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    An Anthropological Conceptualization of Self: The Self As Embedded in Culture

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    Angel Rose K. Pasamante
    The document discusses how anthropology views the self as embedded within culture. It argues that both biological and cultural factors influence the development of self-awareness and identity. Culture provides patterns of behavior and understanding that guide how people see themselves and others, though notions of self may vary across cultures. While individuals have innate qualities, their identity is shaped by the sociocultural environment they live in through processes like socialization, rites of passage, and interaction with others.

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    An Anthropological Conceptualization of Self: The Self As Embedded in Culture

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    Angel Rose K. Pasamante
    135 views18 pages
    The document discusses how anthropology views the self as embedded within culture. It argues that both biological and cultural factors influence the development of self-awareness and identity. Culture provides patterns of behavior and understanding that guide how people see themselves and others, though notions of self may vary across cultures. While individuals have innate qualities, their identity is shaped by the sociocultural environment they live in through processes like socialization, rites of passage, and interaction with others.

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    Understanding The Self

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    ANTHROPOLOGICAL-CONCEPTUALIZATION-OF-SELF

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    The document discusses how anthropology views the self as embedded within culture. It argues that both biological and cultural factors influence the development of self-awareness and identity. Culture provides patterns of behavior and understanding that guide how people see themselves and others, though notions of self may vary across cultures. While individuals have innate qualities, their identity is shaped by the sociocultural environment they live in through processes like socialization, rites of passage, and interaction with others.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    135 views18 pages

    An Anthropological Conceptualization of Self: The Self As Embedded in Culture

    Uploaded by

    Angel Rose K. Pasamante
    The document discusses how anthropology views the self as embedded within culture. It argues that both biological and cultural factors influence the development of self-awareness and identity. Culture provides patterns of behavior and understanding that guide how people see themselves and others, though notions of self may vary across cultures. While individuals have innate qualities, their identity is shaped by the sociocultural environment they live in through processes like socialization, rites of passage, and interaction with others.

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    of 18

    AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL

    CONCEPTUALIZATION OF SELF: THE


    SELF AS EMBEDDED IN CULTURE
    “ We are each a product of biological
    endowments, culture, and personal history.
    Culture ideology and cultural events along with
    transmitted cultural practices influences each of us.
    We are each the product of our collective
    interchanges… We are each a molecule in the
    helix of human consciousness joined in a physical
    world. We form a coil of connective tissue soldered
    together by cultural links.”
    -- Kilroy J. Oldster
    ANTHROPOLOGY
    Human societies and cultures and
    their development through time and
    space.
    Systematic study of humanity, with the
    goal of understanding our evolutionary
    origins, our distinctiveness as a species,
    and the great diversity.
    “NATURE” – refers to
    genetic inheritance which
    WHO “NURTURE” – refers to
    sets the individual’s
    potential AM I ? sociocultural environment

    - Anthropology considers human experience as an interplay of “nature” and


    “nurture”.
    - In other words, both biological and cultural factors have significant
    influence in the development of self-awareness among individuals within
    the society.
    THE CULTURAL CONSTRUCTION
    OF SELF AND IDENTITY
     CULTURE – “… complex whole which includes knowledge,
    belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits
    acquired by man as a member of society.” (Edward Tylor)
     Anthropologists have emphasized that culture is not behavior itself
    but the shared understandings that guide behavior and are expressed in
    behavior.
     Culture provides patterns of “ways of life”
     Being that culture is diverse, self and identity may have different
    meanings in different cultures.
    ETHNIC IDENTITY
    > sameness of the self with others, that is, to a
    consciousness of sharing certain characteristics (e.g.,
    language, culture, etc.) within a group.
    > This identity makes a human being a person and an
    acting individual.
    > The individual is neither a robot nor an entirely
    independent self-willed little god but is a cultural
    individual– existing in freedom but also embodying that
    cultural mold in which he/she is cast in his/her particular
    society and historical epoch.
    THERE ARE 2 SIDES OF IDENTITY
    FOUND IN EVERY PERSON IN
    EVERY CULTURE:

    THE EGOCENTRIC
    SELF

    AND

    THE SOCIOCENTRIC
    SELF
    EGOCENTRIC VIEW
    o the self is viewed as autonomous and distinct
    individual.
    o Defines each person as a replica of all
    humanity but capable of acting independently
    from others.
    o one who is without regard for the feelings or
    desires of others; self-centered.
    o each person is seen as a separate entity with
    characteristics which reside within an
    individual.
    SOCIOCENTRIC VIEW
    o the self is viewed as contingent on
    a situation or social setting.
    o view of the self that is context
    dependent.; there is no intrinsic self
    that can possess enduring qualities.
    o focuses on one’s own social group;
    socially oriented.
     For anthropologist Christie Kiefer, THE JAPANESE
    POSSESS A SOCIOCENTRIC VIEW OF THE SELF.
    INTERDEPENDENCE BETWEEN THE PERSON AND
    THE GROUP IS MORE VALUED THAN
    INDEPENDENCE.
     Chinese American anthropologist Francis Hsu attributes A
    SOCIOCENTRIC VIEW OF THE SELF TO THE
    CHINESE. CHINESE PRIORITIZE KIN TIES AND
    COOPERATION.
     AMERICANS TEND TO BE EGOCENTRIC. THEY
    BELIEVE THAT THEY SHOULD BE ASSERTIVE AND
    INDEPENDENT.
     IDENTITY TOOLBOX- refers to the “features of a person’s
    PERSONAL NAMING
    -- a universal practice with numerous cross-cultural variations
    establishes a child’s birthright and social identity.
    -- a NAME is an important device to individualize a person and at the
    same time becomes legitimate member of the group.
    -- Personal names in all societies are intimate markers of the person,
    differentiating individuals from others.
    -- There is no self if the individual is without name.
    ONE’S IDENTITY IS NOT INBORN
    It is something people continuously acquire in life.
    ARNOLD VAN GENNEP’S THREE-PHASED RITE OF
    PASSAGE:
    1. Separation – people detach from their former identity to another.
    2. Liminal – one has left one identity but has not yet entered or joined
    the next.
    3. Incorporation – the changes are incorporated into a new identity to
    elaborate rituals and ceremonies like church weddings, debutant balls,
    and college graduations.
    IN ADDITION….

    -- Individuals acquire their identities


    through rites of passage or initiation
    ceremonies.
    -- Initiation rituals make a person readily
    accept new wars of looking at him/herself
    and others.
    IDENTITY STRUGGLES > Anthony
    Wallace and Raymond Fogelson
    > “characterized interaction in which there
    is a discrepancy between the identity a
    person claims to possess and the identity
    attributed to that person by others.”
    o Golubovic suggests that in order to attain self-identification, individuals
    have to overcome many obstacles such as traditionally established habits and
    parental imposed self-image.
    o On the other hand, cognitive anthropologists suggest that in order to
    maintain a relatively stable and coherent self, the members of the
    multicultural society have no choice but to internalize divergent cultural
    models and should reject or suppress identifications that may conflict with
    other self-presentations.
    o Katherine Ewing’s ‘Illusion of Wholeness”
    o WORK ON YOURSELF
    THE SELF AS EMBEDDED IN
    CULTURE
    CULTURE
    • a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic
    forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate,
    and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward
    life. (Clifford Geertz)
    • Humans are considered as cultural animals as they create
    the meanings of objects, persons, behaviors, emotions,
    and events, and then behave in accordance to those
    meanings they assumed as true.
    GEERTZ’S TWO IMPORTANT IDEAS IN
    HIS ATTEMPT TO ILLUSTRATE AN
    ACCURATE IMAGE OF MAN:
    1. “Culture should not be perceived only as “complexes of
    concrete behavior patterns- customs, usages, traditions,
    habit clusters- as has, by and large, been the case up to
    now, but as a set of control mechanisms- plans, recipes,
    rules, instructions- for governing behavior and,
    2. man is precisely the animal most desperately dependent
    upon such extragenetic, outside-the-skin control
    mechanisms, such cultural programs, for ordering his
    behavior.”
    “WITHOUT MEN, NO
    CULTURE, CERTAINLY;
    BUT EQUALLY, AND
    MORE SIGNIFICANTLY,
    WITHOUT CULTURE, NO
    MEN.”
    -CSABA OSVATH
    ANY
    QUESTIONS??
    ?

    Thank you!

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