Key Terms

Question 1

Agency

Answer 1

The capacity of human beings to act in meaningful ways that affect their own lives and those of others.
Agency may be constrained by class, gender, religion or other social and cultural factors.

Question 2

Community

Answer 2

One of the oldest concepts in anthropology.
Traditionally: geographically bounded group of people in face-to-face contact with a shared system of beliefs and norms (socially functioning whole)

Modern: interest groups that are not geographically bound (ex. Internet Communities)

Question 3

Comparative

Answer 3

Anthropologists capture diversity of social action and its predictability by focusing on the way in which aspects of society and culture are organised similarly across groups.
—> resemblance of patterns

Question 4

Cultural relativism

Answer 4

Methodological principle that emphasises the importance of searching for meaning within the local context. Therefore, it states that the practices of one society cannot be judged according to the morality and criteria of another society.

Question 5

Culture

Answer 5

Customs by which humans organise their physical world and maintain their social structure through symbols, ideas, explanations, beliefs, and material production that humans create and manipulate.

Question 6

Ethnographic

Answer 6

Direct engagement with particular people and their social and cultural context. The materials of the research are mostly gathered through participant observation.

Question 7

Meaning

Answer 7

Is both constructed and transmitted though cultural categories. They attribute particular significance to persons, relations, objects, placed and events. This enables people to make sense or give order to their experiences which may in turn reinforce or change meaning.

Question 8

Social process

Answer 8

The human action working against social structure. It links closely with human agency, which provides the means to a social process. It also links to role: the behaviour associated with a person‘s status (ex. Doctor).

Question 9

Qualitative

Answer 9

The data gathered by anthropologists during fieldwork. It expressed the complexity and diversity of social life. It can be textual, observational, images or sounds.
It cannot be reduced to quantitative forms.

Question 10

Social reproduction

Answer 10

Over time, groups of people reproduce their social structure and patterns of behaviour. This is achieved by enculturation of individuals and the reproduction of social institutions and material means of consumption and production.
When it is contested it will lead to social change.

Question 11

Society

Answer 11

The way in which humans organise themselves in groups and networks. It is created an sustained by social relationships among people and groups.
Can also be used to refer to a human group that exhibits some international coherence and distinguished itself from other such groups.

Question 12

Ethnocentrism

Answer 12

Tendency to evaluate the practices of others in terms of ones own criteria. Has the effect of giving greater worth to the social and cultural context of the evaluator than to the context being evaluated.
Cultural relativism studies this problem.

Question 13

Moral system

Answer 13

A system of coherent, systematic and reasonable principles, rules, ideals and values which work to form one’s overall perspective. Link to religion, beliefs, right, wrong, good, evil

(Desh-Bidesh)

Question 14

Ideology

Answer 14

The set of beliefs characteristic of a social group or individual.
System of ideas, morals and ideals including ones which forms the basis of social, economics and/or political theory and policy.

Question 15

Identity

Answer 15

Individuals private and personal view of the self or the view of an individual in the eyes of the social group.
Can also take the form of group identity (religious identity, ethnic identity, national identity)

(In search of respect, desh-bidesh)

Question 16

Power relations

Answer 16

The positive or negative exercise of power between social groups or individuals.

(Desk-Bidesh, a view from below)

Question 17

Power

Answer 17

A person’s or group’s capacity to influence, manipulate or control others or resources.
Distinctions and inequalities between members of a social group.

(A view from below, in search of respect)

Question 18

Social relations

Answer 18

Any relationship between two/more individuals in a network of relationships. Involve an element of individual agency and group expectations and form the basis of social organisation and social structure.

(In search of respect)

Question 19

Resistance

Answer 19

Social groups may not accept change in its apparent form, either refusing it or moving to accommodate it in a modified form.

(In search of respect)

Question 20

Reciprocity

Answer 20

Mutuales Exchange or obligation between people:
generalised (no expectation of return)
balanced(exchange of equal value)
negative (one party seeks to benefit at the expense of the other)

(Desh-Bidesh)

Question 21

Consumption

Answer 21

The meaningful use that people make of the objects that are associated with them. The use can be mental or material and the objects can be things, ideas or relationships.

(Desh-Bidesh)

Question 22

Reproduction

Answer 22

Transmission of existing cultural values and norms and other aspects of society from generation to generation.

(In search of respect, a view from below)

Question 23

Caste

Answer 23

Ascribed status (social stratification) which links to social reproduction and a lack of social mobility.

(A view from below)

Question 24

Belief and knowledge

Answer 24

A set of convictions values and viewpoints regarded as ‚the truth‘ and shared by members of a social group. These are underpinned and supported by known cultural experience.

(Death without weeping)

Question 25

Kinship

Answer 25

Web/pattern of social relations which connects people through decent or marriage. (Other social connections can be included)

(Desh-Bidesh)

Question 26

Knowledge system

Answer 26

Culture that is socially learned and provides people with what they need to know to act appropriately.

(Death without weeping)

Question 27

Commodification

Answer 27

Transformation of goods and services as well as concepts that normally may not be considered goods, into a commodity, something of value.

(eg. Rice in desh-bidesh)

Question 28

Symbolism

Answer 28

Study of the significance that people attach to objects, actions and processes.
They create network of symbols through which they construct a culture‘s web of meaning.

(Death without weeping, Desh-Bidesh)

Question 29

Social movement

Answer 29

Organizational structures and strategies that may empower oppressed populations to mount effective challenges and resist the more powerful and advantages elites.
Link to power and resistance

(In search of respect)

Question 30

Political organisation

Answer 30

Any organisation that involves itself in political process such as political parties, NGO’s, advocacy groups…
link to power, resistance and inequality

(A view from below, in search of respect)

Question 31

Inequality

Answer 31

The existence of unequal opportunities and rewards for different social positions or statuses within a group or society. Link to social class, gender, social reproduction, power, ideology

(View from below, in search of respect)

Question 32

Economic organisation

Answer 32

Processes of production, circulation and consumption of different sorts of objects in social settings. Objects include materials, Labour and services and names/ ideas.

(Drag-Bodega, in search of respect)

Question 33

Authority

Answer 33

Power that is exercised with consent of others.

Question 34

Socialization

Answer 34

Process though which a person learns to become an accepted member of society via agents such as family, peers, media.

Question 35

Enculturation

Answer 35

Gradual acquisition of characteristics and norms of a culture or group. Transmission of culture to following generations.

Question 36

Ethnicity

Answer 36

Social group that is connected by a shared understanding of cultural identity.

Question 37

Gender

Answer 37

Culturally constructed distinctions between males and females.

Question 38

Globalization

Answer 38

Tendency towards increasing global interconnections in culture, economy and social life. Shared culture, capital, people and ideas across borders.

Question 39

Modernisation

Answer 39

Adoption of characteristics of more developed societies. (Generally including abandonment of traditional practices)

Question 40

Race

Answer 40

Socially constructed category of identification of people based on physical characteristics, ancestry, historical affiliation or a shared culture.

Question 41

Religion

Answer 41

Systems of symbols that act to establish understanding of existence in such way that it js realistic to its followers. Supported by ritual.

Question 42

Ritual

Answer 42

Formalised event, with its rules being determined by traditions of a social group and characterised by symbolism and performance.