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Cultural ecology as developed by Steward is a major subdiscipline of anthropology. It derives from the work of Franz Boas and has branched out to cover a number of aspects of human society, in particular the distribution of wealth and power in a society, and how that affects such behaviour as hoarding or gifting (e.g. the tradition of the potlatch on the Northwest North American coast).
According to many theories that have gained wide acceptance among anthropologists, culture exhibits the way that humans interpret their biology and their environment. According to this point of view, culture becomes such an integral part of human existence that it is the human environment, and most cultural change can be attributed to human ...
Cultural determinism is the belief that the culture in which we are raised determines who we are at emotional and behavioral levels. [1] It contrasts with genetic determinism , the theory that biologically inherited traits and the environmental influences that affect those traits dominate who we are.
Memetics models cultural change after population genetics, taking cultural units to be analogous to genes. [1] A good example of this theory is found by looking to the reason large businesses tend to grow larger. The answer includes the benefits of mass production and distribution, international advertising, and more funds for product development.
Cultural relativism involves specific epistemological and methodological claims. Whether or not these claims require a specific ethical stance is a matter of debate. This principle should not be confused with moral relativism. Cultural relativism was in part a response to Western ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism may take obvious forms, in which one ...
Biocultural anthropology can be defined in numerous ways. It is the scientific exploration of the relationships between human biology and culture. [1] " Instead of looking for the underlying biological roots of human behavior, biocultural anthropology attempts to understand how culture affects our biological capacities and limitations."
Florence Kluckhohn and Fred Strodtbeck suggested alternate answers to all five, developed culture-specific measures of each, and described the value orientation profiles of five southwestern United States cultural groups. Their theory has since been tested in many other cultures, and used to help negotiating ethnic groups understand one another ...
Culture became the unit of analysis. The first ecological anthropologists explored the idea that humans as ecological populations should be the unit of analysis, and culture became the means by which that population alters and adapts to the environment. It was characterised by systems theory, functionalism and negative feedback analysis. [5]