The concept of culture in American anthropology

Abstract

This dissertation is a collection of essays on the concept of culture in American cultural anthropology. Culture has been a key concept in American anthropology but anthropologists have recently been criticised for representing culture as too coherent and historically static. While there is an agreement that culture must have some coherence to have any meaning, too much emphasis on coherence gives the impression that culture is static. These essays examine this problem by considering the work of leading American anthropologists to whom it has been a central concern. The dissertation assesses the various contributions made by these researches to what has been an unfolding debate. It argues that tlie problem first emerged through Boas's theory of culture history which raised the question: Has culture, in order to have any meaning, to be conceptualised as an integrated, autonomous system? That again raises the question: How can culture as an autonomous system change historically? These essays suggest that a complete answer to the question has not been given by symbolic anthropology which can be criticised for placing consciousness in a symbolic system outside the world. The dissertation concludes by considering the work of other researchers who propose that the problem might be overcome by placing the conscious social person in a continuous field of social relations. The dissertation argues that the sources of culture are to be sought in human action situated in a field of social relations.