anthropology exam 3
Terms
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- why we eat what we do:
- socio cultural differences, family traditions, individual preferences, habit, availabililty, economic patterns, taboo, nutritional value
- food taboos:
- cultural prohibitions on consuming certain foods
- subsistence strategy:
- ways by which people obtain the minimal mean of survival
- foraging:
-
hunting, fishing and gathering wild foods.
characterized by mobility, extensive land use, low population density, egalitarianism - horticulture:
-
cultivation of crops with simple hand tools.
characteristics: low population densities, extensive land use, prodution for subsistence, no animal traction - swidden farming:
- form or horticulture in which natural vegetation is cut,teh slah is subsequently burned, and crops are planted among the ashes
- agriculture:
-
technologically more complex than horticulture.
characteristics: intensive land use, increasaed inputes, surplus production, higher population densities, sedentism. - pastoralism:
-
breeding and managing herds of domisticated animals.
characteristics: rigid sexual division of labor, settled transhuman or normadic, extensive land use, links to agricultural groups - industrialism
-
economic system involving mass manufacture.
charactistics: capitalism, prodution of nonessential goods, mechanization, small segments of the population involved in food preparation. - economic systems:
- systems of production, distibution and consumption of goods.
- technology:
- tools and other material equipment, and the knowledge of how to make and use them
- labor:
-
key resource in any economic system.
ususally involves sexxual division of labor and/or age based division of labor - reciprocity:
- exchange of goods and servides of approximately equal value between two parties
- generalized reciprocity:
- value of gift and time of payment not specified
- balanced reciprocity:
- equal value exchange epected. value of goods and times of delivery specified
- negative recipprocity:
-
giver tries to get teh better of the exchange. may involve cheating or deceit.
"silent trade" - redistribution:
-
goods flow into a central place and are subsequently reallocated.
taxes - potlatch:
- ceremonial event involving the redistribution of stockpiled food and other goods that signify wealth.
- market exchange:
- buying and selling of goods and services with prices set by rules of supply and demand.
- leveling mechanism:
- social obligation to distribute goods so that no one accumulates more wealth than anyone else.
- conspicuous consumption:
- display of wealth for social prestige.
- prestige economy:
- acuumulation of surplus goods to display wealth and giving it away to gain prestige.
- marriage:
- culturally sanctioned union between 2 or more people.
- incest taboo:
- prohibition of sexual relations or marriage between closely related individuals
- monogamy:
- marriage in which both partners have one spouse
- serial monogamy:
- marriage to a series of partners in succession
- polygamy:
- pural marriage
- polygyny:
- one man married to 2 or more women
- polyandry:
- one woman married to 2 or more men.
- sororal polygny:
- one man married to sisters
- fraternal polyandry:
- one woman married to brothers
- levirate:
- widow marries a brother of her dead husband
- sororate:
- widow marries a sister of his dead wife.
- cross cousins:
-
children of siblings of the opposite sex.
fathers sisters children -or- mothers brothers childrern - parallel cousins
-
children of siblings of the same sex.
father brothers children -or- mothers sisters children. - bride wealth:
- compensation paid by the groomand/or his family to the brides family
- bride service:
- period of time during which the groom works for the brides family
- dowry:
- payment by the wifes family to her husband
- family:
- two or more people related by blood, marriage or adoption
- family of orientation:
- family born into/grow up in
- family of procreation:
- family formed when become married/produce offspring
- nuclear family:
- one or more parent and their offspring(s)
- extended family:
- several closely related individuals. clusters of nuclear families. generations
- conjugal kin:
- spousal relationship
- consangunial kin:
- biological relatives
- affinal kin:
- relatives by marriage
- genitor:
- biological father
- mater:
- socially recognized mother
- pater:
- socially recongized father
- patrilocal:
- lives with husbands fathers relatives
- matrilocal:
- lives with wifes parents
- ambilocal:
- lives iwth either matri-patrilocal
- neolocal:
- establishes their own household
- avunculocal:
- lives iwth husbands mothers brother (uncle)
- kinship:
- network of relatives in which individuals possess certain mutaual rights and obligations
- descent group:
- permanent social unit whose memebers claim common ancestry
- unilineal dscent:
-
descent that establishes group memeberhsip exclusively throught the male or female line.
matrilineal
patrilineal - double descent:
- descent trace matrilineally ofr some purposees and patrilineally for others
- ambilineal descent:
- affiliate with either the mother of fathers group
- lineage:
- trace descent from a comon ancestor through known links
- clan:
- assume descent from a common ancestor without actually knowning the geneaogical link
- phratry:
- unilineal descent group composed of two or more clans that assume a common acestry
- molety:
- each group that results from a division of a society into two halves on teh basis of descent.
- bilateral kinship:
- kinship teis are calculated equally through both sexes
- kindred:
- close realtives on teh maternal and paternal sides
- kinship calculation:
- system by which people in a society reckon kin relationships
- eskimo kinship:
- emphasizes teh nuclear family (w/ seperate and distince terms). other relatives lumped into a few categories. generational distinctions.
- hawaiian kinship:
- geneartional system. relatives of teh same generation and gender called the same term.
- iroquois kinship:
- same term used for mother and mothers sister. same term for father and fathers brother. vrothers, sisters, and parallel cousins of teh same sex are referred to by the same term.
- crow kinship:
- similar to the iroquois, but with a few modification. ignores some generational distinctions. groups relatives differently ont eh mothers and fathers side.
- fictive kin:
- godparents, "aunts" and "uncles", blood brothers/sisters, fraternity/sorority brother/sisters
- social groups:
- two or more regularly interacting individuals interconnected by their roles with the group
- age grade:
- organized category of people based on age
- age set:
- group of people born during a certain time span who move through the series of age grades together.
