01/04/2025 – Lecture 1: Culture as classification systems
Course content overview
- Culture as classification (week 1), texts, myths, narratives (week 2), cultural tools (week 3), and
cognition (week 4).
- Structure as fields (week 5) and social networks (week 6).
Money, Morals and Manners – Michele Lamont
- Using culture concept in a much more specific case → look at how she performed the research
(how is it operationalized).
- Interview based study (in the US and French) with middle-class white men.
- She asks how they would define what they think what worthy and unworthy people are? What are
the type of people you like and dislike? Who do you respect and who do you not respect? Who do
you look up and down to?
▪ The way that people think conceptualize/define how they draw boundaries/draw
distinction between individuals.
▪ Concrete idea of how culture might be.
Symbolic boundaries
- She is interested in operationalizing of what she calls symbolic boundaries: conceptual
distinctions made by social actors to categorize objects, people, practices, and even time and
space → how people organize/cognitive make sense of their worlds.
- Based on this she defines different types of symbolic boundaries
▪ Cultural boundaries: they draw and use an idea that taste patterns, intelligents, manner
of speaking → use and comment is a way to distinguish people form one another → people
who have this culture is the one you respect.
▪ Socioeconomic boundaries: based on how well they do in their jobs, how much money
they make, status in their jobs.
▪ Moral boundaries: whether you would associate them whether they are good people or
not (work, family and social values).
➔ These are three inductive ways found to distinguish people.
Results
- Frend upper-middle-class men draw strong, vertical cultural boundaries: taste, high culture,
language, intellectualism.
- US upper-middle-class men draw weak, horizontal cultural boundaries: my friends are boring, but
I love them → what seems to characterize is that they don’t care about intellectual knowledge, even
if they are boring, they could still like them as long as they score highly on other cultural boundaries.
- US upper-middle-class men emphasize moral and socioeconomic boundaries.
- Differences how strongly certain boundaries are being drawn → cultural differences between
countries: relative strength how they draw certain symbolic boundaries.
Conclusion
- You can define culture as the (different) ways in which people draw boundaries, categorize, make
conceptual distinctions.
- Why do we need structure? Where does it come in?
Culture versus structure
- Culture → structure: what are the consequences of these differences in classification systems.
▪ ‘Symbolic boundaries are conceptual distinctions made by social actors to categorize
objects, people, practices, and even time and space.
▪ ’Social boundaries are objectified forms of social differences manifested in unequal
access to and unequal distribution of resources (material and nonmaterial) and social
opportunities. They are also revealed in stable behavioral patterns of association’.
- Structure → culture: what explains these different ways of classification?
,Main types of structures
- Institutions
- Social networks
- Fields
The legacy of Emile Durkheim
- The division of Labor in Society.
- The Rules of Sociological Method
- Suicide
- Primitive classifications
- The Elementary Forms of Religious life
➔ Focus is on the last two texts.
The Elementary Forms of Religious life
- Totemism: form of thought and beliefs.
- Totemism as elementary form of religious life.
- Totemism as belief and practice whereby groups identify themselves with a certain “sacred” object
(mostly an animal).
- Totem is special, sacred, needs to be treated with respect. Has a moral force over them (gives them
power, can punish).
- Ideas and beliefs these tribes has about their own animal is very similar to modern beliefs of
religion where a God has power over them.
Where does this idea come from?
- Totem plays a double function for these tribes: emblem of the group (identify themselves as being
part of the tribe) and symbol of the sacred → key for where the belief of a god comes from.
- When you are enchanted by the sacred/feeling that you’re being guided by the godly, you’re actually
being inspired by society → only society can be the spirit of what the tribe experience as the godly.
▪ Sacred = external force = society.
▪ Sacred totem is the concrete symbolization of the abstract force of society.
Where do our fundamental categories of understanding – causality, time, space, categorization and
concept, etc. – come from?
- Things don’t happen out of nothing → there is always a cause. This is a fundamental way of
understanding the world.
- Empiricist (David Hume): the only source of knowledge is sense experience → through what we
observe in the world happening. These ideas are learned through experiences.
▪ But are they then necessary?
- If we learn through observation, is it necessary then, since some people don’t learn it or have
unlearn it → rationalist or apriorist (Rene Descartes and Immanual Kant): these ideas are innate
and apriori and therefore necessary.
▪ But how can they vary?
How Durkheim thinks about his
- Durkheim: they are learned and necessary because they are social concepts, collective
representations. They are imprinted on us through our social being which we cannot escape.
- Example of concepts and categories.
▪ Classification is fundamental concept of understanding
▪ Where does is come from?
▪ It comes from the experience that we are born into this world as parts/groups →
fundamental experiences as representations of something larger (belonging to a group) →
the fact that we categorize is learned from the individual experience of being part of a larger
group.
▪ So, society gives a model for this cultural conception.
