Anthro Glossary Flashcards
1
Q
social anthropology
A
In its literal sense, this term tends to refer to the branch of anthropology which emphasizes society over culture (cf. cultural anthropology). ‘Social anthropology’ is historically the preferred term in British anthropology and is now widely used throughout Europe, whereas ‘cultural anthropology’ tends to be the favoured term in North America. There the term ‘social anthropology’ can have the connotation of a specifically British type of anthropological theory (e.g. some forms of functionalism and structuralism). The differences between the two traditions were probably at their greatest from the 1940s to the 1960s, since when their interests have increasingly merged, as demonstrated by some anthropologists’ use of hybrids like ‘sociocultural anthropology’ to describe their interests.
2
Q
social fact
A
Durkheim’s term for the fundamental subject matter of sociology, as expressed in his famous positivist aphorism that ‘social facts must be studied as things’, in other words as ‘realities external to the individual’. See functionalism.
3
Q
state of exception
A
In Agamben’s theory of sovereignty, this is the space outside the political community, to which the sovereign power consigns those it would reduce to the condition of bare life. The post-9/11 employment of Guantanamo Bay as a detention centre outside the reach of US law by the Bush administration suggests that some members of that administration were surprisingly familiar with recent Italian political philosophy.
4
Q
structural-functionalism
A
The theoretical perspective associated with A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (though he rejected the term) and his followers. It involved the emphasis on synchronic analysis of societies as isolated wholes. Each society was conceived as a set of systems related to each other analogously to the systems of a biological organism (cf. organic analogy). The approach dominated British anthropology from the 1940s to the 1960s. See functionalism.
5
Q
subaltern
A
Translation of Gramsci’s term for ‘subordinate’ (as in ‘subaltern classes’), subaltern has taken on a slightly different meaning, mostly from the work of the radical South Asian historians associated with the series Subaltern Studies. In their usage, subaltern refers to the position of any dominated group, whether this be on grounds of class, gender, age, ethnicity or religion.
6
Q
acculturation
A
The process of acquiring culture traits as a result of contact. The term was common, especially in American anthropology, until fairly recently.
7
Q
actor network theory (ANT)
A
Highly influential theory with roots in science and technology studies, associated with the work of the sociologists Michel Callon, Bruno Latour and John Law. Analysts working in the broad area of ANT look at the networks linking both human and non-human actors, networks which can and do cross the conventional boundaries separating, say, science from politics, or nature from culture.
8
Q
agency, agent
A
An agent is a person who is the subject of action. Agency, then suggests intention or consciousness of action, sometimes with the implication of possible choices between different actions. The concept of agency has been employed by anthropologists and social theorists, especially those influenced by Max Weber, in contrast to structure, which implies constraint on action.
9
Q
alterity
A
Literally ‘otherness’. Variously used in recent anthropology to describe and comment on the construction and experience of cultural difference.
10
Q
animism
A
The belief in spirits which inhabit or are identified with parts of the natural world, such as rocks, trees, rivers and mountains. In the nineteenth century, writers such as Sir Edward Tylor argued that animism represented an early form of religion, one which preceded theistic religions in the evolution of ‘primitive thought’. The term is sometimes used loosely to cover religious beliefs of indigenous population groups, e.g. in Africa and North America, prior to the introduction of Christianity, and is still widely used to describe the religious practice of so-called tribal or indigenous groups in areas like Southeast Asia.
11
Q
anomie
A
É. Durkheim’s term for a condition of normlessness, often confused with Marxist uses of the word ‘alienation’.
12
Q
archetype
A
C.G. Jung’s term for symbols which are common to all humanity. The notion has found little support among anthropologists.
13
Q
bare life
A
Concept invoked by Agamben in his ideas about sovereignty and the state of exception. Bare life is the condition of those placed outside the political community by the decision of the sovereign power.
14
Q
base and superstructure
A
In Marxist theory, the base (or infrastructure) is the material basis of society (technology, resources, economic relations) which is held ultimately to determine the superstructure, or ideological levels of society (law, religion, etc.).
15
Q
behaviourism, behaviourist
A
The school of psychology which emphasizes learned behaviour over innate cognitive propensities.
16
Q
biopolitics, biopower
A
Terms used by writers working in the shadow of Michel Foucault to denote the workings of modern forms of power that work directly on the body through modern disciplines and technologies (epitomized by certain sorts of biomedical intervention).
17
Q
bricolage, bricoleur
A
A bricoleur is a kind of French handyman who improvises technical solutions to all manner of minor repairs. In The Savage Mind (1962) Lévi-Strauss used this image to illustrate the way in which societies combine and recombine different symbols and cultural elements in order to come up with recurring structures. Subsequently bricolage has become a familiar term to describe various processes of structured improvisation.
18
Q
collective consciousness
A
Durkheim’s term (conscience collective) for the common consciousness shared by individuals belonging to the same society or social group. The French conscience may be translated as either ‘conscience’ or ‘consciousness’; thus the conscience collective is at once both cognitive and moral.
19
Q
cultural anthropology
A
One of the four fields (with linguistics, archaeology and physical anthropology) which combine to make up North American anthropology. Broadly comparable to European social anthropology, although the use of ‘cultural’ indicates significant historical differences in their intellectual genealogies. In the 1950s and 1960s the differences between social and cultural anthropology were the stuff of fraught controversy within anglophone anthropology; since the 1970s these differences have become less and less important (as the title of this Encyclopedia makes clear). See culture.
20
Q
cultural determinism
A
Any perspective which treats culture itself as determining the differences between peoples, e.g. in personality type. It is associated especially with relativism of various kinds.
21
Q
culturalism, culturalist
A
Any anthropological approach which gives first priority to explaining a culture in its own terms; employed as a term of mild abuse by British anthropologists of the 1950s. See culture.
22
Q
culture of poverty
A
A term first used by Oscar Lewis to suggest that poverty is not simply a lack of material resources, but entails in addition a set of associated cultural values which drastically limit the capacity of the poor to change their own circumstances. The concept has come in for much criticism, particularly through its application to problems of race and poverty in the United States.
23
Q
cybernetics
A
A field which stresses the relation between elements in a system of interrelated actions. It is used in engineering, computer technology, psychology and education, but its significance in anthropology comes largely through the work of Gregory Bateson, who helped develop the field in the 1940s.
24
Q
cyborg
A
A hybrid, part human and part machine. The idea has been explored by feminist anthropologists (most notably Donna Haraway) and those working in the new field of the anthropology of science.
25
deconstruction
Jacques Derrida’s term for a strategy of critical analysis which serves to expose underlying metaphysical assumptions in a particular text, in particular assumptions which would appear to contradict the surface argument of the text itself. The term has become synonymous with postmodern theory of various sorts and is often applied much more loosely to refer to the taking apart, or unpacking, of a particular term or concept.
26
deep and surface structure
In linguistics, where the distinction was introduced by Chomsky, the deep structure of a particular language contains the rules for generating the surface structure, i.e. the structure of what is actually said. At its most abstract, deep structure is common to all human languages.
27
diachronic
Literally, ‘through time’. Diachronic perspectives include evolutionist and diffusionist ones, in which time depth is the significant factor. The opposite is synchronic.
28
dialectical materialism
Another term, like historical materialism, for the theoretical approach of Marx and his followers in which Hegel’s dialectical style is married to a materialist concern with the production of human needs.
29
différance
In postmodern terminology, différance is Derrida’s punning term (combining the French for ‘differ’ and ‘defer’) for the endless slippage of meaning from sign to sign, such that any appeal to some real, foundational meaning is always ‘deferred’.
30
dialogic, dialogical
Terms employed by the Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin to indicate that language and meaning are never fixed in themselves, but only work in situations of dialogue, where meanings and understandings are contingent on other meanings and understandings. In this context, dialogue refers to a broader idea of language in use than simply conversation between two people.
31
diglossia
The presence of two ways of speaking, often one ‘high’ and the other ‘low’, in the same language. Each is appropriate to a different set of social conditions.
32
disposition
In the works of Bourdieu, a propensity for some specific action. The culturally determined set of dispositions available to any particular actor is called the habitus.
