Key Concepts & AOIs Flashcards
Belief + Knowledge
Values, convictions and viewpoints
Shared by people in a social group who regard it as the truth
Underpinned and supported by known cultural experiences
Change
The alteration and modification of socio-cultural elements in society
Can be caused by internal dynamics (within individuals)
Can also be caused by external dynamics, like globalisation and contact with another culture
Culture
Organised systems of beliefs, customs, materials and symbols
How humans organise the physical world in order to maintain social order and structure
Place of constructed meanings, but also site of contested meanings
Identity
Can be defined through self identity, the private and personal view of the self, and group identity, the collective sharing of similarities by a social group
Made up of markers which distinguish people from other people, making them the same or different
Self and group identity can be ascribed onto people by others, which is formed based on their own knowledge
Materiality
Objects which have cultural meanings attached to them (according to IB, but it doesn’t make sense)
Objects which are embedded in social relations and societies
A tool to investigate how humans experience, create and inculcate cultural meanings
Power
A person or a group’s ability to control and manipulate other people and resources
Fueled by differentials which are characterised by distinctions and inequalities found in society
Can be omnipresent in society (through the Disciplinary Gaze, the state, structural powers)
Social Relations
The relationships between 2≤ individuals, which form networks which act as the basis of human society
Involve elements of individual agency and group expectations
Pervades every aspect of human life because of its complexity, making it the basis of social organisation and structure
Society
The ways in which humans organise themselves in groups or networks
These groups exercise internal coherence and distinguish themselves from other groups
Created and sustained by social relationships / institutions
Symbolism
The study of the human significance attached to objects, actions and processes to create social networks
Meanings attached by humans to intangible objects
The basis and perpetuation of cultural meanings and values
AOI: The Body
…helps to understand how people experience and make sense of their worlds
…is a constitutive dimension of everyday socio-cultural practices, embedded with cultural meanings (materiality of the body)
…is the material focus of everyday practices — whether as an object of self-identification or the subject of social control
…is a product of biology, culture and society, and is perceived, understood and experienced in different contexts
…can be objectified, commodified and politicised by powers which govern them
AOI: Movement, Time and Space
Movement can be understood through the global flows of people; from professionals and middle-class peoples’ journeys through time and space for recreation, to migrants and refugees’ forced fleeing from crises in their homelands
Time and space are associated with different values, meanings and emotions, often linked to rituals marking socially relevant transitions (rites of passage)
Space can be understood through social class and gendered understandings of space, and public and private spaces
AOI: Conflict
…can be understood as tension between the state and those under the power of the state, and tensions emerging from everyday social relations between individuals, groups and institutions
…can help to understand power relations and the ability of subaltern groups to resist powers
