CHAPTER 1 Flashcards
anthropology
the study of the full scope of human diversity and the application of that knowledge to help people of different backgrounds better understand one another.
ethnocentrism
- the strong human tendency to believe that one’s own culture or way of life is normal, natural, and superior to the beliefs and practices of others.
- belief that one’s own culture or way of life is normal, natural, or even superior, and the tendency to use one’s own culture to evaluate and judge the cultural ideas and practices of others.
ethnographic fieldwork
when anthropologists live in a community of people over and extended period of time to understand their lives by “walking in their shoes”.
holism
Textbook: anthropology’s commitment to look at the whole picture of human life. (Culture, biology, history, language, etc…) across time and space.
Class: look at a community or cultural phenomenon and understand how it’s related to other parts of their culture.
biological anthropology
(physical anthropology) study of humans from a biological perspective - how they have evolved over time and have adapted to their environments.
paleoanthropology
(physical anthropology) traces the history of human evolution by reconstructing the human fossil record.
primatology
(physical anthropology) study living, non-human primates and primate fossils. (ex: monkeys, apes, chimps, gorillas, etc…) -to see what clues their biology, evolution and behavior and social life might provide about tour own (early) human behavior.
archaeology
investigation of the human past by means of excavating and analyzing material remains (artifacts).
the study of the human past.
pre-historic archaeology
seeks to reconstruct human behavior from artifacts that give significant clues about our ancestor’s lives.
historic archaeology
excavate houses, stores, factories, sunken slave ships, polar ice caps, etc… to better understand recent human history and the impact of humans on the environment.
linguistic anthropology
study of human language in the past and present.
descriptive linguists
(linguistic anthropology) carefully describe spoken languages and preserve them as written languages.
historical linguists
(linguistic anthropology) studies how languages change overtime within a culture and how it moves across cultures.
sociolinguists
(linguistic anthropology) the study of language in its social and cultural contexts.
globalization
worldwide intensification of interactions and the increased movement of money, people, goods, and ideas within and across national boarders.
time-space compression (theory)
the rapid innovation of communication and transportation technologies has transformed the way we think about space (distances) and time.
ex: it used to take a few days by horse to get across to another state, now, by car, we can do it in a day.
flexible accumulation
advances in transportation and communication have enabled companies to move their production facilities around the world in search of labor, lower taxes, and fewer environmental regulations - to be completely flexible about the way they accumulate profits.
increasing migration
the movement of people both within and between countries.
uneven development
extreme wealth = extreme poverty. extracting the resources of some to fuel the success of others.
rapid change
change in human activities and the physical world (as well as economic, social and political institutions/ practices); the pace of change.
What are the 4 subfields of anthropology?
1- cultural - the study of man, what it means to be human.
2- physical
3- archaeological
4- linguistic
What are the 5 hallmarks of anthropology?
1- challenges ethnocentrism 2- maintains cultural relativism 3- holism 4- fieldwork 5- recognition of change
What are the 6 dynamics of globalization?
1- time-space compression 2- increasing migration 3- uneven development 4- flexible accumulation 5- rapid change 6- climate change