33
economic man
In economic theory, a hypothetical individual (Homo oeconomicus) who always acts in an economically rational way, i.e. to secure the most benefit in any given economic context. Since Malinowski’s assault on the idea of ‘primitive economic man’, the concept has been much criticized by economic anthropologists.
34
empiricism
In philosophy, the doctrine that knowledge depends on experience, in contrast to rationalism which posits that knowledge is structured by mind. More broadly in anthropology and the other human sciences, empiricism is used (often pejoratively) to characterize any approach which places the collection of empirical evidence before the construction of theoretical schemes.
35
eschatology
The branch of theology which deals with the ‘last things’, death and the end of the world.
36
ethno-
A prefix which usually (but not always) treats the substantive concept in light of indigenous explanations.
37
ethnographic present
A hypothetical time frame, characterized by the use of the present tense, employed in ethnographic writing. Normally it coincides with the time of fieldwork, which is not necessarily the time of writing, or indeed of reading.
38
ethnology
Broadly, a synonym for social or cultural anthropology. In early nineteenth-century Britain, the term often implied a monogenic theory of humankind, whereas ‘anthropology’ implied a polygenic theory. Often in Continental usage, ‘ethnology’ means social anthropology and ‘anthropology’ means physical anthropology. In yet another usage, Radcliffe-Brown distinguished ethnology (the study of culture history and relationships) from social anthropology (the study of society).
39
feedback
In systems theory, a mechanism which results from some action within a cybernetic system, usually when an effect returns to the point in the system from which it originally emanated. The term is commonly used in ecological anthropology to describe the results of environmental or socially induced change.
40
fetish, fetishism, fetishization
A fetish is an object which is believed to have spiritual power, such as a magical charm. The concept was used especially in late nineteeth-century anthropology to describe ritual objects used in supposedly ‘primitive’ societies. (For the history of the concept see main entry on religion.) Fetishization is the act of treating something as if it were a fetish. The term is often used to describe a process by which a culture or a social group irrationally overrates something (that which it fetishizes). In this sense, the object does not have to be material but may be, for example, a theoretical idea in anthropology. In this sense, the term becomes an accusation which is levelled against theoretical opponents. In a famous passage in Capital, Marx used the image of the fetish to illustrate the way in which people misapprehend the true nature of commodities by treating them as persons, thus attributing power and agency to things, while treating people (who really do have agency) as things, mere repositories of labour power for sale in the market.
41
Fourth World
A term employed to characterize either (1) the extremely impoverished members of Third World societies, or (2) highly marginalized minority groups such as hunter-gatherers or indigenous peoples, who are dominated by other groups or by state bureaucracies.
42
generative
Having rules which determine either an outcome or a more visible form in the social structure. The term, borrowed from linguistics, has been commonly used by structuralist anthropologists, as when deep structures generate surface structures.
43
Gestalt theory
In psychology, the approach which argues that phenomena should be studied as wholes, through their configuration or internal relations, rather than merely in part. This idea influenced the culture and personality school in American anthropology.
44
globalization
The tendency towards increasing global interconnections in culture, economy and social life. Belatedly noticed by sociologists and social theorists in the 1980s. See complex society, world system.
45
habitus
A term taken by Bourdieu from the work of Mauss, to denote the total set of dispositions which shape and constrain social practices. Habitus is Bourdieu’s central notion, and he uses it to acknowledge the appearance of structures in the social world, while allowing the reality of individual strategy.
46
hegemony
Domination or power of one person or group over another. The term was used by Gramsci to describe the cultural processes through which the ruling classes maintain their power, and has been widely employed in ethnographic studies of domination and resistance. Cf. counter-hegemony.
47
heliocentrism
Literally, belief in the centrality of the sun. In anthropology, it usually refers to the British diffusionist school of G. Elliot Smith and W.J. Perry, who believed that significant features of nearly all of the world’s cultures are derived from those of the sun-worshipping ancient Egyptians.
