#weekly assignment

Original Submission:

Culture, a complicated, convoluted idea that everyone understands subliminally but fails to describe in words. Technically, it's the combination of similar arts, ideas, practices, mannerisms, and tendencies that have been cultivated through the presence of a people. To me, culture is like a botanical garden, it's full of various similar elements that all interact and build upon each other. It has its own sets of behavior and practices needed to sustain it. For without, the garden can die along with any flora exclusive to it.

I think anthropologists like to study culture because you can poke and prod at it and still learn something new. They immerse themselves in it, commit to the fieldwork of analyzing a group's culture by living in it. They become the plants in the garden, they study how the flora grows and acts and how outside forces interact with it.

Revision Statement: This assignment was probably the hardest one to revise simply because I believe that my thoughts were all over the place on how to complete it. I decided on taking out the botanical metaphor because I could not find any reasonable way to keep it in. I made sure the list the six elements of culture and provide examples for the lecture and the articles from that week.

Revised Submission:

Culture, a complicated, convoluted idea that everyone understands subliminally but fails to describe in words. Technically, it is the combination of similar arts, ideas, practices, mannerisms, and tendencies that have been cultivated through the presence of a people. There are six aspects of culture. The first one is symbolic, it can hold an arbitrary and conventional meaning, a culture can be packed with many symbols that hold importance in one culture but are mundane in another. An example of this would be the American flag. For Americans, the flag can mean something positive, something that requires a high value of respect; while in other cultures (and in other countries) the flag is simply a flag or may represent some negative aspects of American culture, like nationalism, exploitation, and oppression of others.

Secondly, culture is adaptive, it’s directly affected by its environment, for groups of people that live in Northern parts of the world, they may develop a practice of wearing clothing more suitable for colder temperatures, but they don’t wear winter clothing all year. During the times where it is warmer, the people will adapt and don clothing suitable for warmer months.

Thirdly, culture is patterned, it has routine images and practices that may depict a certain idea. Like traditionally western ideas about gender and the distinction between girlhood and boyhood. Girlhood is depicted by images of toys that involve dolls, dress-up, domesticity, and lots of “feminine” colors like pink, purple, yellow, and pastels, as well as behavior that is “lady-like”, being doting, kind, graceful and delicate. Meanwhile, boyhood is depicted by images of toys that involve trucks, cars, action, and sports with colors like green, blue, orange, and black, and behavior that is meant to show “dominance” like confidence, pride, cockiness, and even anger. This aspect of culture molds people at an early age into what they are supposed to be in the case of gender.

Culture is also dynamic; it can change over time and develop into something new. With time, the notion of gender roles and the culture surrounding it have changed. It is starting to be accepted that people can do what ever they want or what ever they need regardless of the gender attached to it.

Lastly, culture is shared and learned. A culture is created by a group of people, not one person. Every practice, symbol, and idea has been taught somehow and someway; it has been passed down from generation to generation. For example, the way Americans think about other groups of people, like Muslim women, is heavily rooted in ethnocentrism. Americans may believe that Muslim women need to be liberated because they are heavily oppressed with one of those aspects being their clothing. While in reality, Muslim women may choose to where the veil or headscarf, they are not forced to. For them, it may be religious choice or just personal reasonings, either way, it is not anyone’s place to speak on that matter except for that Muslim woman. For Americans, we have been taught that wearing what we want is a way of self-expression, a type of freedom that we have and are entitled to simply because we are American. The problem comes when we try to apply our American ideas to every problem in every country in the world. We the covering of Muslim women as an issue of super modesty therefore, a restraint of self-expression and freedom.

I think anthropologists like to study culture because you can poke and prod at it and still learn something new. They immerse themselves in it, commit to the fieldwork of analyzing a group's culture by living in it. They may participate in rituals and daily practices that the people they’re studying do, if they are allowed. For example, when Geertz talks about the cock fights, he does not actually participate in the fight, but he watches it and gets into with everyone that is also watching it.

Original Submission:

In Pathogenic Policing, Dr. Kline explores the effects that extensive policing has on the health of immigrants in Atlanta, Georgia, the connections between police surveillance and the challenges to maintaining healthy well-being are prominent to a time where advocacy and calls to solve the countries’ major problems. Through the personal accounts and experiences of people that face the frontal assault of immigrant policing.

