Abstracts > Theory-Making in American Cultural Anthropology, or Can Neuroscience Help?

Thursday, the 6th of November 2025 - 10h-10h45

Shuenn-Der YU, Research Fellow, Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taipei – Taïwan .

Culture has long been the key concept in American anthropology, but its elusiveness has also made defining it a difficult business. Nonetheless, there has been no shortage of attempts at its theorization. This paper will review a few of these theoretical paradigms to argue that since cultural is increasingly being considered as internal, rather than superorganic or a system
of meanings “out there,” anthropologists may have to take neuroscience seriously, instead of treating its propositions as simply reductionist. However, I will also argue that since there is no simple answer as to how we might demarcate culture from a neurological perspective, we need to find ways to incorporate neuroscience in our enterprise of theory making.