On Key Symbols (1873)- S. Ortner
On Key Symbols Author(s): Sherry B. Ortner Reviewed work(s): Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 75, No. 5 (Oct., 1973), pp. 1338-1346 Published by: Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Anthropological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/674036 . Accessed: 05/09/2012 09:42
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On Key Symbols'
SHERRY B. ORTNER
Sarah Lawrence College
This paper reviews the use of the notion of "key symbol" in anthropological analysis. It analyzes phenomena which have been or might be accorded the status of key symbol in cultural analyses, categorizing them according to their primary modes of operating on thought and action.
IT IS by no means a novel idea that each culture has certain key elements which, in an ill-defined way, are crucial to its distinctive organization. Since the publication of
Benedict's Patterns of Culture in 1934, the
notion of such key elements has persistedin American anthropology under a variety of rubrics: "themes" (e.g., Opler 1945; Cohen 1948), "focal values" (Albert 1956), "dominant values" (DuBois 1955), "integrative concepts" (DuBois 1936), "dominant orientations" (F. Kluckhohn 1950), and so forth. We can also find this idea sneaking namelessly into British social anthropologicalwriting;the best example of this is Lienhardt's(1961) discussionof
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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
.
Wiley-Blackwell and American Anthropological Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Anthropologist.
http://www.jstor.org
On Key Symbols'
SHERRY B. ORTNER
Sarah Lawrence College
This paper reviews the use of the notion of "key symbol" in anthropological analysis. It analyzes phenomena which have been or might be accorded the status of key symbol in cultural analyses, categorizing them according to their primary modes of operating on thought and action.
IT IS by no means a novel idea that each culture has certain key elements which, in an ill-defined way, are crucial to its distinctive organization. Since the publication of
Benedict's Patterns of Culture in 1934, the
notion of such key elements has persistedin American anthropology under a variety of rubrics: "themes" (e.g., Opler 1945; Cohen 1948), "focal values" (Albert 1956), "dominant values" (DuBois 1955), "integrative concepts" (DuBois 1936), "dominant orientations" (F. Kluckhohn 1950), and so forth. We can also find this idea sneaking namelessly into British social anthropologicalwriting;the best example of this is Lienhardt's(1961) discussionof
References: CITED Albert, Ethel 1956 The Classification of Values: A Method and Illustration. American Anthropologist 58:221-248. Benedict, Ruth 1934 Patterns of Culture. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. 1346 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [75,1973 Pepper, Stephen 1942 World Hypotheses. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Schneider, David M. 1968 American Kinship. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Singer, Milton 1958 The Great Tradition in a Metropolitan Center: Madras. In Traditional India: Structure and Change. Milton Singer, Ed. Philadelphia: American Folklore Society. Turner, Victor 1967 The Forest of Symbols. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.