 One thing that stood out to me and in fact helped me understand was how the police would set up so many checkpoints in areas that had a high number of Latinos in the area and the type of racial profiling it was. They would set up in these areas believing that would find undocumented immigrants due to the amount of Latinos residing in that area as if an undocumented immigrant can’t be someone that’s white. While it wasn’t surprising that the authorities had a preconceived idea of what an undocumented immigrant looks like, it was how organized and strategic their ways of policing certain communities that stood out to me.

 Another thing was how people adapted to what they didn’t have or what they couldn’t afford, instead of going to a doctor many people would go to an equivalent to get what they needed. “If we’re sick we just go to the farmacia at Centro Hispanico. They get shipments in from Mexico so you go and tell the person there what you have and they give you something” (Kline 74). Since they could not rely on the American health system to do them justice and ensure their own security, many immigrants took it into their own hands. Not to mention, the type of jobs many immigrants work do not allow or incorporate sick time/ doctor visits, one would have to either suffer through their ailment or use whatever they can to help with recovery. It’s a matter of live and manage without what you really need.

 Revision Statement: Based on the feedback of this assignment, I took into account referring course materials mentioned in the semester and connecting it to Dr. Kline’s work.

 Revised Submission:

In Pathogenic Policing, Dr. Kline explores the effects that extensive policing has on the health of immigrants in Atlanta, Georgia, the connections between police surveillance and the challenges to maintaining healthy well-being are prominent to a time where advocacy and calls to solve the countries’ major problems. Through the personal accounts and experiences of people that face the frontal assault of immigrant policing.

 One thing that stood out to me and in fact helped me understand was how the police would set up so many checkpoints in areas that had a high number of Latinos in the area and the type of racial profiling it was. They would set up in these areas believing that would find undocumented immigrants due to the amount of Latinos residing in that area as if an undocumented immigrant can’t be someone that’s white. While it wasn’t surprising that the authorities had a preconceived idea of what an undocumented immigrant looks like, it was how organized and strategic their ways of policing certain communities that stood out to me.

 Another thing was how people adapted to what they didn’t have or what they couldn’t afford, instead of going to a doctor many people would go to an equivalent to get what they needed. “If we’re sick we just go to the farmacia at Centro Hispanico. They get shipments in from Mexico so you go and tell the person there what you have and they give you something” (Kline 74). Since they could not rely on the American health system to do them justice and ensure their own security, many immigrants took it into their own hands. Not to mention, the type of jobs many immigrants work do not allow or incorporate sick time/ doctor visits, one would have to either suffer through their ailment or use whatever they can to help with recovery. It’s a matter of living and manage without what you really need.

 Overall, the injustices committed against undocumented immigrants and their health is a result of Johan Galtung’s structural violence, while the government would deliberately try to cut off any chances for undocumented immigrants to find healthcare and to even exist in the U.S., there are corporations that want undocumented immigrants to come so they can have cheap labor. Things like the police’s involvement with tracking immigrants all feed into the system that outwardly oppresses undocumented immigrants.

Original Submission:

In Rachel Heiman’s Driving After Class, an ethnographic study on the anxieties that the middle-class face in the suburbs of the 90s, two things that were interesting to me were the idea of “rugged entitlement” and “common sense”.

Gramsci’s definition of “common sense” is defined as “the uncritical, unconscious way of perceiving that is deeply ingrained and is part of how we act and feel without thinking” (35). The term also describes common sense as a way of acting on instinct and can be a byproduct of “habitus” or “the dispositions that we acquire as we grow up within certain material and social conditions” (36). The way one may act in a particular circumstance or approach a certain idea can be explained by habitus and common sense. In the case of the middle class, the sense of security exudes a behavior considered normative (habitus) and eventually changes the way a person may think about it or any subjects about it (common sense).

The phrase “rugged entitlement”, derived from the phrase rugged individualism, is the middle class’ vice grip on obtaining the new American Dream of stability that is post-war. In other words “who struggled to make that dream a reality for themselves and their children as it was becoming increasing fragile…” (38). That fragility causes the middle class to become more vigilant of their standing in society and avoid any chances of that standing changing for the worst. The middle class must look for opportunities that only benefit themselves and promote class ascension into the upper class of America.

 Revision Statement: Based on the feedback I received by the TA on this week’s assignment, I made sure to include examples from the ethnography.

 Revised Submission:

In Rachel Heiman’s Driving After Class, an ethnographic study on the anxieties that the middle-class face in the suburbs of the 90s, two things that were interesting to me were the idea of “rugged entitlement” and “common sense”.

