Key Figures

Question 1

Edward Tylor

Answer 1

(Evolutionist) Author of Primitive Culture- believed that societies were unilinear and developed on a scale from savagery to civilization (w/ 3 stages of barbarism)

Question 2

Lewis Henry Morgan

Answer 2

(Evolutionist) Author of Ancient Society and studied the Iroquois in the U.S.

Question 3

Bronislaw Malinowski

Answer 3

Author of Argonauts of the Western Pacific in which he laid out best practices for conducting field work; Trobriand Islands + Kula Ring (exchange theory)

(Functionalist) believed that humans have set of universal needs and various customs/institutions developed to fulfill those needs

Question 4

Franz Boas

Answer 4

Coined Diffusionism (cultural relativist that believed cultures should be understood in their own contexts) which directly opposed western ideas of superiority [think Tylor/Morgan [evolutionism]

Connected acculturation (exchange of behavioral patterns, styles of thinking, language, and belief systems) to learning theory (nature v. nurture); language affects perception

Question 5

Alfred Radcliffe-Brown

Answer 5

Author of Structure and Function in Primitive Society; Influenced by Durkheim; (Structural Functionalist) extended functionalisms practical needs belief by stressing the interconnected structure of those needed practices - similar to bodily organs how these customs maintain stability

• criticized for simplifying social dynamics and power struggles

Question 6

Émile Durkheim

Answer 6

French Sociologist; believed religion played an impt. role in in social order of societies

Question 7

Johannes Fabian

Answer 7

Author of Time and the Other; concept of denial of coevalness where we deny others their presence in the same age as our own

(Physical, Mundane / Typological, Intersubjective)

Question 8

Claude Levi-Strauss

Answer 8

French Structuralist Anthropologist; seeks to identify the underlying structures and patterns that seem to shape culture and its ‘universal’ patterns (transcending their functionality in society)

Question 9

E.E. Evans-Pritchard

Answer 9

Author of The Nuer & Witchcraft, Oracles & Magic of the Azande;

Question 10

Edward Said

Answer 10

Orientalism;

Question 11

James Clifford

Answer 11

interdisciplinary scholar and co-editor of Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography