Theory in Cultural Anthropology Flashcards
Cultural anthropology developed as…
…a scientific discipline in the 19th century in an attempt to understand nonwestern people which westerners had been conquering and colonizing since the 15th century
evolutionism
first theoretical paradigm in cultural anthropology
theory of evolutionism
made by Charles Darwin, discipline of Biology, about biological organisms
Edward Tyler
offered definition of culture and proposed it as. a topic that could be studied scientifically
Lewis Henry Morgan
said that all societies evolve through 3 stages (savagery, barbarism, and civilization)/ also said that stages could not be skipped
Survivals
contemporary practices in beliefs that have survived from earlier evolutionary stages
Franz Boas
father of the 4-field discipline of anthropology/studied native Americans
diffusion
emphasized the spread of ideas from culture to culture
salvage ethnography
study of a specific culture before they are inevitably lost as a result of contact with other cultures and modernization
salvage ethnography ended up…
accelerating the process of culture loss that these people were already experiencing, a lot of items were removed from their native contexts because of this
Functionalism
not interested in history and origins, focuses on present and on function of cultural practices
needs functionalism
humans have a set of universal biological needs (food, sex, shelter)
kula ring
a ceremonial system of exchange, it involves non-utilitarian items (pieces of jewelry)
soulava
red shell necklaces
mwali
white shell armbands
