Understanding and studying culture

The second chapter focuses on the central concept of culture. Approached as a matter not only of knowledge but of embodied skill, the chapter begins with Tylor's famous definition of culture and then explores key features of culture, including the fact that it is learned, shared, symbolic, integrated, and adaptive. The process of enculturation is introduced, along with Ralph Linton's modes of cultural distribution. The qualities of production, practice, circulation, and emplacement are stressed, and it is shown that individuals do not mindlessly enact culture but rather that culture is a resource and a constraint in individual decision-making. The chapter then turns to the biological basis of culture, relating the possibility of culture to basic primate physical and social traits and to human evolution. Next, anthropological methods for studying culture are discussed, emphasizing fieldwork and participant observation, including contemporary multi-sited ethnography. This necessarily leads to a concluding consideration of ethics in anthropological research.