- social class:
- category of individual with the same level of prestige.
- social mobility:
- ability to change ones class position
- caste:
- closed social class
- political anthropology:
- examines human behavior related to power
- power:
- ability to exercies one's will over others
- legitimacy:
- the right of political leladers to govern
- authority:
- socially approved use of power
- political organization:
- the way power is distriubuted and embedded in society.
- uncentralized political organization:
- lacks concentration of power in a formal government
- bands:
-
small kin based groupo.
characteristics: foraging, egalitarian, situational leadership, informal conflict resolution, consensus building
uncentralized government - tribes:
-
kin-ordered group that is largerr than a band (100+)
characteristics: live in villages, horticultural/pastoral, group cooperation/consensus, raltively informal leadership.
"big man"
uncentralized government - centralized political organization:
- concentraion of power in a formal government
- chiefdoms:
-
regional polity in which two or more local groups are organized under a single chief in a randked hierarch.
characteristics: kin based, larger groups (1000+), permanent political stratification, fixed settlement pattern,food production, redistribution. - states:
-
autonomous political unit with social classes and a formal centralized government based on law.
characteristics: larger populations (10000+), settlement hierarchy, levels of bureaucracy, social stratificaion, populationcontrol, judiciary and law enforcemtn, fiscal controrl - power of the state:
- defifne citienship, law and order, standing armies and police , census sytems, taxation, controrl of information
- cults of personality:
- mass media and creation of larger-than-life public images
- social control:
- process by which orderly social life is maintained.
- internalized social control:
- based on belliefs and values. dows not involve coercion. embedded in our consciousness.
- externalized social control:
-
sanctions: encourage ocnformity through coercion and enforcement
positive (incentives)
negative (threats/punishments)
formal
informal - laws:
- formal negative sanctions. define what is permissible and what is not. authority to enforce.
- deispute resolution:
-
negotiaion
mediation
adjudication - religion:
- organized systemof ideas about eh supernatural and its associated beliefs and ceremonial practices.
- spirituality:
- concern for sacred rather than material matters
- worldview:
- a cultures collective ideas concerningthe shape and substance of their reality
- function of religion:
-
explaing the cosmo
community belongingness
reducing anxiety/uncertanity
social control
legitimize political power - monotheism:
- belief in one supreme god or godess
- polytheism:
- suite of gods of goddess
- mana:
-
precursor to formal religion
the stuff in whcih magic is formed - ancestor worship:
- belief in ancestral spirits. belief that nature in enlivened by spirits
- animism:
- belief that nature is animated by personalized sprits
- animatism:
- belief in impersonal supernatural forces
- priests/priestesses:
- full time religious specialist. guide the religious practeices of others
- shamans:
-
part time medical-religious specialists
enter into altered states of consciousness
supernatural "go between" - rituals:
- patterned behaviors having to do with the supernatural realm
- rites of passage:
-
rituals that mark important stages int eh life of an individual.
stages of rites of passage:
sepeartion
transtition
reintegration - rites of intensification:
- ritual that takes place during a crisis in the life of the group
- magic:
- belief that the supernatural can be compelled to act in cetain ways given specified formulas
- contagious magic:
- magic preformed on objects can affect the person
- divination:
- ascetaining information form supernatural sources
- witch craft:
- belief that certain individuals possess innate supernatural powers
- myth:
- sacred narratives about supernatural forces or beings
- doctrine:
- written and formal statements about religious beliefs
- totemism:
- sacred emblems symbolizing common identity
- what is art?
- expressive culture
- functions of art:
-
aesthetic plasure
kinship ties, social identity and status
social control and legitimization of leaderhsip roles
social commentary,politial advocacy and resistance
religious or spirtual identity - ethnomusicology:
- cross-cultural study of music
- folklore:
- orally preserved traditions
- folkloristic:
- study of folklore
- body art:
- aesthetics, cultural or religious identity, group membership, social position and rank
- primary innovation:
- creation, invention, discovery
- secondary innovation:
- new and deliberate application modification of an existing idea, method or device
- diffusion:
- spread of ideas, customs, or practices form one culture to another
- acculturation:
- cultural change resulting from contact between two groups when one of teh groups is more powerful
- colonialism:
- domination of a territory and its people bya foreign power for an extended time
- modernization:
- developing societies acquire some of the cultural characteristics of western industrial societies
- globalization:
- massive flow of goods, people, information and capital around the world
- stuctural power:
- power taht organizes and orchestrates the systemic interactions wihin and among societies
- hard power:
- coercive power taht is backed up by economic and military force
- soft power
- power that presses other to change
- syncretism:
- blending of indigenous and foreign traits in a new system
- multiculturalism:
- public policy for managing cultural diveristy in a multiethnic socity, which stresses mutual respect and tolerance
- ethnic resurgence:
- indigenous resistance to culture change and loss
- revoltution:
- radical change in a society or culture. violent replacement of government
- rebellion:
- organized resistance against an establisehd authority
- antimodernism:
- rejection of teh modern way of life in favor of a way of life tha tis percived to be more pure
- fundamentalism:
- religious antimodernism
- structural violence:
- physical and/or psychological harm caused by exploitative and unust social, political and economic systems
- famine:
- episodes of severe starvation and death
- ethnocide:
- forcible extermination of a groups culture
- genocide:
- extermination of one group by antohter
- political ecology
- interrelationhsips between politics and the human environmetn relationships
- developmetn anthropology:
- studies the cultural dimenstions of economic development
- medical anthropolgy:
- cross cultural studies of human health and diseases
- ethnomedicine;
- health-related beliefs, knowledge andpracteices of a culture.