48
hermeneutics
The practice of interpretation. In anthropology, it refers to the theoretical position which sees ethnographic practice as one of interpreting, or ‘reading’, cultures as if they were texts. See symbolic anthropology.
49
heteroglossia
Bakhtin’s term for the variety of different ‘languages’ at work in any given social context. In opposition to structural linguistics, Bakhtin argued that the idea of a single linguistic system (langue in Saussure’s terms) is a political project, which is always resisted by the tendency for languages to fragment into new multiplicities. See dialogue, dialogical.
50
heteronormativity
A term employed in gender theory and queer theory to denote the unreflexive assumption, used by many writers, that heterosexual relations and relationships constitute the normal state of human affairs and therefore require neither comment nor analysis.
51
historical materialism
Marx’s theory of society and social change, based on the analysis of the material forces at work in the unfolding of human history.
52
historical particularism
The work of Boas and his followers who emphasized the need to reconstruct the particular histories of different cultural items, rather than attempt to place them in grand, usually evolutionary or diffusionist, theoretical frameworks.
53
historicism
In general, a term which indicates a need to be sensitive to the historical dimension of society and culture. More specifically it can either refer to any diachronic approach, which emphasizes the unfolding of processes in time (however broad), or to the need to attend to the particular historical context of social and cultural practices.
54
holism
Any approach which treats the whole as greater than the sum of its parts. In anthropology, this includes perspectives such as functionalism and structuralism. In contrast, non-holistic approaches such as transactionalism emphasize the role of the individual rather than the total social or cultural system in which he or she operates.
55
homology
Similarity of structure or appearance (but not necessarily of function or purpose).
56
hot and cold societies
Lévi-Strauss’s distinction between those (hot) societies in which social differentiation and social change are taken for granted – which explain themselves through their history – and those (cold) ones which are relatively undifferentiated and static, and which explain themselves through their myths. Lévi-Strauss’s distinction was not intended to deny the reality of change and historical transformation in so-called ‘cold’ societies, but only to suggest that history and change had a more limited place in their self-understandings.
57
icon, iconicity
In semiotics, an icon is a sign whose physical form in some way resembles that which is being signified. Iconicity refers to non-arbitrary, or motivated, signification in general.
58
imperialism
Literally, the seeking or propagation of empire. In postcolonial times, the term often connotes a reputed residual domination over a country or people by economic or cultural forces (e.g. anthropology) from Europe or North America.
59
index, indexical
The word index has a range of meanings in anthropology, philosophy, semiotics and linguistics, all based on some idea of an index as something which stands for or indicates something else. So, in linguistics, an indexical feature of someone’s language use is something (accent, intonation, etc.) which marks them as belonging to a particular social class or occupational category. In semiotics an index may be something associated through ‘natural’ properties (e.g. a flower as an ‘index’ of spring). And in philosophy indexicals are terms whose purpose is to pick out a particular thing – obviously personal names, but also words like ‘this’, ‘here’ and ‘today’ – but which nevertheless also apply to other things when the same word is used in a different context.
60
institution (In structural-functionalist theory)
an element of a social system. Institutions (e.g. bridewealth, marriage, the family) are said to make up systems (e.g. kinship), which in turn make up society.
61
intersubjective
In philosophy, that which occurs between subjects, in other words all that makes the communication of subjective meanings possible between people.
62
interpretive anthropology
Anthropology which is informed by a concern with problems of interpretation, or hermeneutics. The term usually applies to that kind of symbolic anthropology practised by Clifford Geertz.
63
intertextuality
In literary criticism, the relations between texts. A term widely used in postmodern and poststructural criticism, as part of a general tendency to avoid questions of authorial intention by treating texts as relatively autonomous.
64
langue and parole
Ferdinand de Saussure’s analytic distinction between the level of language (langue) and the level of speech (parole). Language is the abstract system which is the proper object of analysis for structural linguistics; speech is the infinite variety of things people actually say. The use of the analogy in anthropological structuralism has two important implications: that we are concerned with whole systems, and these systems are necessarily abstracted from the more confusing and messy world of empirical data.
