anthropology Flashcards
memorizing
What are the four fields of Anthropology?
Linguistics, cultural, archeological, and biological
What major concerns shaped the foundation of 19th century European/American Anthropology?
Industrialization in Europe and America, rise of evolutionary theories, the spread of European colonialism
How is ethnocentrism defined? Weak? Strong?
Weak definition: judging other cultures using on’s own cultural standards
Strong definition: the assumption that one’s way of doing things is correct, diminishing other people’s way of life as inferior
Cultural relativism
The idea that behavior should be evaluated not by outside standards but in the context of the culture in which it occurs
What is the most basic difference between a description that is familiarizing, versus one that is defamiliarizing?
Familiarizing is making the strange familiar and defamiliarizing is making the familiar strange
Very basic understanding of the historical particularism of Franz Boas
Anthropological theory that each culture should be understood on its own terms
What is significant about the idea of universals and particulars in the field of anthropology. What does Laura Bohannan’s reading, “Shakespeare in the Bush,” teach us about universals and particulars as she attempts to translate Hamlet to the Tiv, and they attempt to interpret it for her?
Something occur to everyone like during adolescence there is a biological change in people
Or are something specific to the culture and context in which people were raised
Some of the themes are universal but the relationship between the characters and how they would interact varies from place to place
The Seven Elements of Culture
Learned, symbolic, dynamic and changing, integrated, shapes everybody’s life, shared
what is ethnocentrism?
judging other cultures using one’s own cultural standards. The assumption one’s own cultural ways of doing this are correct, dismissing others as ignorant or inferior
Overcoming ethnocentrism is key to cultural understanding (or recognizing one’s own ethnocentrism and bracketing, through methodological relativism, is crucial for cross cultural engagement)
If culture is always changing and contested, why does it seem so stable?
It is because of enculturation- the idea that people have been doing or beliving things for much of their lives
Symbols, norms, and traditions
Reinforced and expressed through social institutions
Methodological relativism
uses cultural relativism as a technique for bracketing one’s own preconceptions to learn about and describe unfamiliar worlds.
How has the cultural/ symbolic life of corn flakes changed since the 19th century into the present?
- In the 19th Century is was the cure for sexual deviance and masturbation
- Bland food was the way to soothe sexual urges compared to meats and spicy
What do linguistic anthropologists study?
The study of language and linguistic changes in cultural and historical contexts
Language is a form of social action
Draws on historical and/or contemporary long-term ethnographic research as well as linguistic analysis
Cultural Transmission
how the concepts from one culture are passed down from generation to generation
Productivity
Using rules of language to produce entirely new yet comprehensible statements
Vs. call system- limited sounds tied to environmental stimuli
Displacement
The ability to speak of or symbolize things or events that are not present
Referential
Generally focuses on describing a situation, object or mental state
Poetic
Focuses on the message for its own sake and is the operative function in poetry
Emotive
Relates to the feelings of the speaker and best illustrated by interjections, such as “wow”
Conative
Addresses the listener directly “john, go inside and eat”
Phatic
Language used for the purpose of interacting with another, especially for initiation or ending communication
metalinguistic
using language to describe itself
what are microaggressions?
everyday, subtle, intensional, and oftentimes unintentional- interactions or behaviors that communicate some sort of bias
What is second order information?
- The background knowledge of a situation and expectations of communications that allows one to interpret the words
- Accompanies the phrases in the message itself, guides people in how to interpret others’ actions and intentions
Basic understanding of Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and Linguistic Relativity
- Different languages produce different patterns of thought; differing grammatical categories, constructions of time
- People interpret the world differently because of difference in our languages
- The idea that people speaking different languages perceive or interest the world differently because of the difference in their language
- Language habits of communities lead people to think about things in a certain way
What is Linguistic Ideology?
Widespread assumptions people make about the superiority of sophistication and status of particular dialects or languages
Phonology
Where those sounds become meaningful in different languages. Each language has its own unique pattern of sounds
Phonetics
- The sounds that the mouth makes
- Social stratification is connected to the sounds that we make and the meaning we give those words
Materiality
The quality of being tangible or physical
Material culture
Things left behind that define culture
What sub-fields of anthropology will De Leon use to try to make cultures of violence at the US/Mexico border visible?
- Archeology
- Biological anthropology
- Cultural anthropology
- Some linguistics anthropology
What ethical predicaments were flagged by De Leon about researching border crossings, which led him to his decisions about how to (and how not to) conduct his research)?
