Anthropology-Study of culture Flashcards
What is anthropology?
Anthropology is the study of humanity like out prehistoric origins and contemporary human diversity. It is broader and covers a much greater span of time and broader range of topics than other disciplines that study humanity.
Anthropology as a science
Hypothesis, hunch, observing and testing
Anthropology as a humanistic approach
Understanding humanity through study. Culturally informed understanding
Biological anthropology
Study of humans as biological organisms, evolution and contemporary variation
Archaeology
Study of past human cultures through their material remains
Linguistic anthropology
Human communication, origins, history, contemporary variation and change
Cultural anthropology
Study of living people and their cultures(variation and change)
Applied anthropology
Using anthropological knowledge to prevent and solve problems or shape and achieve policy goals
Culture
People’s learned and shared behaviours and beliefs
Functionalism
The view that a culture is similar to a biological organism, in which parts work to support the operation and maintenance of the whole
Holism
The view that one must study all aspects of a culture in order to understand the whole culture
Cultural relativism
Each culture must be understood in terms of values and ideas of that culture and not be judged by standards of others
Historical particularism
Individual cultures must be described and studied on their own terms
Increased theoretical diversity
Theories of culture based on environmental factors, similar environments lead to emergence of similar cultures
French structuralism
Best way to understand a culture is to collect myths and stories and analyze the themes
Symbolic anthropology
Study of a culture as a system of meanings
Cultural materialism
Studying culture by emphasizing the material aspects of life
Interpretive anthropology/Intepretivism
Understand culture should be what people think about, their ideas and the symbols and meanings that are important to them
Postmodernism
Intellectual pursuit that asks whether modernity is truly progress and it questions such aspects of modernism as the scientific method, urbanization, mass communication and technological change.
Structural
The view that powerful structures such as economics, politics and media shapes culture and creates entrenched systems of inequality and oppression
Agency
Power of individuals to create and change culture and make choices and exercise free will
Feminist anthropology
The need to study female roles and gender-based inequality
Gay/lesbian/queer anthropology
The need to study gay people’s cultures/discrimination based on sexual identity and preferences
Local culture
A distinct pattern of learned and shared behaviour and thinking found within larger cultures
Culture and nature
The relationship is of great interest to help understand people’s behaviour and thinking
Eating
Culture shapes how, what, when, meaning of food and eating, foods that are acceptable and unacceptable
Drinking
Appropriate substances, when, with whom to drink. Particular drinks, style of drinks, serving them are heavily influenced by culture
Sleeping
Who sleeps with whom, where children sleep. Excessive daytime sleepiness
Elimination
Where to eliminate? Private or public. Positive or negative effect
Culture and symbols
A symbol is a object that has a range of culturally significant meanings. It is through symbols that culture is shared, stored and transmitted over time
Culture is learned
Cannot be predicted but must be learned, begins at birth
Enculturation
Hearing stories and seeing performances of rituals and dances
Cultures are integrated
Studying only 1-2 aspects of a culture provides limited understanding that leads to misunderstanding or wrong
Cultural interaction and change
Factors that affect cultural change through contact
Class
Category based on people’s economic position in society. Income, wealth, lifestyle. Upper, middle, lower class
Globalization
The process of intensified global interconnectedness and movement of goods, information, and people is a major force of contemporary cultural change.
Localization
Transformation of global cultures by local cultures into something new.
Culture
Culture is always changing and adapting, it is not the same as nature, it is based on symbols, it is learned, it is integrated, culture interact and change. Culture is a learned and shared behaviour of ideas of a particular group. All human beings belong to a culture and a numerous number of subcultures.
Working class
Trade labour for wages
Landowning class
Own land, they or others labour the land
Race
Homogenous biological traits
Ethnicity
Sense of group affiliation based on a distinct heritage or worldview as a people
Indigenous people
Group that has a long standing connection with their home territory, numeral minority who have lost their right to their original territory
Gender
Males, females or blended as a third gender
Age
Cultural stages for appropriate behaviour and thinking must be re-learnt
Institutions
Have their own cultural characteristics (hospitals, schools, universities, prisons)
Ethnography
First-hand, detailed description of a living culture, based on personal observation. Provides rich, culturally specific insights
Ethnology
Comparative study of a particular topic in more than one culture using ethnographical material. Cross-cultural analysis
Ethnocentrism
Judging other cultures by the standards of one’s own culture rather than by the standards of that particular culture
Cultural relativism
Each culture must be understood in terms of values and beliefs of that culture and should not be judged by standards of other cultures.
Absolute cultural relativism
Whatever happens in a particular culture must not be questioned or changed by outsiders because there is no right to question any behaviour or idea anywhere
Critical cultural relativism
Poses questions about cultural practices, ideas, who accepts them and why. Critique, recognizes oppressors, winners, victims
Cultural imperialism
One dominant group claims supremacy over minority culture and changes the situation to its own interests
Critique
Probe underlying power interests
Criticism
Offer negative comments
Valuing diversity
Contribute to the preservation of cultural diversity and knowledge by describing cultures as they existed, exist and change
Cultural survival
Hels indigenous people and ethnic minorities to interact as equals in society.
Contemporary theoretical approaches
Interpretive, symbolic, political ecology and economy, post-modernism
Biological determinism
Why people do and think what they do by considering biological factors like genes and hormones. They also search for genes/hormones that can lead to certain for of behaviour
Cultural constructionism
Human behaviours and ideas are best explained as products or culturally shaped learning. Skills are passed culturally through learning not genes. Important roles of childhood experiences and family role more important than genes and hormones
Interpretive anthropology
How people use symbols to make sense of the world around them and what those symbols mean. Privilege what people are saying
Cultural materialism
Emphasize studying of material conditions. Importance of material conditions in studying and explaining human behaviours and ideas.
Structure
Social organization, kinship, political organization
Superstructure
Ideas, values, beliefs
Infrastructure
Crucial material factors that largely shape culture, seek explanations for behaviour and ideas by looking primarily at infrastructural factors
Individual agency
Choose how to behave and think
Structural
Free choice is an illusion since choices are structured by larger forces
Individual agency vs Structural
How much individual will, agency has to do with why people behave the way they do vs the power of forces and structures by larger forces
Materialist anthropology
Patterned repetitive ways of thinking, feeling and acting of a certain society
absolute cultural relativism
perspective that says a person from culture should not question rightfulness and wrongfulness of behaviour or ideas in other cultures because that would be ethnocentric
adaptation
process in which plants, animals, humans make adjustments to their environments enhancing their survival and reproduction; human cultural adaptations include technology, language and social organizations
critical cultural relativism
perspective that promotes people in all countries to raise questions about their own and others cultural practices and ideas, especially regarding who accepts them and why, who’s harming or helping
structural theory
theoretical positions which argues free choice is an illusion, all human behaviour is constrained by economy, social and political structures and ideologies
