Chapter One Flashcards
Anthropology
The study of humanity, including prehistoric origins and contemporary human diversity. It covers a much greater span of time and topics than other disciplines.
Four Fields of Anthropology
Biological Anthropology, Archaeology, Linguistic Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology.
Biological Anthropology
The study of humans as biological organisms including evolution and contemporary variation
Archaeology
The study of past human cultures through their material remains.
Linguistic Anthropology
The study of human communication including its origins, history, and contemporary variation and change
Cultural Anthropology
The study of living peoples and their cultures, including variation and change. It examines social practices, beliefs, and values.
The “Fifth” Field of Anthropology
Applied Anthropology, the use of anthropological knowledge to prevent or solve problems, or to shape and achieve policy goals
The Garbage Project
Conducted by archaeologists at the University of Arizona. They excavated part of the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island. By removing pop-top can tabs, disposable diapers, cosmetics containers, and telephone books, they learned much about recent consumption patterns and how they affect the environment. Particularly, they learned the kinds of garbage people often think to make landfills are not as serious as newspapers and other things.
Forensic Anthropology
Anthropologists participate in criminal investigations through laboratory work and identify bodily remains. They apply biological and archaeological methods to assist in solving crimes.
Culture
Culture is people’s learned and shared behaviors and beliefs. There are variations and similarities across cultures, and they change over time. People in different cultures may have different perceptions of even basic physical substances.
Hollistic Approach
Holism is the belief that one must study all aspects of culture to understand it in full. This is because all aspects of culture are integrated… And moreover, merely studying one or two cultures will provide a perspective so limited that it is more likely to be misleading and/or completely incorrect.
Bronislaw Malinowski’s Functionalism
The theory that a culture is similar to a biological organism, in which parts work to support the operation and maintenance of the whole. Each part of the culture, whether rites, customs, or social institution, has a particular function that helps in the stability and progress of society.
Franz Boas
Founder of North American Cultural Anthropology. Learned from Inuit people. Came to recognize the individuality and validity of different cultures. He introduced cultural relativism. Believed no culture is better than any other
Cultural Relativism
Each culture must be understood in terms of the values and ideas of that culture and not judge by the standards of another culture
Three Debates of Anthropology
Biological Determinism vs. Cultural Constructionism
Interpretive Anthropology vs. Cultural Materialism
Individual Agency vs. Structurism
Biological Determinism vs. Cultural Constructionism
Biological determinism seeks to explain people’s behavior and thinking by considering biological factors such as genes or hormones… even as far as behaviors like homicide, alcoholism, or adolescent stress. Cultural Constructionism maintains that human behavior and ideas are best explained as products of culturally shaped learning. Skills are passed on through learning and not genes. Men don’t have better fighting skills, they are more likely to have fighting skills promoted to them than women.
Interpretive Anthropology vs. Cultural Materialism
Interpretive anthropology focuses on understanding culture by studying what people think about, their explanations of their lives, and the symbols that are important to them. Cultural materialism attempts to learn about culture by first examining the material aspects of life: the environment and how people make a living within particular environments. Interpretivists would accept that Hindus do not eat meat for religious reasons, but cultural materialists would point to how cattle is too important and used for eating trash, fertilizing fields, and to plow fields.
Individual Agency vs. Structurism
Agency is the ability of individuals to make choices and exercise free will. In contrast, structurism emphasizes that free choice is an illusion because choices are structured by larger forces such as the economy and social and political organization. Those who emphasize agency believe the impoverished can change their situation if they put in the work, but structurists, by contrast, believe the poor are trapped by the political economy and will likely never make it to the top.
The Symbolic Aspect of Culture
Culture is based on symbols. Symbols are objects, words, or actions with a culturally defined meaning that stands for something else with which it has no necessary or natural relationship. They are arbitrary, unpredictable, and diverse. It’s impossible to predict how a particular culture will symbolize something.
Microcultures
A distinct pattern of learned and shared behavior and thinking found within a larger culture. They are based on ethnicity, gender, age, and more.
Globalization
Globalization is the process of intense global interconnectedness and movement of goods, information, and people. It’s a major force of contemporary cultural change. It doesn’t spread evenly, and its effects on local cultures vary substantially from positive change to cultural destruction and extinction.
Models of Globalization
- Clash of Civilizations - Conflict model
- Westernization - Western culture takeover and homogenization model
- Hybridization - Blending model
- Localization - Local cultural remarking, and transformation of global culture
Class of Civilization - Conflict Model
The spread of Euro-American capitalism and lifeways throughout the world has created disenchantment, alienation, and resentment among the cultural systems.
Westernization - Western culture takeover and homogenization model
Under the powerful influence of the United States and Europe, the world is becoming culturally homogeneous. A variant of Westernization is McDonaldization, with its principles of mass production, speed, standardization, and impersonal service
Hybridization - Blending model
Occurs when aspects of two or more cultures combine to form something new- a blend. In Japan, for example, a grandmother might bow in gratitude to an automated banking machine.
Localization - Local cultural remarking, and transformation of global culture
The transformation of global culture by local microcultures into something new. It’s happening all around us, all the time.
Localization of McDonald’s
In many Asian settings, people resist the pattern of eating quickly and insist on leisurely family gatherings. The McDonald’s managers alter the pace of service to allow for a slower turnover of tables. In Saudi Arabia, McDonald’s provides separate areas for families, including women accompanied by a husband or father or brother, and for single men.
Ethnocentrism
Judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture rather than by the standards of that particular culture. Most people grow up thinking that their culture is the best way of life. It’s the opposite of Cultural Relativism.
Critical Cultural Relativism
Offers an alternative view that poses questions about cultural practices and ideas in terms of who accepts them and why, and whom they might be harming, or helping. It pays attention to the interests of various power groups. In terms of the Holocaust, a critical cultural relativist would ask, “Whose culture supported the values that killed millions of people on the grounds of racial purity?”
