Untitled Deck Flashcards
Acculturation
Cultural change related to contact with another culture
Agency
Agency is 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 and social and cultural factors. This term implies that individuals have the capacity to create, change and influence events.
Agency-centred
Anthropological research that emphasises agency focuses on humans acting to promote their interests and the interests of the groups to which they belong (although what constitutes ‘interests’ is up for debate)
Alterity
‘Otherness’. Used in anthropology to describe and comment on the construction and experience of cultural difference.
Analytical Categories
An outsider’s view of a culture, sometimes referred to as an ‘etic’ view: classifying and understanding traits as representing cross-culturally applicable terms and categories rather than culturally specific meanings.
Authority
Power exercised with the consent of others.
Belief and Knowledge
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.
Capitalism
An economic and political system in which a society’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
Causation
The capacity of one cultural feature to influence another.
Change
The alteration or modification of cultural or social elements in a society. Change may be due to internal dynamics within a society, or a result of contact with another culture, or a consequence of globalisation.
Class
Division of people in a society based on social and economic status.
Classification
Assigning common knowledge to describe a large number of people or things belonging to a recognisable system.
Colonisation
The practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically, socially and politically.
Cohesion-Centred
Some anthropologists see cohesion and consensus as central to the proper functioning of society and culture. Many anthropologists were influenced by Emile Durkheim who claimed that society could only function properly if its members experienced solidarity, that is, a moral duty to work for the maintenance of society.
Commodification
The transformation of goods and services, as well as concepts that normally may not be considered goods, into a commodity, something of value.
Communication
Language influences social life, forms social identity and group membership, organises large-scale cultural beliefs and ideologies, and develops a common cultural representation of natural and social worlds.
Community
A group of people who share a common interest, or a common ecology and locality, or a common social system or structure. Anthropologists have traditionally studied communities through the lens of ethnographic fieldwork.
Conflict
Disagreements between individuals, groups, cultures or societies may result from differences in interests, values or actions. Conflict theory presents a lens, or framework, which can give anthropologists insight into the social impact of disharmony.
Consensus
Theories around the concept of consensus assume that cultural values and beliefs are learned and shared to a significant extent across a society and that there is a general level of agreement about these values and beliefs.
Consumption
The meaningful use that people make of the objects that are associated with them. The use can be mental or material, the objects can be things, ideas or relationships.
Cosmopolitanism
Communities include individuals who live together with cultural difference.
Cultural Boundaries
Essentialist View: Presumes fixed boundaries for a culture, Constructivist View: individuals and groups have the capacity to define and redefine their cultural identities and spheres of influence
Cultural Capital
The knowledge and experience acquired through socialisation, which enables successful interaction in an individual’s social world
Cultural Relativism
Not making value judgements about cultural differences and understanding a different culture in its context
Culture
Culture refers to organised systems of symbols, ideas, explanations, beliefs and material production that humans create and manipulate in the course of their daily lives. Culture includes the customs by which humans organise their physical world and maintain their social structure. More recent approaches to culture recognise that cultures are not static, homogeneous or bounded, but dynamic and fluid. Culture refers to the shared social construction of meanings, but simultaneously culture is often also a site of contested meanings. These recent formulations of the concept recognise that culture may be the subject of disagreement and conflict within and among societies, and this disagreement may include the definition of culture itself.
Development
The concept of development refers to more economically developed societies providing assistance and resources to less economically developed societies, either directly through bilateral aid or indirectly via other agencies. Development also refers to self-directed industrial, technological and economic improvement.
Enculturation
The gradual acquisition of the characteristics and norms of a culture or group. The transmission of culture from one generation to the next.
Essentialism
Reducing description of a social group or culture to a limited set of characteristics, ignoring individual differences and agency.
Ethnicity
A social group is connected by a shared understanding of cultural identity
Ethics
The principles of conduct governing an individual or group; concerns for what is right or wrong, good or bad.
Ethnocentrism
The tendency to view the world from the perspective of one’s own culture; the inability to understand cultures different from ones own.
Exchange
The transfer of things between social actors. The things can be human or animal, material or immaterial. Exchange is central to all people’s lives, but its consequences and elaborations are more marked in some cultures.
Exclusion
The failure of society to provide certain individuals and groups with those rights and benefits normally available to its members.
Family
A term covering a range of meanings in terms of the relatedness and connection of people. It may refer to a domestic group or household, or a wider kinship network.
Fieldwork
When an anthropologist becomes immersed in the local life of a group of people for the purpose of learning about their culture.
Gender
The culturally constructed distinctions between males and females.
Governmentality
Term coined by Michel Foucault referring to the way in which the state exercises control over the population.
Habitus
Pierre Bourdieu holds that socialised norms guide people’s behaviour and thinking. These become lasting tendencies to think, feel and act in certain ways in particular social situations.
Hegemony
The cultural or political dominance of one social group over others; cultural processes through which the ruling classes maintain their power.
Holism
The whole of a social system is identified as being more than just the individuals who participate in it.
Hybridity
Multiple cultures mix, bringing together traditions as they negotiate their shared and unshared identities.
Idealist
Idealist perspectives focus primarily on the activities and categories of the human mind (for example, beliefs, symbols and rationality), and seek explanations for the human condition in terms of them.
Identity
Identity can refer to either the individual’s private and personal view of the self- sometimes known as the ‘moi’, or the view of an individual in the eyes of the social group. Identity also refers to group identity, which may take the form of religious identity, ethnic identity, or national identity for example.
Ideology
The system of social or moral ideas of a group of people; a commitment to central values.
