Culture is a Process!

Authors

  • David. C Lewis Юньнаньский университет, Китай; Кембридж, Англия

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47850/RL.2021.2.3.153-163

Keywords:

ethnicity, culture, cultural change, language, religion

Abstract

Cultures change and are not static, so culture can be regarded as a process, not a state. Change can be produced by either internal or external factors, or a combination of both, so assumptions about cultures being in equilibrium are probably unrealistic. This paper considers ways in which ethnicity is commonly defined in terms of cultural markers: these overlap with one another within a culture or else, over time, can diverge from one another to such an extent that a new culture can be born.

Author Biography

David. C Lewis , Юньнаньский университет, Китай; Кембридж, Англия

Visiting Professor at the School of Ethnology and Sociology, Yunnan University, Kunming, China. Researcher at the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit, University of Cambridge, England. Besides his teaching in China, he has taught about Japan at the universities of Cambridge and Leeds and has conducted research on the anthropology of religion in Japan, England, Russia and elsewhere in the former USSR

References

Guchinova, E.-B. M. (2006). The Kalmyks. Lewis, D. C. (transl.). London and New York. Routledge.

Kuper, A. (2015). Anthropology and Anthropologists: The British School in the Twentieth Century. 4th edition. London and New York. Routledge.

Leach, E. (1954). Political Systems of Highland Burma. London. G. Bell and Sons, Ltd.

Li, Zh. and Qiao, W. (2021). The custom of “secondary burial” through the interaction between Tibetan Buddhism and Confucian culture: A case study of Benzilan Tibetan village in Deqin County, Diqing Prefecture, Yunnan Province. In He, M. and Lewis, D. C. (eds.) Ethnicity and Religion in Southwest China. London and New York. Routledge. pp. 166-177.

Published

2021-09-15

How to Cite

Lewis Д. (2021). Culture is a Process!. Respublica Literaria, 2(3), 153–163. https://doi.org/10.47850/RL.2021.2.3.153-163