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The idea that every belief, action, or relationship in a culture functions to meet the needs of individuals. This theory emphasizes the importance of every aspect and individual in a society, as they and interdependent and contribute to society’s overall stability and ability to function.

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An anthropologist cannot compare two cultures because each culture has its own internal rules that must be accepted. This means that one should not judge someone else’s culture based on the normalities and standards of their own way of life , but try and understand the cultures of other groups in their own context.

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- Ethnocentric: believing ones culture is superior to all others. (Cultural relativism can be used to avoid ethnocentrism).
-Franz Boas (1858-1942): Pioneer of modern anthropology in the 20th century. Promoted cultural relativism and urged anthropologists to understand cultures on their own terms to avoid judgement.
-Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis/Language relativism: In the 1930s, two anthropologists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf found that the way language is used affected the way we think about and perceive the world. Linguistic relativism means that there are  thoughts we have in one language that cannot be understood by people that dont speak that language or exist in that culture.

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-How does a certain culture function?

-What are the beliefs, values, traditions, etc, of  a particular culture? Why do they have those beliefs, values, traditions/ what is the meaning behind them?

-what are the different meanings behind a particular phrase/word from culture to culture?

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Khan Academy. Cultural relativism: definition & examples (article) | Khan Academy. Retrieved from https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/society-and-culture/culture/a/cultural-relativism-article

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-Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942): An anthropologist in the 20th century who is considered the creator of the school of functional thought that rejected the idea of cultural evolutionism but believed that society’s could be objectively measured and compared. His theory focused on how culture meets the needs of individuals.
-Alfred Reginald Ratcliffe-Brown (1881-1955): A functionalist who’s theory, structural functionalism, focuses on how culture meets the needs of society. His work was much more influential to American anthropology than Malinowski’s.
-Émile Durkheim (1858-1917): A functionalist that stressed the necessary interconnectivity of all elements of society, that society was greater than the sum of its parts. He claimed that individual behaviour  was not the same as collective behaviour and that studying collective behaviour was different from studying an individual’s actions.

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-how does the actions one individual contribute or affect society as a whole?

-How does a particular society or culture influence the behaviour and actions of the individuals that exist in it?

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Lumen Learning. Functionalism | Cultural Anthropology. Retrieved from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/culturalanthropology/chapter/anthropology-theory-functionalism/

Lumen Learning. Reading: Functionalism and Society | Sociology. Retrieved from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/alamo-sociology/chapter/reading-theoretical-perspectives-on-society/

Smith, L. (2011). Theory + Anthropology [licensed for non-commercial use only] / Functionalism. Retrieved from http://anthrotheory.pbworks.com/w/page/29531810/Functionalism

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A theory that states that materials or conditions within an environment ( ex. Climate or geography) influence how a culture develops, creating the ideas and ideology of a culture. Cultural materialists believe that society develops on a trial-and-error basis, and if something is not valuable to society it will disappear altogether. It is criticized for being too simplistic as it ignores spiritual considerations and that humans are thinking beings.

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An approach to anthropology that seeks to reduce male bias in research findings, anthropological hiring practices, and the scholarly production of knowledge. Feminist anthropologists re-examinées anthropology to make sure that female voices were heard and included in research.

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The belief that it is impossible to have any “true” knowledge about the world. What we “know” about the world is our own construction, created by society. Postmodernists try to deconstruct the “truth” of society and believes that anthropologists cannot study their subjects detached or objectively because of the relationships that develop between the anthropologist and informant.

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-Three Levels of Social Systems:
1. Infrastructure: A society’s material resources. It is the basis for the other levels and includes how basic needs are met and how they interact with the local environment.
2. Structure: A society’s familial, political, economic and social systems.
3. Superstructure: A society’s ideas, values, symbols and religions.
-Marvin Harris (1927-2001): claimed that infrastructure was the most important level as it is where interaction between culture and environment occurs. His most successful cultural materialism analysis was his work with the Hindu sacred cow ideology. He determined that the importance of cows in agriculture (pulling plots and carrying heavy loads) in India, influences the ideas of the best ways to use a cow and contributes to the idea that they are sacred and shouldn’t be eaten.
-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: argued that societies go through several stages.  Their work had little attention in the early 20th century, but since the late 1920s, anthropologists have depended on materialist explanations for analyzing the development of society
-Maxine Margolis: Studied women’s roles in postwar America. Determined that it was the material changes and activities (not cultural changes) of women that resulted in the ideological changes of the feminist movement.

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-Culturally constructed: created or shaped by a culture.
-Ernestine Friedl (1920-2015): An American feminist anthropologist that determined that women’s freedom in forager societies was strongly connected to how much food they supplied. In societies where women contributed more food, rights were more equal. Whereas in societies that men contributed more food, women had less control.
-Ruth Benedict (1887-1948):  An early and influential female anthropologist. She developed the “configurational approach” to culture, seeing cultural systems as working to favor certain personality types among different societies. One of the most prominent female anthropologists of the first half of this century.

-Margaret Mead (1901-1978): was a key figure in the second wave of feminist anthropology. Her work  distinguished between sex and gender as categories of anthropological thought, and also separated the biological from cultural factors that control human behavior and personality development.
-Margaret Conkey (1943- ): one of the first archaeologists to introduce feminist theory into that sub-discipline.

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-Reflectivity: when researchers reflect on their identity and the role that this identity plays in the society that they are researching ( how their own experiences and biases affect their research)
-Sam Dunn: Canadian anthropologist and director that did research on heavy metal music and fans. He explains how his love for the music inspired his research. Dunn shows reflectivity in his work as he frequently discusses how his own bias as a heavy metal fan has affected his research.
-Postmodernists think that information that comes from those with power and wealth are more likely to be accepted. They often promote unrepresented viewpoints to heighten awareness for those who are not typically shown/heard.

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-How does the environment of a particular culture influence the elements of it?

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-How do cultures determine/influence gender roles?

-How are people of different genders, races, sexual orientations, ethnicities, etc, viewed and treated in society? How do those views affect the lives/thoughts/ideas of those people?

-Male-dominated, Female-dominated, and equal societies. In what ways do they differ?  (ex. How are they run? What is the quality of life?)

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-How does my own culture and lifestyle influence my research?

-What are the biases behind a particular set of research? Who’s viewpoints are not shown? How does this affect the emphasis of the research?

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Buzney, C., & Marcoux, J. Cultural Materialism. Retrieved from https://anthropology.ua.edu/theory/cultural-materialism/

Lumen Learning. Cultural Materialism | Cultural Anthropology. Retrieved from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/culturalanthropology/chapter/cultural-materialism/

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Dominguez, J., Franks, M., & Boschma, J. Feminist Anthropology. Retrieved from https://anthropology.ua.edu/theory/feminist-anthropology/

Lumen Learning. Feminist Anthropology | Cultural Anthropology. Retrieved from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/culturalanthropology/chapter/feminist-anthropology/

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Lumen Learning. Postmodernism | Cultural Anthropology. Retrieved from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/culturalanthropology/chapter/postmodernism/

The Cultural Courier. (2019). Everyday Anthropology: Reflexivity. Retrieved from https://theculturalcourier.home.blog/2019/03/14/everyday-anthropology-reflexivity/