- Shifts focus to the researcher’s safety
- Vast inequality between researcher and those crossing the border
= Guarantees the experience would be anything other than norma
Symbolic Capital
- The mastery of communication and self-expression, acquired from cultural surroundings, convertible into other forms of power
- Context dependent
Emic
Descriptions and definitions focused on the “insiders” perspective of cultural beliefs, values, practices, documenting interpretations from the perspective of those who one is trying to describe (not imputing meaning onto others, but documenting meanings from their perspective
Etic
- Descriptions and definitions that draw on “outsider” standards, measures, frameworks, for describing cultural behavior, Draws on terminology specific to the researcher or academic disciplines
- This terminology that wouldn’t have much meaning to those being described, focused on observable behaviors, but is useful in identifying functional and comparative significance.
Basic understanding of how the concept of “Whiteness” came to be defined as a racial category. What defined Whiteness in its earliest forms?
- To impose effective social controls over the population and provide cheap and easily controlled workers
- Used be distinguishing physical traits
In the early colonial period, which ethnic groups does Smedley say are framed as “Savage” by the ruling classes? Which ethnic groups are seen as more “Civilized” in the era prior to Bacon’s Rebellion? Why?
The irish were framed as savages
Africans were seen as civilized because of their specialized skills
What changed after Bacon’s Rebellion?
- Privileges extended to disenfranchised European ethnic groups, to separate whites and black people
- Indentured servitude was replaced with a racial caste system
Race
Refers to a group of people who share physical and cultural traits
Racism
Then combines the belief that races are populations whose physical differences are linked to cultural differences within a hierarchy, with policies and practices of subordination and discrimination based on those difference
Ethnicity
Group identity based on notion of similar and shared history, culture and kinship, Self-identification and cultural belonging form the basis of ethnicity in its broadest sense
Ideology
A set of principles and ideas that benefit the dominant group
Colonialism
The practice of acquiring political control over another country, occupying its settlers, and exploiting it economically
Familiarity with scientific racism as it’s talked about in Golash-Boza
The use of science or pseudoscience to rationalize or reproduce racial inequality
What is an ascribed status, and how it relate to race and ethnicity?
Ascribed status - something you are born into and can not change- race
Achieved status is linked to ethnicity
Be familiar with the lecture slide that talks about “IMPORTANT implications of Race and Sociocultural Constructions.
Definitions of racial classifications change over time
They also vary across the globe
You can not intrinsically know what your race is
What is the arbitrary kinship rule of hypodescent?
Children whose parents are from different racial classifications assume the racial identity of the parent with the subordinate status
How is it different from the also-arbitrary kinship rule of hyperdescent?
Classifies children of mixed race ancestry in the more socially dominant of parents race
Pick one of the ten things that was either new to you, surprising, or important, that you could comment on in the exam.
Race and freedom where more at the same time. Race was the bases that inhibited freedom but also allowed others to be more free given their higher racial status
Cross cultural contact and diffusion of cultural ideas around the world is not at all new
Sailed with the understanding of the sky and stars, wind, current patterns, weather systems, wildfire behavior, and other natural processes
Diffusionist
Cultural characteristics result from either internal historical dynamism, or spread of cultural attributes from one society to another
Globalization
The contemporary widening scale of cross-cultural interactions owning to the rapid movement of money, people, goods, images and ideas within nations and across national borders
Note how anthropologist Eric Wolf brought the importance of power relations between places into the discussion in the 1960s.
Isolated society could not be understood with reference to their place within global capitalist system
Transnational
Imagines relationships that extend beyond nations without assuming they cover the whole world
Immigrants
leave countries with no expectation of ever returning
Migrants
who leave their homes to live or work for a time in other regions or countries
Refugees
migrate because of political oppression or war
Exiles
expelled by the authorities of their home countries
hybridization (100)
hybridization
Persistent cultural mixing that has no predetermined direction or endpoint
Emphasizes a world based on cultural mixing, border crossing, and persistent cultural diversity
How do Welsch et al. define violence?
Violence is the use of force to harm someone or something
Hard because of intent, rationality, legitimacy/illegitimacy
What is the problem with stories of “tribalism” as it relates to ethnic conflict?
-It ignores the history of co-existence, cultural interchange, and peaceful relations that were observed in that region
-It makes one ethnic group seem really really bad
For the background on the breakup of Yugoslavia, you won’t be tested on specifics; a basic understanding that helps you place the film, We Are All Neighbors, in context, will suffice!
Bosnian civil war
People were describing serbs, croats, and muslims the reason for attacking was ethnic violence
Prevention through deterrence
Funnels migrants through hostile terrain out of site of urban centers
Policy of inflicting violence on migrants
Undocumented labor
Particularism
Things need to be understood in their cultural context