- Tribes consists of two moiety (halfs/phatries), which there are rules involved, consisting of clans
(the lower level) who have their own sacred object.
, - Characteristics of group structure (social structure) → characteristic of classification system
(culture).
- More social differentiation, more differentiated cultural classification?
- More hierarchical social structure, more hierarchical classification structure?
In the book of Lamont
- Why do the French draw stronger hierarchical boundaries between cultured/uncultured,
intellectual/non-intellectual people?
- Hierarchical (and standardized) educational system with early tracking → the cultural idea of
“natural intellectual talent” to differentiate people.
British versus French structuralism
- Was interpreted differently by different kind of schools.
- Two strong bifurcations between British and French.
- Both structuralist, but what they mean with this is the complete opposite.
British structuralism
- Radcliff Brown (1881-1955)
- Manchester school of anthropology (Clyde Mitchell, Siegfried Nadel)
- Emphasis on the social side and dismiss the cultural side (in the cultural-structure sides).
- Interested in studying the social structure of tribes.
- Social structure as observable, actual existing relations
- Became the foundation for the Social Network Analysis: tried to avoid any kind of references to
culture (thought culture was to vague as a term to use in Sociology).
Michele Lamont
- How structural differences between countries could be an explanations for cultural differences.
- Also explained by Lamount
- Why do American upper-middle class men draw weaker cultural boundaries?
- Differences in social networks is a proposed reason why there might be a difference between those
two concepts.
- In a geographically and socially, mobile country, where peoples’ social networks span a diverse
array of people and are less stable, it helps to have a wider range of cultural preferences and be
more culturally inclusive (draw weak cultural boundaries) rather than cultural exclusive (draw
strong cultural boundaries).
- People who have a broad network, have normally a broad taste, which is useful in a context where
you have to move around a lot (to be open to different world views).
- Differences in social networks might explain cultural differences.
French structuralism
Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009).
- More cultural approach on Durkheim
- Where Durkheim tried to explain how pre-existing social structures influences the way we think,
that we try to make sense of the world cognitively, is actually inherent → classification is feature of
the mind (Kant side).
- So French structuralism took the diametrically opposite position from British structuralism.
- Social structure itself as structured by cultural models or codes
- “Code-seeking program”: finding codes in cultural representations (as religion, texts, myths and
narratives).
▪ Basic sense is not a-structured but by social rules which we can find in the cultural
representations.
08/04/2025- Lecture 2 – French structuralism
- French structuralism: French intellectual movement → cultural theory influenced by (some of)
these structuralist.
Course content overview
- Culture as classification (week 1), texts, myths, narratives (week 2), cultural tools (week 3), and
cognition (week 4).
- Structure as fields (week 5) and social networks (week 6).
Money, Morals and Manners – Michele Lamont
- Using culture concept in a much more specific case → look at how she performed the research
(how is it operationalized).
- Interview based study (in the US and French) with middle-class white men.
- She asks how they would define what they think what worthy and unworthy people are? What are
the type of people you like and dislike? Who do you respect and who do you not respect? Who do
you look up and down to?
▪ The way that people think conceptualize/define how they draw boundaries/draw
distinction between individuals.
▪ Concrete idea of how culture might be.
Symbolic boundaries
- She is interested in operationalizing of what she calls symbolic boundaries: conceptual
distinctions made by social actors to categorize objects, people, practices, and even time and
space → how people organize/cognitive make sense of their worlds.
- Based on this she defines different types of symbolic boundaries
▪ Cultural boundaries: they draw and use an idea that taste patterns, intelligents, manner
of speaking → use and comment is a way to distinguish people form one another → people
who have this culture is the one you respect.
▪ Socioeconomic boundaries: based on how well they do in their jobs, how much money
they make, status in their jobs.
▪ Moral boundaries: whether you would associate them whether they are good people or
not (work, family and social values).
➔ These are three inductive ways found to distinguish people.
Results
- Frend upper-middle-class men draw strong, vertical cultural boundaries: taste, high culture,
language, intellectualism.
- US upper-middle-class men draw weak, horizontal cultural boundaries: my friends are boring, but
I love them → what seems to characterize is that they don’t care about intellectual knowledge, even
if they are boring, they could still like them as long as they score highly on other cultural boundaries.
- US upper-middle-class men emphasize moral and socioeconomic boundaries.
- Differences how strongly certain boundaries are being drawn → cultural differences between
countries: relative strength how they draw certain symbolic boundaries.
Conclusion
- You can define culture as the (different) ways in which people draw boundaries, categorize, make
conceptual distinctions.
- Why do we need structure? Where does it come in?
Culture versus structure
- Culture → structure: what are the consequences of these differences in classification systems.
▪ ‘Symbolic boundaries are conceptual distinctions made by social actors to categorize
objects, people, practices, and even time and space.
▪ ’Social boundaries are objectified forms of social differences manifested in unequal
access to and unequal distribution of resources (material and nonmaterial) and social
opportunities. They are also revealed in stable behavioral patterns of association’.
