My students had only one class period to consider the question: What is culture? I decided the best way to approach it was to send them out into the city with a list of various anthropological ideas:
* Culture is social heritage or traditions everything that is deemed necessary to pass on to future generations.
* Culture is learned behavior. (This could be anything from a child saying please-and-thank-you to the way people share space on the sidewalk.)
* Culture is values or rules for living.
* Culture is the way people solve problems.
* Culture is made up of ideas & symbols.
* Culture consists of the items in lists of categories, such as religion, social norms, social organization, and economy.
The assignment: People watch in downtown Portland until you find three examples to fit each conception of culture.
When they came back to class, we listed their findings on the board and discussed how our definition of culture shifted with each new finding.
Then, I handed them archaeology kits - envelopes filled with five Lomos. They considered each image & object in terms of its cultural function, category, and meaning. They did semiotic analysis of each one. Then, we used the photos to write a "cultural story."
Here are the Lomos from envelope #1:
My students saw the small square of grass as a symbol of the last remaining traces of wildlife and nature. It sits surrounded by concrete, which creeps inch-by-inch until no green spaces are left. Perhaps this little square can be seen as evidence of "heritage," a monument to the lost natural landscape.
The zamboni smooths out imperfections in the ice, but at the same time, almost appears to pave the rink in white. The green of the zamboni recalls the green of the grass: a symbol of isolation.
The buried hydrant seems abandoned, left behind after some kind of natural disaster or catastrophic event. Since the fire hydrant can be seen as evidence of "rules and laws," it could also symbolize structure and order in society.
The crumbling dog also recalls some kind of catastrophe. Or maybe it symbolizes man's lost relationship with animals. Maybe even the memory of that relationship has begun to decay.
Sidewalk construction literally grows out of the concrete: a new kind of plant. It also represents the idea of culture as a way of solving problems and an expression of values - the ideology of space and progress.
One "cultural story" my students wrote went something like this:
Humans paved over the earth in order to create an easier life, covering every possible surface in concrete and further distancing themselves from nature. This led to environmental disaster, and the cities disappeared.
