Culture and Anthropological Models.ppt - Culture and...

Culture and
Anthropological Models

Culture and
Anthropological Models

Cultural Evolution (Social Darwinism)

Structural Functionalism

Historical Particularism (Cultural
Relativism)

French Structuralism

Symbolic and Interpretive
Anthropology

Conflict Perspectives

Cultural Evolution

Best exemplified in
Edward B. Tylor’ s
work known as
Primitive Culture
(1871) and Lewis
Henry Morgan ’s work
named Ancient Society
(1877), this 19
th
century theory was one
of the earliest
approaches to human
societies and cultures.

Cultural Evolution

Also known as Social Darwinism, the notion of
Cultural Evolution is an attempt to apply
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution to human societies
and cultures. Cultural evolutionists believed that
the “survival of the fittest” dictates the fate of the
people.

According to these theorists, cultural evolution has
to be conceived in terms of stages through which
all societies progressed ; Western societies and
cultures are at the apex of the hierarchy of progress
while there are less-progressed cultures or
contemporary “survivals” of the earlier stages.

Structural Functionalism
