Cultural Survival

The increased contact among cultures has created

increased possibilities for the domination of one group by another, through various means. Development and Environmentalism Currently, domination comes most frequently in the form of core-based multinational corporations causing economic change in Third World cultures. It is noted that even well-intentioned interference (such as the environmentalist movement) may be treated as a form of cultural domination by subject populations.

Culture Clash
Two sources of culture clash: When development threatens indigenous peoples and their environments (e.g., Brazil and New Guinea). When external relations threaten indigenous peoples (e.g., Madagascar, where sweeping international environmental regulations affect traditional subsistence life-ways).

Resistance and Survival

Variation within Systems of Domination Scott (1990) differentiates between public and hidden transcripts

of culturally and politically oppressed peoples.

Public transcript refers to the open, public interactions between dominators and the oppressed. Hidden transcript refers to the critique of power that goes on offstage, where the dominators cannot see it.

Gramscis (1971) notion of hegemony applies to a politically

hierarchical system wherein in the dominant ideology of the elites has been internalized by members of the lower classes. Bourdieu (1977) and Foucault (1979) argue that it is much easier to control people's minds than try to control their bodies.

Weapons of the Weak

As James Scotts (Weapons of the Weak 1990)

work on Malay peasants suggests, oppressed groups may use subtle, nonconfrontational methods to resist various forms of domination.

Malay peasants protest the introduction of combine harvesters, steal things, and kill animals.

Examples of antiauthoritarian discourse include

rituals (e.g., Carnaval) and folk literature. Resistance is more likely to be public when the oppressed come together in groups (hence the antiassembly laws of the antebellum South).

Cultural Survival and Tourism

http://www.ecotour.org/destinations/kaku

m.htm http://www.maasai.com/maasai.htm

Cultural Imperialism
Cultural imperialism refers to the spread of one culture at

the expense of others usually because of differential economic or political influence. While mass media and related technology have contributed to the erosion of local cultures, they are increasingly being used as media for the outward diffusion of local cultures (e.g., television in Brazil). E.G. Satellite Dreaming-Australian Aborigines

The Broadcasting in Remote Aboriginal Communities Scheme (BRACS) enables Aboriginal communities to intercept incoming satellite signals from the ABC and substitute locally produced programming [Venner 1988, pp 37-43]. On mainstream television, Aboriginal windows provide limited episode current affairs programming for Aboriginal audiences.

Popular Culture
According to Fiske (1989), each individual's use of

popular culture is a creative act. Popular culture can be used to express resistance. Popular Culture is not simply a passive reception of mass produced cultural goods.

Indigenizing Popular Culture

Cultural forms exported from one culture to

another do not necessarily carry the same meaning from the former context to the latter context. Aboriginal interpretations of the movie Rambo demonstrate that meaning can be produced from a text, not by a text. Appadurais analysis of Philippine indigenization of some American music forms demonstrates the uniqueness of the indigenized form.

A World System of Images

Mass media can spread and create national and

ethnic identities. Cross-cultural studies show that locally produced television shows are preferred to foreign imports. Mass media plays an important role in maintaining ethnic and national identities among people who lead transnational lives.

Transnational Culture of Consumption

As with mass media, the flow of capital has become

decentralized, carrying with it the cultural influences of many different sources (e.g., the United States, Japan, Britain, Canada, Germany). Migrant labor also contributes to cultural diffusion.

Postmodernism
Postmodernity describes our time and situation--

todays world in flux, these people on the move who have learned to manage multiple identities depending on place and context. Postmodern refers to the collapsing of old distinctions, rules, canons, and the like. Postmodernism (derived from the architectural style) refers to the theoretical assertion and acceptance of multiple forms of rightness, in contradistinction to modernism, which was based in the assumed supremacy of Western technology and values.

Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasing

connectedness of the world and its peoples. With this connectedness, however, come new bases for identities (e.g., the Panindian identity growing among formerly disparate tribes). Postmodern moments refers to a series of personal examples bearing out global linkages.

The Continuance of Diversity

Anthropology has a crucial role to play in

promoting a more humanistic vision of social change, one that respects the value of cultural diversity. The existence of anthropology is itself a tribute to the continuing need to understand social and cultural similarities and differences.

Cultural Survival
http://www.cs.org/

Effects of Anthropology
If anthro is so super, why no bigger effect? more research than applied work. things published in Social Science Journal does not have much effect on Policy makers. Conflict between Policy and Anthros Cult. relativism and holism important to anthros but not the govt. Anthro studies take a long time, govt. want answers right away. Tensions between anthro ethics and govt.

Growing Areas of Anthropology

Medical Anthropology brings together biological and cultural aspects of health and medicine.

*i.e. We know the scientific name of tuberculosis is Myobacterium tuberculosis, but poverty and malnutrition are the main contributing factors. *i.e. the stigma attached to Aids.

Diseases are always experienced by people as mediated by their culture.

Development Anthropology concerned primarily with poverty, environment, disease, malnutrition, gender inequity, and ethnic conflict. Understand nature of development. Importance of long-term research. Sensitivity to environmental issues