- Structure → culture: what explains these different ways of classification?
,Main types of structures
- Institutions
- Social networks
- Fields
The legacy of Emile Durkheim
- The division of Labor in Society.
- The Rules of Sociological Method
- Suicide
- Primitive classifications
- The Elementary Forms of Religious life
➔ Focus is on the last two texts.
The Elementary Forms of Religious life
- Totemism: form of thought and beliefs.
- Totemism as elementary form of religious life.
- Totemism as belief and practice whereby groups identify themselves with a certain “sacred” object
(mostly an animal).
- Totem is special, sacred, needs to be treated with respect. Has a moral force over them (gives them
power, can punish).
- Ideas and beliefs these tribes has about their own animal is very similar to modern beliefs of
religion where a God has power over them.
Where does this idea come from?
- Totem plays a double function for these tribes: emblem of the group (identify themselves as being
part of the tribe) and symbol of the sacred → key for where the belief of a god comes from.
- When you are enchanted by the sacred/feeling that you’re being guided by the godly, you’re actually
being inspired by society → only society can be the spirit of what the tribe experience as the godly.
▪ Sacred = external force = society.
▪ Sacred totem is the concrete symbolization of the abstract force of society.
Where do our fundamental categories of understanding – causality, time, space, categorization and
concept, etc. – come from?
- Things don’t happen out of nothing → there is always a cause. This is a fundamental way of
understanding the world.
- Empiricist (David Hume): the only source of knowledge is sense experience → through what we
observe in the world happening. These ideas are learned through experiences.
▪ But are they then necessary?
- If we learn through observation, is it necessary then, since some people don’t learn it or have
unlearn it → rationalist or apriorist (Rene Descartes and Immanual Kant): these ideas are innate
and apriori and therefore necessary.
▪ But how can they vary?
How Durkheim thinks about his
- Durkheim: they are learned and necessary because they are social concepts, collective
representations. They are imprinted on us through our social being which we cannot escape.
- Example of concepts and categories.
▪ Classification is fundamental concept of understanding
▪ Where does is come from?
▪ It comes from the experience that we are born into this world as parts/groups →
fundamental experiences as representations of something larger (belonging to a group) →
the fact that we categorize is learned from the individual experience of being part of a larger
group.
▪ So, society gives a model for this cultural conception.
- Tribes consists of two moiety (halfs/phatries), which there are rules involved, consisting of clans
(the lower level) who have their own sacred object.
, - Characteristics of group structure (social structure) → characteristic of classification system
(culture).
- More social differentiation, more differentiated cultural classification?
- More hierarchical social structure, more hierarchical classification structure?
In the book of Lamont
- Why do the French draw stronger hierarchical boundaries between cultured/uncultured,
intellectual/non-intellectual people?
- Hierarchical (and standardized) educational system with early tracking → the cultural idea of
“natural intellectual talent” to differentiate people.
British versus French structuralism
- Was interpreted differently by different kind of schools.
- Two strong bifurcations between British and French.
- Both structuralist, but what they mean with this is the complete opposite.
British structuralism
- Radcliff Brown (1881-1955)
- Manchester school of anthropology (Clyde Mitchell, Siegfried Nadel)
- Emphasis on the social side and dismiss the cultural side (in the cultural-structure sides).
- Interested in studying the social structure of tribes.
- Social structure as observable, actual existing relations
- Became the foundation for the Social Network Analysis: tried to avoid any kind of references to
culture (thought culture was to vague as a term to use in Sociology).
Michele Lamont
- How structural differences between countries could be an explanations for cultural differences.
- Also explained by Lamount
- Why do American upper-middle class men draw weaker cultural boundaries?
- Differences in social networks is a proposed reason why there might be a difference between those
two concepts.
- In a geographically and socially, mobile country, where peoples’ social networks span a diverse
array of people and are less stable, it helps to have a wider range of cultural preferences and be
more culturally inclusive (draw weak cultural boundaries) rather than cultural exclusive (draw
strong cultural boundaries).
- People who have a broad network, have normally a broad taste, which is useful in a context where
you have to move around a lot (to be open to different world views).
- Differences in social networks might explain cultural differences.
French structuralism
Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009).
- More cultural approach on Durkheim
- Where Durkheim tried to explain how pre-existing social structures influences the way we think,
that we try to make sense of the world cognitively, is actually inherent → classification is feature of
the mind (Kant side).
- So French structuralism took the diametrically opposite position from British structuralism.
- Social structure itself as structured by cultural models or codes
- “Code-seeking program”: finding codes in cultural representations (as religion, texts, myths and
narratives).
▪ Basic sense is not a-structured but by social rules which we can find in the cultural
representations.
08/04/2025- Lecture 2 – French structuralism
- French structuralism: French intellectual movement → cultural theory influenced by (some of)
these structuralist.
