History of Anthropology Flashcards
What changes in the world were influencing their theories?
The industrial revolution
What were the early social evolutionary models? How did they organize and characterize societies?
The early social evolutionary models were based around the idea that Europeans were at the peak of societal evolution. It assumed that societies evolved from savage, to barbarian, to civilized. They categorized them by religion, mortality, and technology.
What did early evolutionary anthropoglots like Morgan and Tylor assume about societies?
They assumed that societies evolve in a linear path, going from primative to civilized
What did early evolutionary anthropoglots like Morgan and Tylor assume about societies?
They assumed that societies evolved from savagery to civilized, and that Europeans were the most civilized
What were the main problems with the early evolutionary approaches?
They were very ethnocentric, and just didn’t make sense in general. One aspect of the rating system might categorize a society as civilized while another part might say that they’re barbaric.
What is an armchair anthropologist?
A cultural anthropologist that “studied” and made conclusions about different cultures without actually going through fieldwork
What is a social fact? How did Durkheim’s view of society change social anthropology?
Social facts are values, cultural norms, and social structures that transcend the individual and can exercise social control (ex. marriage)
What is a functionalist?
A functionalist is someone who tries to understand how a society functions. They view society kind of like a car, with all of the different parts keeping the whole functional
How was Malinowski’s anthropology different from those that came before?
Malinowski actually used ethnography and lived with the people he was studying, instead of just making assumptions about them.
What were Franz Boas’ main problems with anthropology and how did he propose that anthropologist fix them?
He didn’t believe that societies evolved from simple to complex, and that they didn’t take the histories of cultures into account. He also argued against the theory that other cultures couldn’t think “logically” like europeans
He believed that in order to fix these, anthropologists need to look at the historical development, environmental conditions, and psychological factors in a culture. Also do ethnography.
How was Boas’ historical particularism different from earlier anthropological research?
It argued that each society is a representation of it’s unique, historic past. It rejected the evolutionary theories from earlier anthropological research. It was inductive (collecting data without a theory) rather than deductive
What methods did Alfred Kroeber bring to anthropology? How did he view culture?
He developed the theory of culture areas, or dividing maps to see how different people and cultures are related and think verses where they live
He developed the SuperOrganic theory, his view was that individuals are more important than society, and that culture shapes how an individual thinks. Also thought cultures go through cycles.
How did Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict study the issue of nature and nurture?
Mead- Used ethnography to study if adolescence is difficult for everyone (nature) or if it’s traumatic due to culture (nurture)
Benedict- Contrasted the way the Zuni and Kwakiutl people viewed wealth, proved that human nature isn’t fixed as the Zuni people avoided wealth and fame whereas the Kwakiutl people who were always paranoid about who was the most wealthy
How was Julian Stewards evolutionary approach called Cultural ecology different from earlier evolutionary approaches?
It was different in the sense that it heavily focused on the environments a culture is living in, ie. houses built in colder areas have chimneys
also believed in multilinear evolution of cultures rather than the linear primative -> civilized
How did Clifford Geertz focus on symbolism?
Used thick description to describe symbols in very deep, descriptive ways. Ex. the wink has many different cultural meanings and can be described deeply
