Culture 16 Flashcards
EMIC
An insider’s view of a culture.
EMIC PERSPECTIVE (EMIC VIEW)
A term used by ethnographers or cultural anthropologists to refer to the insider’s or native’s view of his or her world, it is an attempt at understanding a culture from “inside,” from within its own frame of reference, from experiencing it as a participant (see also etic perspective).
EMOTIONALISTIC DISEASE THEORIES
Theories that assume that illness is caused by intense emotional experiences (e.g., the experience of Susto, which is a folk illness, specifically a “fright sickness” with strong psychological overtones among some Latin American populations).
EMPIRICISM
- The view that knowledge is derived from sensory experience, for example visual observation.
- More loosely, it has been used to describe research that contains little in the way of reflection or theory, preferring to report `facts’ as they appear to be (as in the term ‘abstracted empiricism’).
ENCULTURATION
- Is the process whereby an established culture teaches an individual its accepted norms and values, by establishing a context of boundaries and correctness that dictates what is and is not permissible within that society’s framework.
- Is learned through communication by way of speech, words, action and gestures.
- The six components of culture learnt are: technological, economic, political, interactive, ideological and world-view.
- It is also called socialization.
ENDOGAMY
- Is the practice of marrying within one’s own social group.
- Cultures who practice this require marriage between specified social groups, classes, or ethnicities.
- Strictly endogamous communities like the Jews, the Parsees of India and the Yazidi of Iraq claim that endogamy helps minorities to survive over a long time in societies with other practices and beliefs.
- The opposite practice is exogamy.
EPISTEMOLOGY
- Refers to the philosophical theory of knowledge, consisting of attempts to answer questions about how we can know what we know, and whether this knowledge is reliable or not.
- Debates about the adequacy of empiricism, for example, are epistemological debates.
EQUITY, INCREASED
Is a reduction in absolute poverty and a fairer or more even distribution of wealth in a particular society or nation state.
ESSENTIALISM
- Is now increasingly used in order to explain why anti-essentialism is preferable, though in more purely philosophical discussion the term has greater usefulness.
- Amongst social and cultural researchers, anti-essentialism involves the rejection of a scientific quest for universal essences, such as the discovery of a universal psychological makeup, or generally applicable sex differences, in preference for a view that human `nature’ is a social construction.
ETHICS
The principles of conduct governing an individual or group; concerns for what is right or wrong, good or bad.
ETHNIC COMPETENCE
The capacity to function effectively in more than one culture, requiring the ability to appreciate and understand features of other ethnic groups and further to interact with people of ethnic groups other than one’s own.
ETHNIC GROUP
- Group characterised by cultural similarities (shared among members of that group) and differences (between that group and others).
- Members of an ethnic group share beliefs, values, habits, customs, norms, a common language, religion, history, geography, kinship, and/or race.
ETHNIC SLUR
- Is a term used to insult someone on the basis of ethnicity, race or nationality.
- Some derogatory examples are Flip (Western derogatory term used for Filipinos), Ginzo in US (for Italian Americans), Gweilo (“Foreign devil” or “white ghost”, term used by the Chinese to refer to Westerners), Paki (UK for a South Asian) etc.
ETHNICITY
Belonging to a common group with shared heritage, often linked by race, nationality and language.
ETHNOCENTRISM
Belief in the superiority of one’s own ethnic group. Seeing the world through the lenses of one’s own people or culture so that own culture always looks best and becomes the pattern everyone else should fit into.