Gramsci’s definition of “common sense” is defined as “the uncritical, unconscious way of perceiving that is deeply ingrained and is part of how we act and feel without thinking” (35). The term also describes common sense as a way of acting on instinct and can be a byproduct of “habitus” or “the dispositions that we acquire as we grow up within certain material and social conditions” (36). The way one may act in a particular circumstance or approach a certain idea can be explained by habitus and common sense. An example of this would be what Nancy mentions as peoples need to stay with the “in crowd” whether it’s buy up large houses to present a front of financial wealth, despite those houses being empty (84).In the case of the middle class, the sense of security exudes a behavior considered normative (habitus) and eventually changes the way a person may think about it or any subjects about it (common sense).

The phrase “rugged entitlement”, derived from the phrase rugged individualism, is the middle class’ vice grip on obtaining the new American Dream of stability that is post-war. In other words, “who struggled to make that dream a reality for themselves and their children as it was becoming increasing fragile…” (38). That fragility causes the middle class to become more vigilant of their standing in society and avoid any chances of that standing changing for the worst. The middle class must look for opportunities that only benefit themselves and promote class ascension into the upper class of America. I think a good example of this is the incident with someone (of upper-class status) wanting to build a tall fence on their property because they are “entitled” to flaunt their wealth and ability to simply do so. However, there are those in the middle-class that are against people putting up those gates because they feel as if they will miss out, they fail to hold the same expendable ability to build a ridiculously tall fence around their property and become like the rich people in the area.

Revision Statement:  For this week’s assignment, I took into account that I didn’t answer the second portion of the prompt adequately enough, I failed to mention how language is different from other forms of communication. Something that stood out based on Hockett’s listed design features is the arbitrary and discreet features that a can be another form of communication besides language. I would have made sure to include how this form of messaging is also used in the Animal Crossing universe, such as always waving or acknowledging other villagers as your avatar enters or exits a public space or even the use of “reactions” to convey emotions without speaking. I would have also expanded more on why linguistic anthropologists are interested in studying the connection between language and culture. Like mentioning how a group’s culture can cause a language to develop variations and dialects depending on the location of a group as well as mention the use of code-switching, or the ability to utilize the different variations of a language. I would probably even mention how this reflects in Animal Crossing, with many villagers having different voice pitches.

Original Submission:

Dear Pac-Man,

I hope this letter finds you well and not intruding on your favorite pastime. While I'm aware that you may not care as much as the next video character, and you'd rather get chased by ghosts for another 20 years before even comprehending what we humans have got going on. But have you ever questioned how your creators came to be? (You might want to or else you wouldn't be here.) Why they placed you in a maze to gobble dots and get terrorized by a gaggle of ghosts for our enjoyment? First of all, I'll make this as easy to understand as possible (I get it, sometimes I feel like a floating circle too.) but that thing that analyzes how and what your creators came to be is called anthropology, or the study of humans. It's like thinking constantly, why do people do what they do? Like how we wonder why you only get so many chances to attack those stupid ghosts, we really don't know. Some may chalk it up to your creator's liking to make things complicated for the average player or maybe you get a kick out of getting chased by ghosts that sound like a kids bop group. (I won't judge you.) There are many branches of anthropology. Like linguistic anthropology, the study of how humans structure language. For example, think about why you don't have to speak a distinct language and can live out your purpose by only saying "paku-paku". Or biological anthropology and how your body structure contributes to how you eat pixels, occasional fruit, and dodge ghosts, I won't even begin to comprehend how you can live off that kind of sustenance. I could also mention archeology or what others would classify as the remnants of vintage arcade game sets of your game all the way to Atari game consoles from the 1980s. And most importantly, cultural anthropology, how and why you became so popular worldwide, and maybe why people have large statues dedicated to you in arcades for some reason (I'm really serious, look it up.) In other words, what is considered normal for you and how it compares to others (both humans and other video game characters). The uniqueness of this subject comes from being able to question anything and every aspect of something, flip on its head, remix it, reverb it, and everything in between. Allowing for you to remove yourself from the atmosphere and find answers to the questions you may ask during an existential crisis (or not). When you're not gobbling pebbles and playing tag with ghosts, I hope you take the time to wonder why you do the way you do.

Sincerely,

Margaret Andrews

P.S I just realized that you're a literal puck and you probably can't read this nor comprehend what I'm talking about. But if you actually can, I better get a response from this Mr. Pac-Man.

