Final Exam after midterm Flashcards

Question

Explain what agriculturalists food producers do

Answer 1

- primary reliance on domesticated crops and animals - permanent fields, fertilizer, irrigation, draught animals or machinery - large, sedentary, urban groups - trade and market, cash crops - full time job specialization - work longest hours - most danger of famine

Answer 2

1. agriculturalists 2. horticulturalists 3. pastoralists

Answer 3

socially significant relationships based on descent, marriage, - may exclude some family (i.e. cousins) - technology and kinship (text) - key to social organization and may determine: obligations, alliances, access to economic resources, political authority, inheritance, marriage and sexual partners

Answer 4

Bilateral descent is descent through mother’s and father’s sides equally - creates a kindred = ambiguous, flexible set of relatives with a wide range of obligations Unilateral descent is descent only through the mother’s OR father’s side of family - creates a lineage = group descended from common ancestor (ie. Scottish clans) - very specific regarding membership and obligations

Answer 5

Patrinlineage is the father and all his line - membership passes from father to all his children regardless of childrens' sex Matrinlineage is the mother and all her line - membership passes from mother to all her children regardless of childrens' sex

Answer 6

Family is a related group of two or more related people who share residence, resources, and child care - main unit of socialization - extended*, nuclear, polygamous - incompatible activity requirements

Answer 7

Communication is a transfer of information - a closed system; sound, movement, and scent represent fixed concepts (“food”, “mate” or “danger”) Language is a symbolic system that expresses experiences and thoughts, past and future - design features: openness, arbitrariness, displacement, duality of meaning (sound and meaning) semanticity (context), prevarication

Answer 8

1. Proxemics - spacing and orientation 2. Kinesics - motion and gestures (mirroring, facial expressions, eye contact, gestures) 3. Paralanguage - loudness, speed, rhythm, spaces

Answer 9

culture influences language (e.g. environment words, colour vocabulary, word choice, gender terms - linguistic relativity principle (aka “Sapir-Whorf hypothesis”) = language may shape the way people see their world - time; gendered language - problems (linguistic determinism)

Answer 10

- associated with modern humans; gestural languages may be very ancient - language-acquisition device (LAD) - language and non-human primates: speech, use of ASL (remember Koko article)

Answer 11

Ethnography of speaking studies variations in speech that reflect social context - e.g. social status, codeswitching, ethnicity Considers gender use of language - linguistic correctness, “assertiveness” Linguistic inequality is ethnocentrism based on use of language or dialect (e.g. AAE vs. SAE)

Answer 12

proto-language = ancestor of two or more languages who then share common features and core vocabulary - e.g. Indo-European, Bantu, Sino-Tibetan

Answer 13

languages change over time through various mechanisms - invention, culture contact, globalisation - extinctions esp. minority languages

Answer 14

Marriage is an enduring and socially approved bond between two or more people that: - changes status of partners - creates an economic unit - creates kinship ties - controls sexuality - legitimizes children - is an emotional bond

Answer 15

- Marriage can be by choice or by arrangement | - Incest taboos forbid marriage/mating between people who are “too closely related”

Answer 16

1. One spouse per person at a time (monogamy) - serial monogamy 2. one spouse per person at a time (polygamy) - organizing polygamous partners - similarities to monogamy 3. Forms of polygamous marriage a) Polygyny* = 1 man, 2 or more wives (>80%) - sororal polygyny b) Polyandry = 1 woman, 2 or more husbands - fraternal polyandry

Answer 17

- help with housework - creation of wealth - control numbers of children - avoid land division and taxation

Answer 18

Economic transactions accompanying marriage - bride wealth/price* (>60%) - bride service - dowry = transfer of family wealth to bride from parents - “premortem inheritance” - “dowry murders” (see text)

Answer 19

- common: patrilocal, matrilocal, neolocal | - less common: avunculocal, ambilocal, duolocal

Answer 20

Social organization refers to rules or institutions that govern the behaviour of group members - wealth (economic resources like land, water, money, gold, etc.) - power (ability to change social situations and others’ actions) - prestige (respect or honour) - coercion (force)

Answer 21

All societies have some inequality between individuals based on ability and personality - egalitarian societies have slight differences in status and roles between individuals (fairly equal access to wealth, power, prestige) If differences are greater and extend to groups: - ranked = unequal access to prestige and often power, depending on group - stratified = unequal access to wealth, power and prestige, depending on group

Answer 22

Egalitarian societies - Bands/tribes In General: - bands vary in size; are generally small groups (50-100 people), often foragers - tribe numbers vary less, are more sedentary, and have generally larger groups (up to approx. 5000 people) who are often horticulturalists or pastoralists

Answer 23

- decisions are made by consensus or fission - prestige is impermanent except for elders - high degree of reciprocity - often communal ownership of resources and wealth

Answer 24

1. kinship, friendship, ability to work together 2. age-set = group of people of same age who go through life’s stages together 3. sodality = special purpose group (based on age, sex, interests, kinship, social role) 4. secret society = initiation group; may be a prerequisite for certain life stages

Answer 25

Usually a “headman” or “Big Man” - often an elder, or head of a kinship group, sodality or age-set - achieved status = position earned through personal abilities; cannot be passed on - limited individual power and coercion - persuasion and “social leveling devices” as shown in “Christmas in the Kalahari”

Answer 26

- avoidance, negotiation, mediation, | - formal apology, ordeal, oath, oracle

Answer 27

- ranked society (partially stratified) - often more than one community with formal control of leader - approximately a few thousands to tens of thousands of people

Answer 28

- kinship, age-sets, sodalities, secret societies | - ascribed status (inherited/born with position)

Answer 29

Chief (inherited position) - responsible for redistribution - position may be marked - chief has some coercive power (domination of others through threat, intimidation, force, etc.)

Answer 30

- resolved through adjudication by chief (fines, banishment, and sometimes death) - warfare sustained; warriors often supported by chief

Answer 31

- stratified society (groups have ascribed unequal access to resources, power, prestige) - multi-ethnic groups under a central government (due to war / peaceful immigration)

Answer 32

- various forms of leadership | - often reinforced through ideology

Answer 33

- use of codified law, courts - monopoly on force and coercion - standing army, rules of war - highest rates of conflict/war

Answer 34

Class = “open” (vertically mobile) group with about the same access to wealth, power and prestige - often correlated with education, ethnicity, or ownership of key resources

Answer 35

Caste is a highly ascribed “closed” class (with little or no vertical mobility) - born, work, marry in caste - often ranked in order of prestige, etc.