65
liminality
A phase within ritual, especially within rites of passage, in which participants are regarded as being betwixt and between their former social position and the new position to which they are moving. The phase is often accompanied by either the suspension, or reversal, of everyday social values. The term derives from the Latin for ‘threshold’ and was highly elaborated by Victor Turner in his reworking of A. van Gennep’s classic formulation.
66
linguistic relativism
The notion that each language possesses its own characteristic mode of thought or perception of the world. Thus, people who speak different languages will think differently. The idea is most strongly associated with the work of B.L. Whorf. See Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
67
literary criticism
The discipline which concerns the analysis and interpretation of literature. Literary criticism has been influenced by anthropological theory, in the case of structuralism, and more recently, has left its own influence in anthropological theory, in the case of postmodernism.
68
Manchester School
In anthropology, the group of anthropologists (including Victor Turner and Clyde Mitchell) associated with the Manchester department chaired by Max Gluckman in the 1950s and 1960s. The department had strong links with the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, through which it developed a distinctive empirical and analytic style, predominantly concerned with African material, usually acknowledging change in the broader society and process in local social life, and pioneering research in areas like urban anthropology and ethnicity.
69
materialism
Broadly, any approach which emphasizes matter over mind (e.g. materialism in opposition to idealism in philosophy). Within anthropology, the term tends to refer to approaches – like Marxism or cultural materialism – which see the environment, the means of production or other material aspects of society as determining other aspects of society, such as religion.
70
mechanical and statistical models
In the first volume of Structural Anthropology (1958) Lévi-Strauss made a distinction between two kinds of models which may be used in structural analysis. Mechanical models are based on phenomena of ‘the same scale’ as whatever it is that is being modelled; statistical models involve differences of scale. He provides two explanatory examples: suicide, in which a mechanical model would be based on the individual circumstances – psychological type, family history of particular suicides, while a statistical model would look at different rates of suicide in different social contexts; and marriage rules, which in some societies may be coherently expressed in terms of particular kin groups in a mechanical model, and in other cases (like modern Western societies), can only be expressed through complex statistical models.
71
mechanical solidarity
One half of Durkheim’s version of the great divide between the traditional and the modern. Societies based on mechanical solidarity have no great internal complexity and little division of labour, but a relatively strong collective consciousness: they are held together by their uniformity. Modern societies, in contrast, are characterized by organic solidarity, and are held together by their interdependence.
72
metanarrative
A story about stories. The term was employed by the translator of Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition (1984) for the French grandes histoires (or ‘big stories’), which Lyotard used to describe the grand post- Enlightenment intellectual schemes of Kant, Hegel and Marx. This is what commentators are referring to when postmodernism is said to be characterized by the ‘decline of metanarratives’.
73
metaphor
In rhetoric, a figure of speech based on analogy: e.g. ‘the tide has turned in our favour’ to mean that events are beginning to develop in the way we want. The linguist R. Jakobson distinguished between metaphor (based on similarity of relationships) and metonym (based on contiguity or common substance), a distinction which mapped onto other key pairs in structural linguistics such as paradigmatic and syntagmatic. Lévi- Strauss has made frequent use of Jakobson’s distinction, as have other structuralists. Other anthropologists have sought to explain apparently bizarre or irrational beliefs in terms of metaphor. More recently psychological anthropologists, influenced by the work of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, have explored the way in which metaphors structure the acquisition of cultural knowledge. See rationality, cognition.
74
metonym
In rhetoric, a figure of speech based on the substitution of either a part for a whole, or an associated thing for the thing itself: e.g. talking of ‘the crown’ or ‘the throne’ to refer either to a particular monarch or to monarchy in general. Often contrasted with metaphor, in which something of radically different substance is used to suggest the properties of whatever it is that is being discussed.
75
mimesis
Literally, imitation or representation. The term has a philosophical history going back to Plato, and has come into anthropology by way of literary criticism, and is now used in theories and critiques of the nature of representation.