 Revised Version:

Dear Pac-Man,

I hope this letter finds you well and not intruding on your favorite pastime. While I'm aware that you may not care as much as the next video character, and you'd rather get chased by ghosts for another 20 years before even comprehending what we humans have got going on. But have you ever questioned how your creators came to be? (You might want to or else you wouldn't be here.) Why they placed you in a maze to gobble dots and get terrorized by a gaggle of ghosts for our enjoyment? First of all, I'll make this as easy to understand as possible (I get it, sometimes I feel like a floating circle too.) but that thing that analyzes how and what your creators came to be is called anthropology, or the study of humans. It's like thinking constantly, why do people do what they do? Like how we wonder why you only get so many chances to attack those stupid ghosts, we really don't know. Some may chalk it up to your creator's liking to make things complicated for the average player or maybe you get a kick out of getting chased by ghosts that sound like a kids bop group. (I won't judge you.)

There are many branches of anthropology. Like linguistic anthropology, the study of how humans structure language. For example, think about why you don't have to speak a distinct language and can live out your purpose by only saying "paku-paku". Something a linguistic anthropologist may study the influence that language has within a group of people or the extent that communication has in a society. Or biological anthropology and how your body structure contributes to how you eat pixels, occasional fruit, and dodge ghosts, I won't even begin to comprehend how you can live off that kind of sustenance. A biological anthropologist may even study how factors like race or class have an effect on the human body’s health or study notions of disease and illness. I could also mention archeology or what others would classify as the remnants of vintage arcade game sets of your game all the way to Atari game consoles from the 1980s. An archeologists may conduct a study to compare how video game consoles from the 80s compare to present day ones and may even come up with way to make more innovative. And most importantly, cultural anthropology, how and why you became so popular worldwide, and maybe why people have large statues dedicated to you in arcades for some reason (I'm really serious, look it up.) In other words, what is considered normal for you and how it compares to others (both humans and other video game characters).

Unlike the other social sciences, anthropology involves a different set of skills and procedures to conduct anthropological research. For starters, fieldwork is a method conducted by obtaining data the subject they’re studying. This all falls under doing something called an ethnography which is the act of studying the everyday lives/practices of a subject as well as what the compilation of research and data is titled. The uniqueness of this subject comes from being able to question anything and every aspect of something, flip on its head, remix it, reverb it, and everything in between. Allowing for you to remove yourself from the atmosphere and find answers to the questions you may ask during an existential crisis (or not). When you're not gobbling pebbles and playing tag with ghosts, I hope you take the time to wonder why you do the way you do.

Sincerely,

Margaret Andrews

P.S I just realized that you're a literal puck and you probably can't read this nor comprehend what I'm talking about. But if you actually can, I better get a response from this Mr. Pac-Man.

 Revision Statement:

On this week’s assignment, I received helpful feedback from both my peer and TA. I took into account an organization issue that my peer brought up and separated my text for more comprehensive reading. I also accepted suggests from the TA, to expand more on the fields of anthropology as well as answering the last part of the prompt.

Original Submission:

Subsistence is the set of practices by which a group of people maintain and support their minimal needs, generally to acquire food. Humans for years have created modes of subsistence: foraging, pastoralism, horticulture, and agriculture. The many modes place emphasis on various ways to obtain food, like foraging, the first and oldest of the four, only hunting and gathering wild food for small populations to agriculture, the newest form, focusing on the mass domestication of plants and animals by means to produce food for larger populations.  

Economics is the study of how people organize their resources and its relation to subsistence follows the diverse methods humans have taken to maintain resources through modes of production. There are four types: domestic, tributary, capitalist, and socialist; these modes of production act with the means of production, the use of raw materials to create goods. The domestic mode of production follows the organization of production with a focus on the family and kin relations and highlights collective ownership of profits. People in the domestic structure either forage for food and/or participate in horticulture to raise their own crops and in the end, reap the benefits of their harvest. The tributary mode of production is production of products that pays tribute to a higher power, most commonly a lord, or noble that owns the land. If the occasion comes where a producer has a surplus of a product, they are allowed to keep such. For example, sharecropping, where the producers worked the land and gave their produce to their higher power yet would only have enough surplus to barely live off. This type of mode predates capitalist modes. Capitalist is the most popular and the most recent, is characterized by the private ownership and mostly produced by labor-intensive jobs over the producing for oneself and inner circle. A worker wouldn’t have any control over what goods they help mass produce and fail to gain any surplus from product production. Socialist is also a popular mode and is commonly compared to capitalism in the case of who “owns” the means of production, in this case, it’s the public or social ownership.

