Cultural Anthropology Exam 2 Flashcards
Unilinear Evolution
Every society would discover the same things, just at different times.
Issues - Ethnocentric thinking, rationalized colonization, “progress” focused.
Diffusionism
Innovations spread from one culture to another. Was there to show how interconnected societies in a region are.
Issues - Limited to scholarly worldview, didn’t explain and only described, often used with extremist views.
Functionalism
Tells about the purpose of things in a society
Issues - Sameness in explanation, doesn’t explain origin of customs or how culture change through time.
Historical Particularism
Valued fieldwork and history as critical methods of cultural analysis.
Issues - Depended on diffusionism that was undatable, unfocused recording of cultural knowledge, only interested in trying to reconstruct pre-contact cultures
Structuralism
A mode of knowledge of nature and human life that is interested in relationships rather than individual objects
Cultural Ecology
How societies adapt to different environments
Interpretive anthropology
It tries to understand a culture from the participant’s point of view
Marxist Anthropology
Focuses on social conflict within societies, asymmetrical relationships of power and wealth
Psychological Anthropology
Anthropology through a psychological lens
Cultural Materialism
Material aspects of culture (economics, reproduction) often determine social and ideological matters
Which person is associated with what?
Edward Taylor - Unilinear Evolution
Claude Levi-Stauss - Structuralism
Marvin Harris - Cultural Materialism
Franz Boas - Historical Particularism
Bronislaw Malinowski - Functionalism
Ruth Benedict - Psychological Anthropology
Margret Mead - Psychological Anthropology
Julian Stewart - Cultural Ecology
Clifford Geertz - Interpretive Anthropology
Cora Du Bois - Psychological Anthropology
Lewis Henry Morgan - Unilinear Evolution
Why is Franz Boas important in the history of American anthropology?
Established academic anthropology in the United States in opposition to Morgan’s evolutionary perspective. His approach was empirical, skeptical of overgeneralizations, and eschewed attempts to establish universal laws.
How would a cultural materialist explain India’s taboo on killing cattle?
They would see it as being born from economic factors
How would a structuralist view myths?
That myths are universal
Hunting and Gathering
Small nomadic groups that rely on wild plants and animals, though trading does also happens.
Men hunt while woman look for plants.
Example: !Kung San of southwestern Africa.
Horticulture
Domesticated crops, cultivated with hand tools.
Slash-and-burn (swidden) method (temporary fields).
Requires more labor than foraging but produces more food.
Example: The Yanomamo of South America
Agriculture
Lots of land and permanent fields. Can support a large population but poor nutrition due to lack of variety.
Example: The United States of North America
Herding
Subsistence revolves around herds (cattle, sheep, goats, llamas, camels, reindeer). Herders might be nomadic or sedentary, in many different environments.
Example: The Masai of Kenya and Tanzania
Which of the four subsistence types represents the largest societies and why?
Agriculture. It can support the most amount of people due to the amount of land and water that it uses.
Intensive Agriculture
Ancient form that depends of human and animal labor.
Families grow crops that they can consume. Surplus is sold or used as tribute to government or temples.
Industrial Agriculture
Recent form that has developed since the 1800s. Depends on complex machinery/technology.
Families grow crops that they cannot directly consume. The crops are sold to companies, and families use the proceeds to buy food.
Terracing
Modifying steep hills into stair case-like levels to be able to grow crops.
How much do Foragers have to work to find enough food to eat?
Quite a lot. It’s a big part of being a hunter/gatherer society.
Transhumance
Herding strategy that involves moving to the uplands in the summer and the lowlands in the winter.
Monocropping
Growing only one kind of crop.
What is distinctive about traditional Inuit diet, and how can it be healthy?
Traditional Inuit foods include arctic char, seal, polar bear and caribou — often consumed raw, frozen or dried. The foods, which are native to the region, are packed with the vitamins and nutrients people need to stay nourished in the harsh winter conditions.
Production
Production can rely on human labor, animal labor, land, knowledge, time, technology, and land use rights.
Production often involves that society’s idea of a division of labor by gender and/or age.
Why and How do people develop different economies?
Not all societies value or recognize ‘profit’
Goods may be produced, exchanged, and consumed for social prestige or to promote peace among communities.
Social prestige and how it drives economies
How much people recognize you and respect you.
It drives people to participate in an exchange of goods for social standing.
Example: The Kula exchange arm shells and necklaces across islands to earn prestige.
The Yanomamo exchange pottery with each other for social points.
Generalized Reciprocity
Sharing with no specific expectation of equal repayment.
There is a general expectation that those you share with will share with you.
Balanced Reciprocity
Balanced reciprocity reflects greater social distance.
There is an expectation of future repayment in kind and of equal value.
Negative Reciprocity
Occurs among individuals, such as strangers, where there is much social distance.
Expectation of immediate repayment of goods of equal or greater value.
