all Flashcards
Cultural Anthropology:
Focuses on the study of cultural variations among humans and collects data through fieldwork and participant observation.
Archaeology
: Studies past human societies, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data they have left behind.
Biological/Physical Anthropology
Concentrates on the biological development of humans and human ancestors, as well as the study of human genetics, primates, and fossil records.
Linguistic Anthropology
language reflects and influences social life, including language development, usage, and cultural norm
What does it mean to be enculturated
Learning culture through social groups (e.g., ethnic groups, family); involves understanding norms, values, and what’s considered right or wrong.
Ethnocentrism
Viewing other cultures from one’s own cultural perspective. This approach is discouraged.
Culture is expressed and transmitted symbolically.
Symbols
Cultural Relativism:
Understanding a culture within its own context, which is challenging but preferred.
Human Rights and Society:
rights and wrongs within a society, influenced by cultural norms.
Power Structures in Culture
can be ideological, shaped by power structures.
Stratification
Division into superordinate (dominant) and subordinate (lower) groups.
Hegemony:
Government-sanctioned practices; non-compliance leads to legal consequences.
Often associated with dictatorships controlling society.
Human Agency
Present in all individuals, particularly in subordinate groups within hegemonic states.
Example: Individuals in hegemonic states using tactics like shame and gossip against leaders to resist and challenge the system.
Origin and Evolution
Developed over time, adapting new methods and theories.
Herbert Spencer
Unilineal Cultural Evolution
All societies pass through stages, from primitive state to complex civilization. Cultural differences are the result of different evolutionary stages.
Franz Boaz
Historical Particularism
individual societies’ unique traits.
Edward Sapir:
Contributions in linguistics.
Functionalism
Bronislaw Malinowski, key figure in British anthropology, developed participant observation.
Cultural Materialism
Focus on religious aspects
E.E. Evans-Pritchard:
Work in 1950s-1970s.
Cognitive Anthropology
Understanding cultural models through logical models.
Structuralism
Claude Levi Strauss
Analysis of cultures through binary oppositions.
Interpretive Anthropologist
Clifford Geertz, Victor Turner
Interpretive Anthropology
Culture as a shared system of meaning.
Post-Structuralism
Building upon structuralism, open to various interpretive methods.
Conducting Fieldwork:
Anthropologists become personally involved with the people, focusing on individuals rather than entire cultures.
Participant Observation:
Involves integrating into the culture and interviewing people, particularly “the other” in a society different from one’s own.
Contemporary Anthropology
Emphasizes reflexivity, understanding how an anthropologist’s presence affects the study.
Engaged Anthropology
Involvement in the community.
Consent and Anonymity
Essential in interviews; use anonymous names when reporting.
Strategies for Fieldwork and Ethnographies:
Methods for collecting and analyzing field data.
Linguistics
one of the four fields of anthropology-
humans use language to communicate
language can be synbolic
FOXP2 Gene
Unique to humans, crucial for language and speech.
Aspects of Linguistics: Descriptive, Historical, Sociolinguistics
Descriptive: Structure of language.
Historical: Language origins.
Sociolinguistics: Language use in society.
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Language shapes cultural reality.
Noam Chomsky
Universal aspects of language and thought.
shakespeare and the bush concluded that
Thinking process are particular to culture
Subsistence
how we eat
Foraging:
Gathering resources.
Horticulture:
Semi-permanent plant cultivation.
Agriculture:
Permanent plant cultivation.
Pastoralism:
Involving animal husbandry.
gender roles in subsistence strategies
hunter gatherer society in where men hunt and women gather
Subsistence in non industrial societies
community effort done for the good of the community
Social Obligation
Roles often age-related; everyone has a role in the community.
Kinship-based societies
share resources and responsibilities.
Market principle
In chiefdoms and nascent states, resources are centralized and redistributed.
Reciprocity and peasant labor reflect rising inequality.
Redistribution
storage facility and then the chief redistributed the food
back to the people
Reciprocity
exchange system amongst people - no money in society
Peasant labor
unequal; rise of inequality
egalitarian to unequal system
people worked the land for landlord
Bands:
Small, nomadic groups like the Inuit; subsist on hunting and foraging.
Subsistence and industrial society - karl marx
Capitalist mode of production where workers alienated from production, leading to unequal benefits.
Tribes:
Larger than bands, settled in villages.
Chiefdoms:
Much larger, with military and defense systems; chiefship is hereditary.
State Society:
Industrialized and complex.
In bands and tribes, leaders like headmen or bigmen
achieve status rather than inherit it.
- no laws to back them up
- if people didn’t approve of big man they would move on
headman(small village) or bigman (bigger villae)
Cheifdoms
permanent with redistribution centers
Chiefdoms have hereditary chiefs and systems like Potlatch for reciprocity.
State societies
social stratification and Max Weber’s three dynamics (wealth, power, prestige).
Social control
Laws and punishments are essential for social control in state societies, with the possibility of hegemonic resistance.
Human Sexuality
preferences of an individual towards others, including heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and asexual orientations.
Societal and Governmental Influence in sexuality
Despite being a private matter, governments and societies historically impose laws and norms on sexuality.
Colonialism and Immigration in sexuality
influence of history, immigration and race and power relations
Immigration in sexuality
Policies influenced cultural views on sexuality, including who one can marry.
Sexual assualt
Issues like sexual abuse on college campuses.
Globalization
Affects the migration of sex workers across countries.
Gender
identity, distinct from biological sex.
cisgender, nonbinary, and transgender.
Masculinity and Femininity:
Performative aspects of gender ideologies.
Gender Stratification and Stereotypes:
Concepts like ‘machismo’ in hypermasculinity.
Gender Violence:
Issues faced by LGBTQ individuals.
Societal Influence on Gender:
Example of sports in America where children are enculturated into gender roles from a young age.
Transgender Athletes:
Challenges faced by trans women in sports competitions.
Monogamy
one man/one woman
Kinship
Focuses on power dynamics within familial and marital structures.
Polygamous
one man many women
Descent Groups:
Includes clans and lineages, which can be matrilineal, patrilineal, or ambilineal.