76
moiety
Literally, a half. In parts of Lowland South America and Aboriginal Australia, societies typically divide into two moieties which are recruited through a principle of unilineal descent (either matrilineal or patrilineal). Such moieties are generally exogamous, which means that an individual always marries into the opposite
(and not his or her own) moiety. In the classic theoretical explanation of four-section systems in Aboriginal Australia, both matrilineal and patrilineal moieties are present at the same time, and each individual belongs to one of each. Their intersection thus generates the four sections. However, ethnographic evidence for recognition of both patrilineal and matrilineal moieties at the same time is weak.
77
noble savage
The romantic ideal of ‘savage’ or ‘natural’ humankind, represented by societies which supposedly lack the unsavoury trappings of advanced civilization. The phrase originated in John Dryden’s play The Conquest of Granada, Part I (1692) but is usually associated with the views of J.-J. Rousseau. In the eighteenth century, the image of the noble savage was attributed especially to aboriginal inhabitants of North America. See Enlightenment anthropology.
78
norm
Usually, the established mode of behaviour to which conformity is expected. Sometimes the term refers to the average or typical behaviour, referred to as the statistical norm, rather than the expected behaviour, or ideal norm.
79
objectivism
Any approach in social theory which regards its subject matter as in some sense made up of ‘objects’, things which can be objectively observed and assessed, rather than ‘subjects’ which require some special empathetic attention. Another term for various scientistic or positivistic approaches to anthropology (e.g. Radcliffe-Brown’s version of functionalism, or American ethnoscience in the 1960s).
80
organic analogy
The idea that ‘society is like an organism’, e.g. in the sense that just as an organism is made up of systems (nervous, circulatory, etc.), so too is society (kinship, politics, economics and religion). This is the best-known version of the organic analogy, as found in Radcliffe-Brown’s functionalism, but A. Comte, H. Spencer and É. Durkheim formulated earlier versions.
81
organic solidarity
The modern pole in Durkheim’s contrast between traditional and modern sources of solidarity, organic solidarity is characterized by a relatively complex division of labour, in which each social unit functions as an ‘organ’ within a larger ‘organic’ whole, allowing for greater diversity in individual consciousness. Contrasted to mechanical solidarity.
82
paradigm, paradigmatic
Paradigm is a term with a variety of meanings, depending on context. In common English, it often refers simply to an example. It was given a fuller and more technical meaning by the philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn who used it to refer to a set of common assumptions, shared by members of a particular scientific community at any one time, which serve to structure and restrict the questions asked by those scientists during periods of what he called ‘normal science’. Kuhn’s sense was swiftly taken up by social scientists to refer loosely to any theoretical tendency. In linguistics, on the other hand, linguists influenced by Saussure contrast syntagmatic relations which link successive words or sounds in the chain of spoken language, with paradigmatic (or associative) relations which link together all the words or sounds which might potentially occupy a particular position in the syntagmatic chain.
83
performative
In speech-act theory, any utterance which is in some way equivalent to an action: e.g. ‘I name this ship . . . ’, ‘I promise you . . . ’. Cf. illocutionary, perlocutionary.
84
phenomenology
A term with varied but related meanings in philosophy, psychology, and sociology. In anthropology, it tends to take its sociological meaning: the study of the ways in which people experience and understand everyday life. As a theoretical perspective, it is closely allied to ethnomethodology.
85
phoneme, phonemic
In linguistics, a phoneme is a meaningful unit of sound peculiar to a particular language. A given phoneme is necessarily an abstraction from the patterns of actual speech: it may, for example, be realized in one, two or more allophones, or sounds which vary according to dialect or appearance in relation to other phonemes (e.g. in English the phoneme /p/ at the beginning of a word is pronounced with breath, whereas it is not if preceeded by an /s/). Phonemes occur within a system unique to a particular language or dialect, namely the phonemic or phonological system. See emic and etic.
86
phonetic
In linguistics, the study of, or the theoretical level of, the objective auditory or acoustic nature of sounds, independent of their place in the sound system of a given language (the phonology or phonemic system). See emic and etic.
87
phonology
In linguistics, the study of speech sounds as part of a system of such sounds in a given language. Phonology is important in anthropology because structuralist anthropologists, notably Lévi-Strauss, have borrowed
theoretical ideas from the field.
