Culture 3 Flashcards
ANIMATISM
Belief in an impersonal and divisible supernatural force or forces, which reside in living or unliving things.
ANIMISM
- Is the belief that souls inhabit all or most objects.
- Attributes personalized souls to animals, vegetables, and minerals in a manner that the material object is also governed by the qualities which compose its particular soul.
- Religions generally do not accept a sharp distinction between spirit and matter.
ANTHROPOCENTRICITY
The belief that humans are the most important elements in the universe and reality can be approached exclusively in terms of human values and experience.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL LINGUISTICS
- The branch of anthropology that studies human language.
- Is mainly concerned with the technical analysis of language.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL STRANGENESS
- The art or mental trick of making a social setting and behaviour within it appear as if the observer is encountered it as a stranger.
- If applied to mundane ‘taken-for-granted’ events, this can lead to unusual and original insights.
ANTHROPOLOGY
- The study of the human species and its immediate ancestors.
- Is the comparative study of past and contemporary cultures, focusing on the ways of life, and customs of all peoples of the world.
- Main sub-disciplines are physical anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, ethnology (which is also called social or cultural anthropology) and theoretical anthropology, and applied anthropology.
ANTHROPOLOGY AND EDUCATION
Anthropological research in classrooms, homes, and neighborhoods, viewing students as total cultural creatures whose enculturation and attitudes toward education belong to a larger context that includes family, peers, and society.
ANTICONFORMITY
- Any behaviour, which is directly antithetical to or contradicts group norms.
- Also called counterconformity.
APARTHEID
- Was a system of racial segregation used in South Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s.
- Though first used in 1917 by Jan Smuts, the future Prime Minister of South Africa, apartheid was simply an extension of the segregationist policies of previous white governments in South Africa.
- The term originates in Afrikaans or Dutch, where it means “separateness”. Races, classified by law into White, Black, Indian, and Coloured groups, were separated, each with their own homelands and institutions.
- This prevented non-white people from having a vote or influence on the governance.
- Education, medical care and other public services available to non-white people were vastly inferior and non-whites were not allowed to run businesses or professional practices in those areas designated as ‘White South Africa’.
APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY
The application of anthropological data, perspectives, theory, and methods to identify, assess, and solve contemporary social problems.
AQUATIC APE THEORY
- This hypothesis or theory suggests that the ancestors of humans went through periods of living in aquatic settings and this was responsible for the development of many of the characteristics of Homo genus that are not seen in other primates.
- This hypothesis has been criticized as well as supported in mainstream paleoanthropology.
ARBITRATION
Third-party assistance to two or more groups for reaching an agreement, where the third party or arbitror has the power to force everyone to accept a particular solution.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY (PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY)
The study of human behaviour and cultural patterns and processes through the material remains and artefacts of that culture.
ARCHAEOLOGY
Study of material culture.
ARCHAEOMAGNETIC DATING
- A method of dating artefacts from the past. Sometimes also called paleomagnetic dating.
- It is based on the fact that changes in the earth’s magnetic field over time can be recorded as remnant magnetism in materials such as baked clay structure (ovens, kilns, and hearths used much earlier).