Redistribution
Occurs in complex societies. Flow of surplus goods into and out of common pool (granaries, tribute, taxes, etc.).
Chiefs or officials may control central point of distribution.
Market Economy
Market Economy or market exchange entails central markets where goods are exchanged for formal currency. The currency can be multi-purpose money or limited-purpose money
Potlatch
Happens among Northwest Coast Native Americans. Big Men gather food, blankets, masks, copper items, etc. to give away at feasts. The more the Big Men give away, the greater their prestige.
What does each of the three forms of reciprocity suggest about social distance between the participants?
Generalized: Among friends, close kin–little social distance
Balanced: Exchange of feasts, etc. Greater social distance
Negative: Among strangers. Far social distance.
Ethnicity
Tends to be a voluntary label that people place on themselves. It often is not stressed.
It involves the idea of common descent and often shared cultural attributes (language, religion) but it also can include place of origin.
Race
It is a label that people force on each other, and it is not necessarily how people see themselves.
The labels imply that races are biologically distinct. However, there is no ‘race gene.’
Are races distinctly real and definable as biological entities?
HELL NO
Why did ancient humans evolve different skin colors?
To deal with different levels of UV radiation in their environment.
Melanin
Cells that, depending on how much you have, determine your skin color.
Pigmentocracy
A society or state of affairs in which skin color determines socioeconomic standing.
Symbolic ethnicity
An ethnic identity that emphasizes concerns such as ethnic food or political issues rather than deeper ties to one’s ethnic heritage.
Hypodescent
A person of mixed race is designated as being of a single race.
Gender classification in the U.S, Brazil, and Japan
U.S: White people and Black people
Brazil: Hundreds of races that includes mixes and how westernized you are.
Japan: Once had a caste, now don’t. However, families will still look into other families to see where they used to be in the caste system of Feudal Japan.
Exogamy vs. Endogamy
Exogamy: Marry outside the community
Endogamy: Marry inside the community only
Achieved status vs. Ascribed status
Achieved: We acquire through personal achievement, either negative or positive: spouse, student, etc.
Ascribed: We inherit through birth right: being a son or daughter in a family or a royal lineage, a member of a clan, a member of a caste, etc.
Egalitarian Societies (Bands and Tribes)
Everyone has equal opportunities and access to resources. Achieved status more valued. There is no limit on leaders, don’t have much power, and they lead similar lives.
Example: The Inuit
Ranked (Chiefdoms) Societies
Some people have more access to resources than others and better opportunities based on birthright. Ascribed statuses more valued. Limit on leaders but have power and lead different lives.
Example: Polynesia Chiefs
Stratified (States) Societies
Some people have more access to resources than others and better opportunities based on birthright. Ascribed statuses more valued. Class or caste define social relationships. Limit on leaders but have power and lead different lives.
Example: Inca and the United States
Class vs. Caste
Class: Flexible
May be endogamous
Can limit career and marriage choices.
Caste: Typically fixed from birth.
Endogamous.
Limits career and marriage choices.
Why is art difficult to define?
Not all societies have same idea of what ‘art’ is or if it exists as a separate category of objects or behavior.
What characteristics does art have according to lecture?
- Humanly created (could include training of animals to produce art they wouldn’t others create).
- Created through exercise of physical, conceptual, or imaginative skill
- Intended to affect our senses
- Share stylistic conventions with other art of the same culture.
- Can be visual art, performance art, or both.
Do all societies have the same concept of what art is?
Nope
Why did the Maori wear tattoos?
Linked to mana or a sense of pride and prestige.
Why do the Navajo create sand paintings?
Used in curing ceremonies in which the gods’ help is requested for harvests and healing.
Sex vs. Gender
Sex: Refers to a person’s biological status, genetically constructed and physically expressed. Two sexes.
Gender: Refers to a person’s social status, culturally constructed and behaviorally expressed. Gender consists of roles, behavior, and associated statuses. A society may define more than two genders.
Transgender and/or Third gender examples in other cultures
We’wha was a lhamana (Zuni for third gender or male/female category)
Many woman in many African societies have taken on male roles, such as Nne Uko of Nigeria.
Hijas of South Asia: Biological males who function in society as woman.
Sworn virgins of Albania: Woman who became men and live like men only if they swore to forever stay a virgin.
Gender inequality
Unbalanced treatment between the sexes and established genders.
It’s done through pay wages, education level, age, wealth, hate crimes, etc.
In what types of societies do you tend to find the most gender inequality?
Non-industrial food-producing societies.
A Masai woman’s life, duties, and rights.
They live to bare children, build and take care of things, and to look after their assigned number of cattle.
Their rights are non-existent.
How much control over their lives do Masai Women have?
Without getting into trouble, they have none.
How do Masai myths rationalize male dominance?
In Masai myth, the woman originally watched over the livestalk. However, they didn’t take watch and care of them and are punished for eternity for their mistake.
