Midterm

Question 1

Culture

Answer 1

A system of knowledge, beliefs, patterns of behavior, artifacts, and institutions that are created, learned, shared, and contested by a group of people.

Question 2

Holism

Answer 2

The anthropological commitment to look at the whole picture of human life across space and time.

Question 3

Ethnology

Answer 3

The process of analyzing and comparing ethnographic data across different cultures.

Question 4

Globalization

Answer 4

The worldwide intensification of interactions and increased movement of money, people, goods, and ideas within and across national borders.

Question 5

Time-Space Compression

Answer 5

The rapid innovation of communication and transportation technologies has transformed the way we think about time and space.

Question 6

Flexible accumulation

Answer 6

The advances in transportation and communication have made it possible for companies to move their facilities to other parts of the world in search of cheaper labor and fewer regulations.

Question 7

Uneven development

Answer 7

A result of globalization, the uneven distribution and access to the benefits of globalization such as the internet and transportation.

Question 8

Cultural relativism

Answer 8

Understanding a group’s beliefs and practices within their own cultural context, without making judgements.

Question 9

Stratification

Answer 9

The uneven distribution of resources and privileges among participants in a group or culture.

Question 10

Hegemony

Answer 10

The ability of a dominant group to create consent and agreement within a population without the use or threat of force.

Question 11

Agency

Answer 11

The potential power of individuals and groups to contest cultural norms, values, mental maps of reality, symbols, institutions, and structures of power.

Question 12

Mental maps of reality

Answer 12

Cultural classifications of what kinds of people and things exist, and the assignment of meaning to those classifications.

Question 13

Unilineal cultural evolution

Answer 13

The theory that all cultures would naturally evolve through the same sequence of stages. (savage to barbarian to civilized)

Question 14

Historical particularism

Answer 14

An approach that asserts that cultures arise from different causes, and not uniform processes like suggested by unilineal cultural evolution.

Question 15

Structural functionalism

Answer 15

A conceptual framework positing that each element of society serves a particular function to keep the entire system in equilibrium.

Question 16

Interpretivist approach

Answer 16

A conceptual framework that sees culture primarily as a symbolic system of deep meaning.

Question 17

Thick description

Answer 17

A research strategy that combined detailed descriptions of cultural activity with an analysis of the layer of deep cultural meaning in which those activities are embedded.

Question 18

Reflexivity

Answer 18

A critical self-examination of the role the anthropologist plays and an awareness that one’s identity affects one’s fieldwork and theoretical analyses.

Question 19

Life history

Answer 19

A form of interview that traces the biography of a person over time, examining changes in the person’s life and illuminating the interlocking network of relationships in the community.

Question 20

Mapping

Answer 20

The analysis of the physical and/or geographic space
where fieldwork is being conducted.

Question 21

Emic

Answer 21

An approach to gathering data that investigates how local people think and how they understand the world.

Question 22

Etic

Answer 22

Description of local behavior and beliefs from the anthropologist’s perspective in ways that can be compared across cultures.

Question 23

Phonology

Answer 23

The study of what sounds exist and which ones are important in a particular language.

Question 24

Syntax

Answer 24

The specific patterns and rules for combing morphemes to construct phrases and sentences.

Question 25

Morphology

Answer 25

The study of patterns and rules of how sounds combines to make morphemes.

Question 26

Morphemes

Answer 26

The smallest units of sound that carry meaning on their own.

Question 27

Phonemes

Answer 27

The smallest units of sound that can make a difference in meaning.

Question 28

Kinesics

Answer 28

The study of the relationship between body movements and communication.

Question 29

Paralanguage

Answer 29

An extensive set of noises such as laughs, cries, sighs, and yells) and tones of voice that convey significant information about the speaker.

Question 30

Lexicon

Answer 30

All the words for names, ideas, and events that make up a language’s dictionary.

Question 31

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Answer 31

The idea that different languages create different ways of thinking.

Question 32

Dialect

Answer 32

A nonstandard variation of a language.

Question 33

Miscegenation

Answer 33

A demeaning historical term for interracial marriage.

Question 34

Origin myth

Answer 34

A story told about the founding and history of a particular group to reinforce a sense of common indentity.

Question 35

Ethnic boundary marker

Answer 35

A practice or belief, such as food, clothing, language, shared name, or religion, used to signify who is in a group and who is not.

Question 36

State v. Nation-state

Answer 36

-State: An autonomous regional structure of political, economic, and military rule with a central government authorized to make laws and use force to maintain order and defend its territory.
-Nation-state: A political entity, located within a geographic territory with enforced borders, where the population shares a snse of culture, ancestry, and destiny as a people.

Question 37

Imagined community

Answer 37

The invented sense of connection and shared traditions that underlies identification with a particular ethnic group or nation whose members likely will never all meet.

Question 38

Diaspora

Answer 38

A group of people living outside their ancestral homeland yet maintaining emotional and material ties to their home.

Question 39

Gender stratification

Answer 39

An unequal distribution of power in which gender shapes who has access to a group’s resources, opportunities, rights, and privileges.

Question 40

Gender ideaology

Answer 40

A set of cultural ideas, usually stereotypical, about the essential character of different genders that functions to promote and justify gender stratification.