice

2.3 Ethnography and Ethnology

2.3.1 The Development of Ethnography and Ethnology

2.3.2 Perspective and Interpretation in Ethnography

2.4 Participant Observation and Interviewing

2.4.1 Participant Observation

2.4.2 Interviewing Informants

2.4.3 Ethical Considerations

2.5 Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis

2.5.1 Differences between Quantitative and Qualitative Information

2.5.2 Modeling

2.5.3 The Science of Anthropology

2.6 Collections

2.6.1 Archives

2.6.2 Three-Dimensional Collections

2.6.3 Ownership

2.6.4 Suggested Readings

3 Culture Concept Theory: Theories of Cultural Change

3.1 The Homeyness of Culture

3.2 The Winkiness of Culture

3.3 The Elements of Culture

3.3.1 Culture Is What We Make

3.3.2 Culture Is What We Do

3.3.3 Culture Is What We Think

3.4 The Aggregates of Culture

3.4.2 Ritual

3.4.3 Social Structure

3.5 Modes of Cultural Analysis

3.5.1 Evolution, Adaptation, and Historical Particularism

3.5.2 Functionalism

3.5.3 Structuralism

3.5.4 Ontology

3.6 The Paradoxes of Culture

3.6.1 Paradox 1: Culture Is Continuous, but It Changes

3.6.2 Paradox 2: Culture Is Bounded but Mobile

3.6.3 Paradox 3: Culture Is Consensual but Contested

3.6.4 Paradox 4: Culture Is Shared, but It Varies

3.6.5 Suggested Readings

4 Biological Evolution and Early Human Evidence

4.1 What Is Biological Anthropology?

4.1.1 Looking to the Deep Past

4.1.2 Exploring What It Means to Be Human

4.2 What’s in a Name? The Science of Taxonomy

4.2.1 Defining the Science of Taxonomy

4.2.2 Defining a Species

4.3 It’s All in the Genes! The Foundation of Evolution

4.3.1 The Units of Life

4.3.2 Gregor Mendel and the Laws of Heredity

4.3.3 Mendelian Inheritance in Humans

4.4 Evolution in Action: Past and Present

4.4.1 Early Evolutionists and the Fixity of Species

4.4.2 Charles Darwin’s Role in Changing Views of the Natural World

4.4.3 Understanding Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection

4.5 What Is a Primate?

4.5.1 What Is a Primate?

4.5.2 Primate Behavioral Variation

4.5.3 Explaining Primate Success

4.5.4 Primate Classification and Taxonomy

4.6 Origin of and Classification of Primates

4.6.1 Understanding Concepts of Time

4.6.2 Fossils and Dating Methods

4.6.3 Making Sense of Fossils