88
positivism
This term has varied but related meanings. In anthropology, it tends to refer to any approach which treats anthropology as a science concerned with the pursuit of objective knowledge through the collection of facts and the formulation of laws. In its strictest sense, it refers to the scientific methodology of A. Comte, who in the early nineteenth century sought to place social science on the same philosophical footing as the natural sciences. Cf. objectivism, scientism.
89
postcolonial
Referring to the period which begins with the withdrawal of Western colonial rule. In literary criticism, the term has come to be used for a body of radical work on the persistence of colonial representations of the non-European ‘other’, influenced by E. Said’s Orientalism as well as various strands of poststructural theory. See colonialism.
90
poststructuralism
A broad tendency within literary criticism and other fields, poststructuralism developed out of structuralist theory in France in the 1970s, and was identified above all with the work of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault and Jacques Lacan. See postmodernism.
91
practice
What people do, as opposed to what they say. The concept is central to P. Bourdieu’s notion of habitus. Cf. preference and prescription.
92
pragmatics
In linguistics, the study of how language is used and what it does, through the interpretation of utterances and their implications in social contexts, rather than what it means, through the semantic analysis of sentences and their referents. See deixis, speech-act.
93
praxis
In Marxist social theory, practice or practical action, especially that which is directed to fostering radical change.
94
presentism
In historiography, an overly present-focused analysis which sees the past in terms of its anticipation of more recent developments. This approach has been criticized, e.g. by George Stocking, writing about anthropologists’ own accounts of the history of anthropology.
95
primitive, primitivism
Always an ambiguous term in anthropology, primitive is no longer in general use. Prior to the 1970s, it was employed in opposition to ‘civilized’ to refer to peoples who were the subject of most anthropological enquiry. The term was widely and loosely used in a non-pejorative sense through the twentieth century, whereas nineteenth-century evolutionary writers tended to make a more precise distinction between savagery, barbarism, and civilization. Primitivism is the ascription of virtue to what is often a romanticized or idealized version of the primitive. The term is widely used, especially in art historical writing on those modernist artists (some influenced by contemporary anthropology) who self-consciously borrowed motifs and formal elements from so-called primitive art.
96
Protestant ethic
Max Weber’s characterization of those qualities of the early Protestant worldview, specifically the ethic of this-worldly asceticism, which he claimed played a crucial part in the emergence of capitalism in Europe.
97
rationalism
In philosophy, the doctrine that knowledge depends on reason rather than on experience, i.e. it is actively structured by the mind. In anthropology, this doctrine is characteristic of approaches such as structuralism. Contrast empiricism.
98
representation
Anything which stands for, or takes the place of, something else. In philosophy, the idea that our perception of the world is composed of mental representations lies behind Durkheim’s idea of the collective representation. In politics, we typically delegate our part in active political life to someone who promises to represent our interests. And anthropological writing, of course, involves the attempted representation of other people and their way of life. From the 1980s onward, these meanings have grown increasingly tangled, not least as proponents of multiculturalism and the politics of identity have raised the question of who, if anyone, has the right to represent, or speak for, anyone else.
99
schismogenesis
Gregory Bateson’s term for a process of structured interaction in which two opposed entities produce a situation of increased differentiation. Bateson (in Naven [1936]) originally located these processes at the level of the individual, but the term can be extended to collective agents like clans or nation-states. Complementary schismogenesis describes a situation where one party’s behaviour reinforces the other party’s different reaction (e.g. the more one party is assertive, the more the other party is submissive). Symmetrical schismogenesis describes the interaction of two parties who react in the same way to each other (e.g. boasting on one side producing intensified boasting on the other).
100
scientism
Adhering to the procedures or appearance of (‘hard’) science; an alternative to positivism as a term of anthropological abuse.
101
semantics
The branch of linguistics concerned with the study of meaning. Semantics is traditionally taken as the highest level of linguistic analysis (above phonetics, phonology, and syntax), and therefore the one which marks the bridge between language and the rest of culture.
