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Anthropology 102

Terms

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Anthropology
The study of human species and immediate ancestors.
Holism
The study of the whole human condition - past, present, and future.
The Subdisciplines of Anthropology
Cultural, Archaelogical, Biological or Physical, and Linguistic.
Cultural Anthropology
The study of human society and culture.
Archaelogical Anthropology
Archaelogical anthropology reconstructs, describes, and interprets human behavior and cultural patterns through material remains.
Biological or Physical Anthropology
Biologoical or Physical is human biological diversity in time and space.

Biological
1)Human evolution revealed by fossil record.
2)Human genetics.
3)Human growth and development.
4)Human biological plasticity(the body's ability to cope with stresses, such as heat, cold and altitude).
5)The biology, evolution, behavior and social life of monkeys, apes and other nonhuman primates.






Linguistic Anthropology
The study of language in its social and cultural context, across space and over time.
Bronislaw Malinowski
A polish anthropologist who spent most of his professional life in England, is generally considered the founder of ethnography.

- Malinowski believes the primary task of the ethnographer is "to grasp the native's point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world."
So he participates in the culture to understand it.

(Functionalism) : social institutions function to satisfy individual needs.




Claude Lévi-Strauss
(Structuralism)- Goal to identify social structures, such as kinship structures.

- A key figure in in the anthropology of religion. Also known for his many theoretical books and the study of Native American Indians.

Yahi - Ishi
Yahi is an Native American Tribe that is extinct.

-Ishi was the last Native American Indian from that tribe.

Alfred Kroeber
Alfred Kroeber was the one that studied Ishi from the Yahi tribe. He gather the information he could from Ishi about the life of a Yahi, such as the their rituals, beliefs, and culture.
Monkey Chanting Ritual
Balinese Monkey Chant is a ritual (seems like a battle; going back and forth)
Applied Anthropology
The application of anthropological data, perspectives, theory, and methods to identify, assess, and solve contemporary social problems.
Medical Anthropology
Unites biological and cultural anthropologists in the study of disease, health problems, health care systems, and theories about illness in different cultures and ethnic groups.
Business Anthropology
For business, key features of anthropology include 1) ethnography and observation as ways of gathering data 2)cross-cultural expertise, and 3)focus on cultural diversity.

Example)Gathering more information to make products more customer friendly to increase sales.

Urban Anthropology
Urban Anthropology, which has theoretical (basic research) and applied dimensions, is the cross-cultural and ethnographic study of global urbanization and life in cities.
Development Anthropology
Development anthropology is the branch of applied anthropology that focuses on social issues in, and the cultural dimension, of economic development.
Equity
Reducing poverty and have a more even distribution of wealth.
Overinnovation
Too much change.
Underdifferentiation
Planning fallacy of viewing less developed countries as an underdifferentiated group; ingnoring cultural diversity and adopting a uniform approach for very different types of project beneficiaries.
Ethnography
Field work in a particular culture.
Participant Observation
A characteristic ethnographic technique; taking part in the events one is observing, describing, and analyzing.
Fieldwork and its limitations
Limited resources, loneliness, culture shock, and language barrier.
Informed Consent
An agreement sought by ethnographers from community members to take part in a research.
Etic
The research strategy that emphasizes the observer's rather than the natives' explanations, categories and criteria of significance.(Science-oriented)
Emic
The research strategy that focuses on native explanations and criteria of significance. (Investigates how the local people think.)

Interview Schedules
The ethnographer talks face to face with people, asks the questions, and writes down the answers.
Genealogical Method
Procedures by which ethnographers discover and record connections of kinship, descent, and marriage, using diagrams and symbols.
Key Informants
An expert on a particular aspect of local life who helps the ethnographer understand the aspect.
Culture
Traditions and customs that govern behavior and beliefs' distinctly human; transmitted through learning.
Nature
Biological urges and genetic characteristics that define us as a living being.
Ethnocentrism
Viewing ones culture as superior.

- Using one's own cultural values in judging the behavior and beliefs of others.

Cultural Relativism
The position that the values and standards of cultures differ and deserve respect

(Understand the culture)

Symbol
Something, verbal or non-verbal that arbitrarily and by convention stands for something else, with which it has no necessary or natural connection.

(Examples: Red envelope is a sign of good luck.)

Cultural Rights
Doctrine that certain rights are vested not in the individuals but in identifiable groups, such as religious and ethnic minorities and indigenous societies.
Clifford Geertz
Geertz defined culture as ideas based on cultural learning and symbols.
Gender Roles
The tasks and activities that a culture assigns to each sex.
Gender Stereotypes
Oversimplified but strongly held ideas about the characteristics of males and females.
Clan
Unilineal descent group based on stipulated descent.
Lineage
Unilineal descent group based on demonstrated descent.
Totem

Sometimes a clan's apical ancestor is not a human at all but an animal or a plant (called a totem).

