「文化」にどう向きあうか

――文化人類学の立場から――

抄録

  Culture is the word that is used frequently not only in our daily life but in our scientific world. It is this word that engendered in late nineteenth century a new discipline called cultural anthropology we are now working in. With its proper methods consisting of long fieldwork and holistic view, cultural anthropology has approved its efficiency against other sciences that had overestimated the documentation and the analytical understandings of the object. But nowadays, culture is often considered as the “villain” of a kind of problems: we are confronted with many cultural problems, such as discrimination against the immigrant labors under the name of the cultural difference and conflict between different religious systems. Why are there so many cultural problems emerging? How should we face these problems? To answer to these questions is the objective of this article.

  This article is composed of two parts. The first part is dedicated to follow the process of elaboration of the notion of culture since nineteenth century to show its political implication: linked to the very existence of people, it has become the measure par excellence of differentiating and discriminating peoples. The second part is to find convenient means to treat cultural problems; in discussing on the discrimination against Muslim immigrants in France, this article tries to deconstruct the notion of culture.