Historically, humans have organized themselves into smaller groups of kin or common traits with egalitarian characteristics and equal leadership, like bands and tribes to the modern state with a focus on centralized non-egalitarian power that capitalizes on force to maintain power (ie. the police, military, law). The main distinguishes of these political forms comes from where the power is and how the people organize them. People in a tribe can universalize a decision and responsibility and have direct input of norms, but a state relies on a select group of people to make and maintain decisions, sometimes the people choose them and sometimes they don’t. The state is unstable in this case because there is no egalitarian power or direct say from the people, thus leading to the eventual overthrow of the leaders if they fail to do the people’s bidding.

Revised Submission: 

Subsistence is the set of practices by which a group of people maintain and support their minimal needs, generally to acquire food. Humans for years have created modes of subsistence: foraging, pastoralism, horticulture, and agriculture. The many modes place emphasis on various ways to obtain food, like foraging, the first and oldest of the four, only hunting and gathering wild food for small populations to agriculture, the newest form, focusing on the mass domestication of plants and animals by means to produce food for larger populations.  

Economics is the study of how people organize their resources and its relation to subsistence follows the diverse methods humans have taken to maintain resources through modes of production. There are four types: domestic, tributary, capitalist, and socialist; these modes of production act with the means of production, the use of raw materials to create goods. The domestic mode of production follows the organization of production with a focus on the family and kin relations and highlights collective ownership of profits. People in the domestic structure either forage for food and/or participate in horticulture to raise their own crops and in the end, reap the benefits of their harvest.

The tributary mode of production is production of products that pays tribute to a higher power, most commonly a lord, or noble that owns the land. If the occasion comes where a producer has a surplus of a product, they are allowed to keep such. For example, sharecropping, where the producers worked the land and gave their produce to their higher power yet would only have enough surplus to barely live off. This type of mode predates capitalist modes.

Capitalist is the most popular and the most recent, is characterized by the private ownership and mostly produced by labor-intensive jobs over the producing for oneself and inner circle. A worker wouldn’t have any control over what goods they help mass produce and fail to gain any surplus from product production. Socialist is also a popular mode and is commonly compared to capitalism in the case of who “owns” the means of production, in this case, it’s the public or social ownership.

Historically, humans have organized themselves into smaller groups of kin or common traits with egalitarian characteristics and equal leadership, like bands and tribes to the modern state with a focus on centralized non-egalitarian power that capitalizes on force to maintain power (ie. the police, military, law). The main distinguishes of these political forms comes from where the power is and how the people organize them. People in a tribe can universalize a decision and responsibility and have direct input of norms, but a state relies on a select group of people to make and maintain decisions, sometimes the people choose them and sometimes they don’t. The state is unstable in this case because there is no egalitarian power or direct say from the people, thus leading to the eventual overthrow of the leaders if they fail to do the people’s bidding.

Sex is the biological categorization of bodies and the inclusion of phenotypic and morphological traits. While gender is the meanings a society assigns to actions or social relations as either feminine, masculine, or androgynous persons. For the record, both sex and gender do not exist in a binary and are fluid. In the Western world, we heavily believe in the binary and enforce it the building blocks of our society. But in societies before European contact, gender existed fluidly but was reported as a form of homosexuality within the ethnocentric context of Europe. Another example is within the US as sex and gender are often believed to be the same and are interchangeable with each other, this ethnocentric thinking limits our perspective in the case of viewing sex and gender and ultimately leaves out a range of people, like the exclusion of people that are intersex or individuals who are born with/develop genitalia that is atypical from what is distinguished as male or female.

Anthropologists have established the existence of the spectrum to gender and sex and being fluid, but they also recognize that other cultures may still use the underlying binary system in distinct ways. For example, societies may have religious rituals sanctioned only for “men” and ones only sanctioned for “women”, there are sections of a home that are for the “men” and for the “women”. In the case of sexuality, anthropologists believe that each societies have their own approach to the understanding of sexuality, especially in its relation to reproduction and the concept of marriage.

Kinship is a term used to describe the relationship between members of a family. Depending on the part of the world, societies may define familiar structures in their culture like matrilineal descent, or the kinship based on the relationships of mothers and their children, and patrilineal descent, the kinship based on the relationships of fathers and their children. According to anthropologists, the family structure allows for the facilitation of sexuality along with defining the roles of the parents and the children, even if it’s not by blood. For example, within the ball community in the 80s and early 90s, (and the Drag community) houses were created as communities and families for homeless LGBTQ+ youth, with parental figures known as “Mothers” to take of and look after the “children”. These found families were created as a byproduct of homeless queer youth being denied of the familial love from their birth families.

Revision Statement: On this week’s assignment, I received good feedback from both my peer and TA with a note that no revisions were needed.