Nuclear Family
A nuclear family only lasts as long as the parents and children remain together.
Dowry
A martial exchange in which the wife's group provides substantial gift's to the husband's family.
Bridewealth
Descent-group members often contribute to the bridewealth, a customary gift before, at, or after the marriage from the husband and his kin to the wife and her kin.

- A compensation for the bride's group for the loss of her companionship and labor.

Exogamy
Mating or marriage outside one's kin group; cultural universal.
Endogamy
Marriage between people of the same social group.

Polygamy
Marriage with three or more spouses, at the same time.
Polyandry
Variety of plural marriage in which a woman has more than one husband.
Incest
Sexual relations with a close relative.
Caste Systems
Castes are stratified groups in which membership is ascribed at birth and is lifelong.
Discrimination
Policies and practices that harm a group and its members.
Racism
Discrimination against an ethnic group assumed to have a biological basis.
Prejudice
Devaluing a group because of its assumed behavior,values, capabilities, or attributes.
Ascribed Status
Social status that people have little or no choice about occupying.
Achieved Status
Social status that comes through talents, actions, efforts activities, and accomplishments, rather than ascription.
Assimilation
The process of change that a minority group may experience when it moves to a country where another culture dominates; the minority is incorporated into the dominant culture to the point that it no longer exists as a separate unit.
Genocide
Policies aimed, at, and resulting in the physical extinction of people perceived as a racial group that is sharing defining physical, genetic, and biological characteristics.

Ex) Nazi Germany mass murder of Jews.

Hypodescent
A rule that automatically places the children of a union or mating between members of different socioeconomic groups in the less privileged group.
Phenotype
An organism's evident traits, its "manifest biology" - anatomy and physiology.
Call Systems
Systems of communication among nonhuman primates, composed of a limited number of sounds that vary in intensity and duration,tied to environmental stimuli.
(Can only call when in danger or found food.)
Kinesics
The study of communication through body movements, stances,gestures, and facial expressions.
Phonology
The study of sounds used in speech.
Morphology
The study of form; used in linguistics and for form in general - for example, biomorphology relates to physical form.
Phoneme
Significant sound contrast in a language that serves to distinguish meaning, as in minimal pairs.
Semantics
A language's meaning system.
Sociolinguistics
Study of relationships between social and linguistic variation; study of language in its social context.
Foraging
- Hunter gatherers
- Relying on nature to make their living.
Horticulture
Nonindustrial system of plant cultivation in which plots lie fallow for varying lengths of time.
Agricultural
Uses land intensively and continuously. The greater labor demands associated with agriculture reflect its use of domestic animals, irrigation, or terracing.
Pastorialism
Herders whose activities focus on such domesticated animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, camels, yak, and reindeer.
Reciprocity
One of the three principles of exchange. Governs exchange between social equals; major exchange mode in band and tribal societies.
Band
Basic unit of social organization among foragers. A band includes fewer than one hundred people; it often splits up seasonally.
Tribe
Form of sociopolitical organization usually based on horticulture or pastorialism. Socioeconomic stratification and centralized rule are absent in tribes, and there is no means of enforcing political decisions.
Chiefdom
Form of sociopolitical organization intermediate between the tribe and the state; kin-based with differential access to resources and a permanent political structure.
State
Village Head
Leadership position in a village(as among the Yanomami, where the head is always a man); has limited authority; leads by example and persuasion.
Slavery
The most extreme, coercive, abusive, and inhumane form of legalized inequality; people are treated as property.
Open-class System
Stratification system that facilitates social mobility, with individual achievement and personal merit determining social ranking.
Vertical Mobility
Upward or downward change in a person\'s social status.
Power
The ability to exercise one\'s will over others - to do what one wants; the basisof political status.
Authority
Is the socially approved use of power.
Patriarchy
Political system ruled by men in which women have inferior social and political status, including basic human rights.
Ethnocide
Destruction by a dominant group of the culture of an ethnic group.
World - System Theory
Argument for the historic and contemporary social, political,and economic significance of an identifiable global system, based on wealth and power differentials, that extends beyond the individual countries.
Polytheism
Belief in several deities who control aspects in nature.
Core Nation
Dominant structural position in the world system; consists of the strongest and most powerful states with advanced systems of production.
Cultural Imperialism
The rapid spread or advance of one culture at the expense of others, or its imposition on other cultures, which it modifies, replaces, or destroys - usually because of differential economic or political influence.
Semiperiphery
Structural position in the world system intermediate between core and periphery.
Periphery
Weakest structural position in the world system.
Globalization
The accelerating interdependence of nations in a world system linked economically and through mass media and modern transportation systems.
Colonialism
The political, social, economic, and cultural domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power for an extended time.

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