Exam 13: Symbols, Structures, and the Web of Significance

According to anthropologist Sherry Ortner, "men" are on the side of "nature" because of their work outside the home, while women are on the side of "culture" because of their role in raising (enculturating) children.

Geertz argues that generalizations about human thought and behavior (for example, that "all people have supernatural beliefs") are basically meaningless, in that they fail to help us understand the belief systems of specific cultures.

According to Victor Turner, all symbols are multivocal in that they present multiple meanings to the members of society.

One criticism of ethnoscience is that, while our knowledge may be organized taxonomically, the taxonomies of different people are probably organized in different ways.

Anthropologist William Roseberry criticizes Geertz's article on the Balinese cockfight for ignoring the broader gender, historical, and political context of Balinese (Indonesian) society.

Like Marvin Harris, Clifford Geertz defines culture as human behavior and the shared traditions that guide it.

Daniel Ingersoll argues that advertisers in the U.S. promote their products by invoking the attributes of family, love, cooperation, and security, all of which fall on the "culture" side of the culture-nature opposition.

According to Claude Lévi-Strauss, the "structure" that underlies all cultural behavior is a mental process involving binary oppositions.

The task of anthropology, according to Geertz, is to produce a single, authoritative interpretation of culture that all readers would agree with.

Lévi-Strauss originally derived his ideas about cannibalism from observing dietary patterns in France, where guests were served roast chicken and family was served boiled chicken.