INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE UNIT 3 ESSAY – CROSS CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF INSTITUTIONS BAC

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INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE UNIT 3 ESSAY – CROSS CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF INSTITUTIONS
BAC

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE UNIT 3 ESSAY – CROSS CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF INSTITUTIONS
BACKGROUND
By the 1940s Bronislaw Malinowski (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronis%C5%82aw_MalinowskiLinks to an external site. ) had developed a very useful functionalist approach to studying cultures still widely used today. Cultures are behavioral systems developed to meet emotional/psychological, social and economic needs. Such needs, if unmet, would manifest themselves as problems to be solved. Any culture then could be conceived as a traditional collection of solutions to problems. Cultures for Malinowski (1944 A Scientific theory of Culture) were conceived as collections of institutions, and an institution was defined as “a repeating patterned response in a community to a recurring problem,” or we could say to a recurring need.
Examples of needs, just a few among many MANY possible examples, could be socializing of children, producing food and shelter, resolving interpersonal and inter community conflicts, establishing new families, or managing psychological disorders that interfere with effective participation in society. Some problems recur in all societies (like those above), and some might be specific to some societies- eg. managing of scarce water needed for farming, or setting up systems for loaning money.
An institution that functions to meet one need, as for example producing food to feed a family, could at the same time also respond to other needs, as when the production of surplus food could generate money which could be used for status enhancement.
OUR GOAL
In this essay assignment, use Malinowski’s approach to institutions to analyze an unfamiliar culture by identifying an institution and exploring its functions.
PROMPT
You will select an ethnographic video (see source and samples below) then 1) identify and define an institution/institutionalized arrangement represented in the video, and 2) make an argument about the function or functions it performs (ie the problems it solves/needs it meets) in the cultural context in which it is presented. Finally 3) you will suggest how American culture or some other culture with which you are intimately familiar because of your personal background institutionalizes its responses to this same problem or need. FOR 5 bonus points make an argument that accounts for the differences in institutional arrangements in the 2 cultures and place it at the end of your essay labelled as BONUS.
FOR THE I.D. AND DEFINITION Malinowski says every institution may be described as composed of three interacting elements-
Charter or the goals and reasons for its existence according to its participants, that is an emic account of what it means to the participants.
Personnel or the collection of social roles required for the institution to function- for example in a nuclear family mom, dad, son, daughter, brother, sister.
Capital physical materials, artifacts, infrastructure and, in some cultures, financial resources that are required for the institution to function effectively given the norms of the community.

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