Symbolic Anthropology
The theoretical school of Symbolic Anthropology assumes that culture does not exist beyond individuals. Rather, culture lies in individuals’ interpretations of events and things around them. With a reference to socially established signs and symbols, people shape the patterns of their behaviors and give meanings to their experiences. Therefore, the goal of Symbolic Anthropology is to analyze how people give meanings to their reality and how this reality is expressed by their cultural symbols.
Symbolic Anthropology emerged in the 1960s and is still influential. Symbolic Anthropology does not follow the model of physical sciences, which focus on empirical material phenomena. The Symbolic Anthropologists view culture as a mental phenomenon and reject the idea that culture can be modeled like mathematics or logic. When they study symbolic action in cultures, they use a variety of analytical tools from psychology, history, and literature. This method has been criticized for a lack of objective method. In other words, this method seems to allow analysts to see meaning wherever and however they wish. In spite of this criticism, Symbolic Anthropology has forced anthropologists to become aware of cultural texts they interpret and of ethnographic texts they create. In order to work as intercultural translators, anthropologists need to be aware of their own cultural basis as well as other cultures they research.
Source:
-
McGee, R. Jon and Richard L. Warms. 2004 Anthropological Theory: An Introductory History. New York: McGraw Hill.
Clifford Geertz
(1926-Present, The United States)