Cultural Anthropology Definition

Black and Tired: Anthony Bradley Talks Race, Politics, and the Church

CP: What was your purpose for writing the book?

Bradley: The larger purpose for writing the book was to give people an example of what it might look like to bring a Christian worldview to issues, public policy and social ethics that are clearly grounded in a Christian worldview, but aren't always explicitly Christian, but still makes a point that is reasonable and persuasive. And, to help people really think about the connections between anthropology and the ways we think about our governance – how we govern people given what we think about the nature of the human person.

CP: Is it written mostly for a Christian audience?

Bradley: It's written mostly for a general audience, not necessarily Christian or non-Christian, these are public essays. One way to describe this would be, maybe, public theology. Some of the entries were actually published in major newspapers, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the Detroit News, for example.

CP: You argue that many government programs intended to alleviate poverty and racism have actually made things worse. Is there a role for government in issues such as racial disparities and poverty? How would you see the government’s role changing to make things better and not worse?

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Bradley: It's important to remember, I'm not one who thinks in terms of the binary, government versus anti-government, but rather, what is government good at? And, how can government's role create more freedom and liberation, more economic empowerment, for people who are on the margins?

What we have seen, especially in the last 40 to 50 years, is that some of the programs that have intended to bring social, political and economic empowerment for those black folks on the margins have actually been complicit in keeping them there – well intentioned programs that just haven't worked out.

What we see historically, at least in the states, when government is actually structured in a way to let its players, its shareholders in society, to actually function well and freely, it actually helps with black progress and black liberation.

Government's role is really to set the rules of the game so that institutions like the family, education , business, non-profit organizations, etc., can really flourish well and do the things they are specifically designed for, equipped for, and experts at.

Culture - What is its Meaning?: There are Several Definitions of ...

Educators and other intellectuals in the Western world defined culture in terms of behavior patterns of the rich, wealthy and elite, a meaning derived from the German culture . It denotes the proper, sophisticated, refined way of acting or behaving. This definition of culture still exists in some circles, but it makes judgments along class lines and implicates the commonly accepted idea of “race” as a viable entity instead of explaining what culture is.

In an attempt to explore and broaden the meaning of the term, Paul Hiebert explains that culture is the “learned patterns of behavior, ideas and products characteristic of a society.” Leslie White agrees with Hiebert’s definition on the transmission of the patterns of behavior, but she differs a bit on how people learn these patterns. She says that we learn structured behavioral patterns unconsciously.

Although Hiebert and White explain culture in terms of how it generally spreads, Francis Merrill and Wenthworth Eldredge are more precise on the question of how people absorb and acquire culture. To them, culture directionally moves inside-out and up-down, or from the family to the community and from elders to youngsters, which encompasses the enculturation and acculturation process. Merrill and Eldredge say, “Culture is a continuous and growing whole, acquiring new elements as it is handed down from generation to generation and spreading to groups and peoples.”

From a sociological point of view, culture takes on a slightly different meaning. Bryce Ryan, for example, interprets culture as the composition of “things” such as norms, symbols, artifacts, technologies, the purpose of life and the concepts of right and wrong. While this part of Ryan’s definition excludes people, he also says that society transforms these “things” into a body of knowledge that expresses ideas and ways of life through human interaction, which defines the values of all groups of people.

In contrast to the anthropological and sociological group/family-centered perspective, the concept of the historical process colors the historian’s view of culture.

Cultural anthropology, an applied perspective

Invitation to social and cultural anthropology

Encyclopedia of social and cultural anthropology

Humanity, an introduction to cultural anthropology

Cultural anthropology, the human challenge