IB Diploma Social & Cultural Anthropology HL · What is Anthropology?
Mini-Lesson
What is Anthropology?
Social and cultural anthropology is the comparative study of culture and human societies. This higher-level lesson defines the discipline, traces the concept of culture, and introduces the nine key concepts.
Work through each screen and collect stars as you go.
Answer the quick checks, the sort and the match as you go to collect stars. Press Start when you are ready.
Defining anthropology
A comparative science of humankind
Social and cultural anthropology is the comparative study of culture and human societies and the exploration of the general principles of social and cultural life. It seeks to understand humankind in all its diversity and to make cultural assumptions explicit.
Its defining research tradition is participant observation and in-depth, empirical study of social groups, producing knowledge in the form of ethnography.
How anthropology differs
Not the same as sociology or psychology
Social and Cultural Anthropology often studies large-scale, contemporary (frequently the researcher's own) societies, using surveys and statistics.
Psychology focuses on the individual mind and behaviour.
Anthropology is distinctively holistic, comparative, qualitative and cross-cultural, grounded in long-term fieldwork and attentive to societies across the whole range of human diversity.
Quick check
What makes it distinct?
?What most distinguishes anthropology from the other social sciences?
The concept of culture
Tylor, Boas, Geertz
The idea of culture has a history:
Edward Tylor (1871) defined culture as that complex whole of knowledge, belief, art, morals, law and custom acquired by people as members of society.
Franz Boas insisted culture is learned, plural and particular, and argued for historical particularism against the idea that all societies climb a single evolutionary ladder.
Clifford Geertz defined culture semiotically as webs of significance that must be interpreted.
Quick check
Boas on culture
?Franz Boas argued that culture is:
Nature and culture
Biology and learning
Humans are both biological and cultural. The nature and culture distinction was a central theme for Claude Lévi-Strauss. Margaret Mead's Samoan work argued that gender and adolescence are strongly shaped by culture, cautioning against biological determinism while not denying biology.
Sort it
Sort by key concept
Tap a statement, then tap the IB key concept it describes. (Two each.)
Culture
Power
Identity
Quick check
Nature and culture
?The nature and culture distinction reminds anthropologists that human behaviour is:
The nine key concepts
The analytical backbone of the course
HL and SL both use nine key concepts to analyse ethnographic material: belief and knowledge, change, culture, identity, materiality, power, social relations, society and symbolism. HL students are expected to use them with greater depth and breadth, including through anthropological theory.
Quick check
Spot the key concepts
?Which set contains only IB anthropology key concepts?
The anthropological attitude
How anthropologists think
The anthropological attitude combines cultural relativism (understanding practices in context), reflexivity (examining the researcher's role), holism (linking the parts of social life) and comparison. It means making the strange familiar and the familiar strange.
Match it
Match each key concept to its meaning
Tap a concept on the left, then its meaning on the right.
Key concept
Meaning
Quick check
The relativist stance
?Understanding a practice within its own cultural context, rather than judging it by your own standards, is:
The comparative method
From cases to principles
Comparison is anthropology engine for general insight. By setting cases side by side, kula next to potlatch, one rite of passage next to another, anthropologists identify general principles of social life while still respecting each culture particularity.
Belief, knowledge and change
More key concepts
Belief and knowledge asks how people know and explain the world; change asks how societies transform over time. Together they remind us that worldviews are both meaningful systems and moving targets, reshaped by history and contact.
Emic, etic and reflexivity
Standpoints on knowledge
HL analysis weaves together the emic (insider) and etic (analyst) views with reflexivity, the awareness that the anthropologist own standpoint shapes the account. Holding these together is central to the anthropological attitude.
Recap
The big ideas to take away
Anthropology: holistic, comparative, cross-cultural study by fieldwork
Culture: learned and particular; Tylor, Boas, Geertz
Nature and culture: behaviour is shaped by learning, not biology alone
Key concepts: belief and knowledge, change, culture, identity, materiality, power, social relations, society, symbolism
The attitude: relativism, reflexivity, holism, comparison
You now have the higher-level framing of the discipline and its key concepts. Press Finish to see your score.