AN    INTERNATIONAL     JOURNAL     OF
CULTURAL  AND SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Volume 39, no. 4 (Fall 2000)

INTRODUCTION: UNITS FOR DESCRIBING AND ANALYZING CULTURE AND SOCIETY

Victor de Munck
State University of New York, New Paltz

Cross-cultural research currently has a refugee status in anthropology. I explain why this is so by briefly tracing the history of cross-cultural research from the time of Tylor to the present. The main problem for ethnologists has been to define and develop adequate and equivalent cultural units for cross-cultural comparison. I argue that this is also a problem for ethnographers. I conclude with a brief review of the articles in this edition, each of which takes a different approach to addressing the cultural units problem. (Cultural units, ethnology, ethnography, method, nomothetic theories)

DISTRIBUTIONAL INSTABILITY AND THE UNITS OF CULTURE

John B. Gatewood
Lehigh University

The analytical approach is familiar, powerful, and compelling, but not all scientific understanding builds upon discrete elemental units and their combinatorics. The question this essay addresses is whether the analytical approach is appropriate for the study of human culture. Does culture have clearly identifiable, distributionally stable parts sufficient to justify the particulate mode of understanding? Is culture comprised of elemental units, or is it merely convenient to think of it this way? The essay suggests that the quest for natural units of culture is a doomed undertaking. There will be no periodic chart for culture grounded in stable, essential properties, whether at the level of culture traits and complexes or at the cognitive level of ideas and schemata. On the other hand, various methods of data elicitation can produce replicable and superficially discrete results, which gives some hope for the possibility of a methodological particulatism. (Units of culture, cultural boundaries, traits, methodological particulatism

CULTURAL MEANING, EXPLANATIONS OF ILLNESS, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPARATIVE FRAMEWORKS

Linda C. Garro
University of California at Los Angeles

Starting with the cultural domain of illness and considering the issue of cross-cultural comparisons at the level of meaning, this article discusses the cognitive anthropological approach taken in my research, specifically examining the use of structured interview methods and the collection of illness case histories for cross-cultural comparative endeavors. I situate my own work in relation to several past attempts to construct conceptual schemes for comparing theories of illness causation across cultures. Based on my analysis, I suggest that the tension between existing comparative schemes and efforts to understand how illness is culturally constituted in specific locations can be productively used to construct a comparative framework that remains open to ethnographic possibilities (cf. Hallowell 1960:359). (Cross-cultural comparisons, theories of illness, Ojibway, Tarascan

CULTURAL UNITS IN CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH

Victor de Munck
State University of New York, New Paltz

Andrey Korotayev
Russian State University for the Humanities

In 1889, Galton argued that often traits diffuse across cultures and therefore we could never really know if cultural traits arose independently as adaptive responses or were a result of diffusion. With numerous hypothetical and actual examples we show that, statistically, there are no mechanical fixes to this problem. We conclude by asserting that each cross-cultural research question should find its own solution to Galton's problem and that, in fact, this is not a problem at all, but rather an asset which can be used to trace historical networks. (Galton's problem, cultural units, community, language, megacultural regions, Standard Cross-Cultural Sample)

TESTING THEORY AND WHY THE “UNITS OF ANALYSIS” PROBLEM IS NOT A PROBLEM

Melvin Ember
Human Relations Area Files

Carol R. Ember
Human Relations Area Files

This article discusses why cross-cultural comparison is possible and why theory needs to be tested universally. It discusses why worldwide cross-cultural results are likely to be more generally valid (and more useful practically) than more limited comparisons, and certainly more generalizable or trustworthy than single-case analyses or theory that has never been tested. Answers are provided for the main objections to worldwide cross-cultural research: the supposed incomparability of cultural traits, the supposed incomparability of units of analysis, the supposed impossibility of unbiased sampling, and what is known as “Galton's problem.” (Theory, testing, cross-cultural, units)

WRITING CULTURE RELIABLY: THE ANALYSIS OF HIGH-CONCORDANCE CODES

Garry Chick
Pennsylvania State University

Although ethnography has traditionally been regarded as high in validity, the assessment of reliability in anthropological field research is very difficult. Fortunately, forms of systematic data collection exist that lend themselves both to reliability testing and replication. The analysis of culture in terms of the high-concordance codes that compose systemic culture patterns is a way to generate reliable data and replicable studies. (High-concordance codes, systemic culture patterns, cultural consensus analysis, culture theory, reliability)

PARALLEL-COUSIN (FBD) MARRIAGE, ISLAMIZATION, AND ARABIZATION

Andrey Korotayev
Russian State University for the Humanities

Islamization, along with an area's inclusion in the eighth-century Arab-Islamic Khalifate (and its persistence within the Islamic world) is a strong and significant predictor of parallel-cousin (FBD) marriage. While there is a clear functional connection between Islam and FBD marriage, the prescription to marry a FBD does not appear to be sufficient to persuade people to actually marry thus, even if the marriage brings with it economic advantages. A systematic acceptance of parallel-cousin marriage took place when Islamization occurred together with Arabization. (Cross-cultural research, Middle East, marriage, Galton's problem)