102
semiotics
The general science of signs. The field was instituted through the work of Ferdinand de Saussure and has developed, especially in literary and film criticism. There is a second tradition of semiotics which stems from the work of the American philosopher C.S. Peirce. This tradition emphasizes the connection between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ signs. This latter tradition distinguishes signs as symbols (purely conventional signs such as words), indexes (natural signs such as smoke as a sign of fire) and icons (which stand in between, such as maps).
103
sign, signified, signifier
At the most general, something (like a symbol or a representation) which stands for, or indicates something else. Saussure spoke of linguistic signs as made up of a concept (signifié, that which is signified) and a sound-image (signifiant, or signifier). Saussure insisted on the fundamentally arbitrary, or unmotivated, relationship between signifier and signified in the case of the linguistic sign. For Peirce, on the other hand, signs, which usually share some property with that which is being signified, can be distinguished from symbols, which are wholly conventional.
104
social contract
Most literally, an (imaginary) agreement between individuals who decide to give up their complete, natural liberty in order to form a society. By extension, the act of consent on the part of individuals who accept sociality and the protection afforded by government. The concept was prominent in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, e.g. in the works of Hobbes and Rousseau. See Enlightenment anthropology.
105
social fact
Durkheim’s term for the fundamental subject matter of sociology, as expressed in his famous positivist aphorism that ‘social facts must be studied as things’, in other words as ‘realities external to the individual’. See functionalism.
106
social formation
A term commonly employed by structural Marxists to mean society. See Marxism and anthropology.
107
subject-position
Term favoured by seriously postmodern anthropologists, influenced by the theoretical critique of the subject (in French writers like Foucault): if subjectivity is less a self-evident foundation for knowledge, but instead a product of external discourses and practices, it is more appropriate to designate different kinds of subjectivity as so many subject positions.
108
synchronic
Synchronic perspectives, such as structuralism and functionalism, emphasize the relation of things in the present or at some specific time. In contrast diachronic approaches, such as evolutionism, emphasize relations through time.
109
syntagm, syntagmatic, syntax
A syntagm is literally, a ‘sentence’. Syntax refers to the grammatical relations which hold between the elements within a sentence. Saussure distinguished between two levels of linguistic analysis: the syntagmatic and the associative (renamed the paradigmatic by his followers). The syntagmatic refers to the succession of linguistic items through time in an utterance, and the relations between those items. The paradigmatic refers to the relations between any one item in a particular syntagmatic position and all other items (not actually present) which may occupy that position. See metaphor, metonymy, paradigm.
110
systems theory
An approach applied in many different disciplines, related to cybernetics and drawing on computer analogies, which emphasizes relations between elements within a dynamic system, such that if one element changes it affects others within the system. It has been particularly important in ecological anthropology.
111
tabula rasa
Literally, in Latin, a blank slate. The term is used especially in reference to John Locke’s theory that human behaviour and understanding are derived from learning, and are not innate. Boasian anthropologists were influenced by this notion, whereas Lévi-Strauss and his followers, for example, have maintained that there are human cognitive universals.
112
thick description
The term introduced by Clifford Geertz in The Interpretation of Cultures (1973) as a description of what good ethnography, and by implication good anthropology, is. What makes an ethnographic description ‘thick’ rather than ‘thin’ is the layering of interpretation of all sorts: ethnographer’s interpretations, informant’s interpretations, people’s own interpretations. See symbolic anthropology.
113
trickster
In folklore and mythology, a character who plays clever tricks on other characters. Often taking the form of an animal such as a fox or coyote, the trickster can represent downtrodden elements of a community or the triumph of good over evil.
114
trope
In rhetoric, any figure of speech. The term has been widely used in anthropology as postmodern and poststructural theorists have drawn attention to the non-referential, or creative, aspects of language.
115
utilitarianism
The moral and philosophical doctrine that the most just action is the one which creates ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’, especially associated with Jeremy Bentham. In recent anthropology, any argument which can be seen as based on assumptions of individual calculating rationality might be (pejoratively) described as ‘utilitarian’.
116
Writing Culture
A book edited by James Clifford and George E. Marcus and published in 1986, which has become the standard point of reference in discussions of postmodernism and ethnography in anthropology. See poetics.
