Module 1 Flashcards
Define Anthropology
- The study of humanity including prehistoric origins and human cultural and linguistic diversity throughout history
Define Culture
Learned and shared beliefs and behaviors
Roots of 2 Ways of Knowing
- Plato: Humanistic Approach
- Aristotle: Scientific Approach
Enduring Themes
- Environment and landscape shape humanity: the interaction and relationship between environment, economics and other systems of culture
- Culture
- Valuing cultural unity and diversity: differences in humans based on adaptations
- Humanity changes
Define Enculturation
How we learn our own culture by participating and communicating socially within groups
Define Acculturation
The willing or forced adaptation of a dominant culture by members of a subordinate culture
5 subordinates of General Anthropology
- Cultural
- Archeological
- Linguistic
- Biological/Physical
- Applied
What is Archeology?
Study of the past through material remains of ancient people
What are the 3 subfields of Archeology?
- Prehistoric Archeology (material remains only)
- Historic Archeology (written records, archives)
- Underwater Archeology (80% of world submerged)
What is Biological Anthropology?
Study of human evolution (how our bodies have changed to adapt to environment)
What are the 4 subfields of Biological Anthropology?
- Paleoanthropology (fossils, genetics)
- Primatology (apes and humans)
- Paleopathology (disease patterns)
- Genetics, anatomy and ecology
What is Linguistic Anthropology?
Human communication systems including language (signed, verbal, written) and the link between language and culture
What are the 3 subfields of Linguistic Anthropology?
- Historical Linguistics (traces origins of people based on commonalities in language/ protolanguage)
- Structural Linguistics (study of the smallest units in language including sounds, words, symbols, sentences)
- Sociolinguistics (study of discourse or language used in conversation)
What is Applied Anthropology?
The use of anthropological knowledge to solve social problems
What are the 3 subfields of Applied Anthropology?
- Applied Archeology (cultural resource management)
- Applied Bioanthropology (genetics, forensics)
- Applied Cultural (international development)
- Applied Linguistics (language programs)
What is the Holistic Approach?
Seeing aspects of culture as interrelated and connected
What is the comparative and interdisciplinary perspective?
Considers similarities and differences in a large range of human activities and beliefs
What is the relativistic and reflexive perspective?
Relativism: not judging others based on your beliefs
Reflexivity: awareness of how your presence within the community impacts the people being studied
Define Ethnography
Writing about culture based on first-hand immersion into the lifeways, beliefs and practices of people
Define Ethnology
Cross cultural analysis of topics/ problems in two or more cultures or subcultural groups
Define Ethnocentrism
Judging of people of other cultures based on beliefs of your own
Absolute Cultural Relativism
Whatever goes on in cultures must not be questioned by outsiders
Critical Cultural Relativism
Critiques about cultural practices in terms of who is accepting them and why
Biological Determinism vs Cultural Constructionism
Biological Determinist: Nature
Cultural Constructionism: Nurture
Cultural Materialism vs Interpretivism
Cultural Materialism: explains culture as constrained and constructed according to climate
Interpretivism: explain culture according to how people make sense of their own cultures
Structuralism vs Individual Agency
Structuralist: argue people think and behave the way they do based on forces beyond their control
Individual Agency: explains culture as the outcome of continual and constant negotiations
Who was connected to Holism?
Edward Tylor
What are some important characteristics of culture?
- Adaptive
- Related to nature but not the same as nature
- Symbolic
- Holistic
- Enculturated, acculturated and diffused
- Cultural change (syncretism)
