Theory

Question 1

Critique with armchair anthro?

Answer 1

Inaccurate, ethnocentric, racist

Question 2

What is functionalism?

Answer 2

• Developed in the early 20th century (roughly 1910s-1930s)
• Based on Malinowski’s revolutionary method of participant observation, discussed in his ethnography ‘Argonauts of the Western Pacific’
• Sees each institution in society as holistically serving a function which corresponded to an individual’s basic needs
• Developed by Emilie Durkheim who has a universalistic, cohesion based theory of social class, with emphasis on the precede of ‘solidarity’ as individuals feel a moral duty to work for the maintenance of society is

Question 3

Critique of functionalism?

Answer 3

• too cohesion-centred
• obviously not not all social institutions support individuals, otherwise there would be no stratifies societies with poverty/homelessness/etc

Question 4

What is structural functionalism?

Answer 4

• Developed from 1930-1960
• similar to functionalism but emphasises how social structures are quite rigid
• Developed by Radcliffe-Brown and Evans Pritchard

Question 5

Critique of structural functionalism?

Answer 5

• does not explain social change

* doesn’t recognise individual agency

Question 6

What is transactionalism?

Answer 6

• Developed by Fredrik Barth in the late 1950s to 1970s.

* Social organisation derives from a web of transactions made by rational and economically-focused agents

Question 7

Critique of transactionalism?

Answer 7

• based on Eurocentric notions of economic rationality

* doesn’t explain how some non-economic practices, such as religion, is a part of our social organisation

Question 8

What is 2nd wave/ Western feminism?

Answer 8

• Developed in the 1960s-1980s

* Sees all women as universally oppressed, encouraging the same political goal of liberation of patriarchal oppression

Question 9

Critique of 2nd wave/ Western feminism?

Answer 9

• concerned with middle class white women’s ideas of liberation
• silenced other women’s voices
• wrongly assumes that everyone is oppressed by the same structures

Question 10

What is political economy?

Answer 10

• developed in the 1960s and 1970s, still important today, encompasses/borrows from many theories (e.g. World systems theory, dependency theory)
• Very vast analytical approach which looks at production in societies, with less focus on distribution/exchange
• looks at the political effects of macro economics

Question 11

Critique of political economy?

Answer 11

• neglects individual’s agency
• not based on participant observation, doesn’t grasp how people think/feel
• sees people as chess pieces, products of material and historic exchanges (e.g. Colonialism, capitalism)

Question 12

What is post modernism?

Answer 12

• developed in the 1980s, recently diminishing importance in Anthropology
• a vast school of thought that questions meta narratives and uses reflexivity to situate the anthropologist in their work.

Question 13

Critique of post modernism?

Answer 13

• doesn’t give enough ethnographic detail, makes anthropologists the heroes of their own ethnographies
• becomes anti-political, makes it impossible to recognise inequality/marginalisation, which is counter-productive

Question 14

What is 3rd wave/ post-modern feminism?

Answer 14

• developed in the late 1980s - present day

* focuses on intersectionality and allows different voices to be heard

Question 15

Critique of 3rd wave feminism?

Answer 15

• accused of losing political and transformative edge of feminism
• so culturally relativist it becomes hard to talk about large marginalised groups

Question 16

What is armchair anthropology?

Answer 16

• Developed in the late 19th century
• First Anthropologists thought that cultures had evolved through time and Victorian England
• Aboriginal and indigenous cultures considered ‘savages’ and ‘primitive’

Question 17

What is false consciousness? How has it developed?

Answer 17

False consciousness is a term first used by Engels, but is ingrained in much of Marx’s discussion of class and power. It assumes that the proletariat/subordinate classes form a ‘false consciousness’ to conceal or obscure the reality of their exploitation by higher classes, because otherwise they would not willingly partake in transactions and social relations that counteract their own interests.

Question 18

What is symbolic power?

Answer 18

Pierre bourdieu introduced it, arguing that symbolic power is more important than economic power in establishing hierarchies in society.

Question 19

What is resistance theory?

Answer 19

Neo Marxist theory developed by Scott. If the proletariat to not show resistance to their dominant class through revolution, they may do so through other, more subtle forms.