Chapter 9 Final Flashcards
God
An individual supernatural being, with a distinctive name, personality, and control or influence of a major aspect of nature (such as rain or fertility), that encompasses the life of an entire community or a major segment of the community.
Spirit
: A supernatural being that is less powerful than a god and is usually more localized; often one of a collection of non-individualized supernatural beings that are not given specific names and identities.
Shrine
An object or building that contains sacred objects or is associated with a venerated person or deity.
Angel
In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, spirit beings who act as mediators between god and human beings.
Jinn
In Islam, a spirit being created of fire.
Demon
A spirit being, usually evil.
Incubi
Male demons who have sex with human women while they sleep, resulting in the birth of demons, witches, and deformed children
Succubae
Female demons who have sex with human men while they sleep, resulting in damnation of the men’s souls
Anthropomorphic
Nonhuman entities that have human characteristics.
Pantheon
All gods and goddesses in a polytheistic system; a hierarchy of gods.
Supreme god
The god who resides at the top of a pantheon.
Creator gods
Gods that are responsible for the creation of the physical earth and the plants and animal that live upon it.
Otiose gods
Gods that are too remote and too uninterested in human activities to participate in the activities and fate of humans.
Trickster god
: A god who gave humans important things or skills, often by accident or through trickery.
Attribute gods
Gods that rule over very tightly defined domains
Ascribed status
A status one automatically has because of gender, age, kinship affiliation, etc.
Achieved status
A status that one has because of a factor other than automatic membership due to gender, age, kinship affiliation, and so forth.
Misogynistic
Characterized by a hatred of women.
Avatar
The incarnation or embodiment of a god in human form
Mystery religion
A religion whose beliefs, practices, and true nature are known only to those who have been initiated into the religion.
Polytheism
A belief in many gods.
Monotheism
A belief in one god
Omnipotent
Being all-powerful.
Omniscient
Being all-knowing
Atheism
Disbelief or denial of the existence of God or gods.
Agnosticism
The idea that the question of the existence of God is unsolvable, unprovable.
Bronislaw Malinowski (1894 – 1942)
o Very good at languages
• 1915 – 1918: his first field study
o Trobriand Islands (Argonauts of the Pacific) - ended up being stuck there so he ame back with the first extensive field work British scholars have seen
• Participant observation
o Learning the native language
• All components of society interlock to form a system
• Science, technology and magic can co-exist
• BRIDGE FIGURE - American anthropology — British/European anthropology
Bronislaw Malinowski (1894 – 1942) & Durkheim?
“Father of social anthropology”
o Stands on Durkheim
• But went into the field and refined the practice and methodology
Raised the standards
• Critiqued and re-did his own work and emphasized it
• functionalist perspective
o Durkheimian but from the bottom up
• Assumed that everything was done for a purpose, and that that purpose was the survival of the group
A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (1891-1955)
• Structural-functionalist
• Did much to reduce ethnocentrism in the British school of social anthropology
• 1906 –09: Andaman Islands
• 1910-12: Australia and Tonga; Africa
o He had a government position during these years in Africa
A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (1891-1955) & Malinowski?
• Recognized Malinowski’s work in the field
• comparative study; reduce ethnocentrism
o Malinowski was more focused, Radcliffe-Brown had breadth (in their studies) – rifle vs. shotgun
• Always listed Malinowski as the best example when he started to write the standards for ethnogrophy
Definition of ethnography according to Radcliffe-Brown: “an explicit and systematic method for the scientific study of societies”
• respected Malinowski, collegial, writer, networked…
• 1920s: began teaching at Cambridge and even then began to steer his students towards Malinowski’s writing
A.R. Radcliffe-Brown (1891-1955) & Malinowski - Both scholars
- Reduce ethnocentrism in the field
- Raised scientific methodology
- In a generation they moved the discipline ahead by a century
- Began to bridge the gap between America and Europe – helped create a more inclusive atmosphere
• Theocracy
o A religious state
• State Church
o E.g. Church of England – Queen of England
• The Secular State
o The separation of religion from public life
• Civil Religion and the problem
o American exceptionalism
• For social scientists, political scientists, international affairs in the 1960s there was a basic problem:
Intellectually they stood on the shoulders of positivists and evolutionists who believed that as there was an increase of education, science and technology, there would be a decline of religion
o Civil religion thesis (Robert N. Bellah, American sociologist
• If you opened up to your possible understandings of what religion was
• In contrast to a particular religion which may have a minority population in a modern nation state (i.e. Canada, Spain, Germany, France, Sweden, US, England, etc.) there will be Protestant, Catholic Christians, all types of Jews and Muslims, diverse Hindus and Bhuddists → how on Earth can we understand Durkheim’s theory in that context?
Bellah:
• There can be a set of beliefs and rituals that are related to the people of the nation state somehow, and they are understood with a sacred reference.
o Definition:
• ‘Any set of beliefs and rituals, related to the past, present and/or future of a people (nation) which are understood in some transcendental fashion’ (Hammond, 1976: 171)