Imagined Community
The idea that a community is to some extent constructed in the minds of the people who consider themselves to belong to it.
Inclusion
A person or group is welcomes, represented and provided for by the community or wider society.
Insider/Outsider
In field research, different viewpoints may be apparent from within the social group (the perspective of the subject) and from outside (the perspective of the observer)
Interpretation
Cultural symbols are decoded and analysed by anthropologists to determine their meaning
Kinship
The web or pattern of social relationships, which connects people through descent or marriage, although other forms of social connection may be included.
Knowledge System
Culture is socially learned and provides people with what they need to know to act appropriately.
Labour
The efforts of individuals as workers in a capitalist context is considered a factor of production, along with land and capital, and is ascribed a value. The process of division of labour into specified tasks may be driven by gender.
Liminality
Participants in a rite of passage or ritual are temporarily literally and symbolically marginalised from their community. Their status becomes ambiguous until they rejoin their community and adopt their new status. This term may be more broadly used in the context of cultural change.
Local Categories
An insider’s (indigenous) view of a culture, sometimes referred to as an ‘emic’ view: the meaning that subjects assign to objects and events in a cultural context.
Localisation
A social group’s specific adaptation of the influences of globalisation.
Marginalisation
Relegating specific groups of people to the edge of society, economically, politically, culturally and socially; limiting their access to productive resources and avenues for the realisation of their productive human potential.
Marginality
Humans dimensions used as a basis for social exclusion (for example, class, ethnicity, gender)
Materialist
Materialist perspectives in anthropology and other social sciences explain aspects of human existence in terms of their most tangible features (for example, technology, adaption to the environment, and the production and management of resources)
Materiality
Objects, resources and belongings have cultural meaning, described by Arjun Appadurai as ‘the social life of things’, and are embedded with all kids of social relations and practices. Some anthropologists think that the human experience can be understood through the study of material objects.
Modernisation
The adoption of characteristics of more developed societies by less developed societies, generally including the abandonment of some traditional practices.
Morality
Adherence to the rules or norms of a social group. Also relates to thinking and behaviour that pursues or acts in the interest of general human excellence.
Movement
A loosely organised but sustained campaign in support of a social goal, typically either the implementation of the prevention of a change in society’s structure or values.
Nation State
A politically legitimate, bounded geographical area. A state is a political and geopolitical entity, while a nation may be considered a cultural one. The term ‘nation state’ implies that the two coincide, but colonisation created many instances where this notion may be disputed.
Neo-Colonialism
Relations between former colonial powers and former colonies, which perpetuate to some degree the domination and exploitation that existed under colonialism.
Participant Observation
During fieldwork, an anthropologist immerses himself or herself in the life of the social group he or she is studying, actively observing, interviewing and writing detailed field notes.
Particularistic
Anthropologists taking a particularistic perspective stress that aspects of society and culture must be understood in terms of their specific social and historical context.
Positionality
The effect an anthropologist’s own subjectivity might have on how he or she interprets observations and experience.
Post-colonialism
Study of the legacy of the colonial era and the residual political, cultural, socio-economic, and psychological effects.
Power
Power is an essential part of social relations and can be considered as a person’s or group’s capacity to influence, manipulate or control others and resources. In its broadest sense, power can be understood as involving distinctions and inequalities between members of a social group.
Power Relations
The positive or negative exercise of power between social groups or individuals.
Race
A socially constructed category of identification of people based on physical characteristics, ancestry, historical affiliation, or shared culture. In colonial times, this term was used to support ethnocentric, prejudicial views.
Reciprocity
Mutual 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)
Religion
A system of symbols that act to establish understandings of existence in such a way that it is realistic to its followers. Religion is generally supported and perpetuated by ritual.
Reproduction
The transmission of existing cultural values and norms and other aspects of society from generation to generation.
Resistance
Social groups may not accept change in its apparent form, either refusing it outright or moving to accommodate it in a modified form.
Revitalisation
Rejection of newly introduced cultural elements and reclamation of historical roots, traditional identity and spiritual imagination.
Ritual
A formalised event, the rules of which are determined by the traditions of a social group, characterised by symbolism and performance. Religion is a significant context for the practice of rituals, but the scope of ritualistic behaviour extends to other areas.
Role
The dynamic aspect of status: a person’s actual behaviour within the context of that status
Sacred/Profane
Emile Durkheim explained the sacred as symbols and objects set apart, bound by prohibitions, sometimes forbidden, while the profane relates to mundane, individual concerns. Some anthropologists do not regard this duality as being common to all social groups
Self
The individual’s social self is the product of social interaction and not the biological preconditions that interaction.
Sexuality
A central feature of being human that is highly individualised. It includes sexual feelings, thoughts, attractions, preferences and behaviour. Michel Foucault wrote extensively about western societies historically repressing sexuality up until the sexual revolution of the mid to late 20th century
Social Control
Any means used to maintain behavioural norms and regulate conflict
Social Inequality
The existence of unequal opportunities and rewards for different social positions or statuses within a group or a society
Social Relations
Any relationship between two or more individuals within a network of relationships. Social relations involve an element of individual agency, as well as group expectations and form the basis of social organisation and social structure. They pervade every aspect of human life, and are extensive, complex and diverse.
Social Stratification
The systematic organisation of persons or groups into hierarchal structures of inequality. This may be according to age, gender, class, work specialisations, ethnicity
Socialisation
The process through which a person learns to become an accepted member of society via agents such as family, peers, media (talk about primary and secondary maybe?)
Society
Society refers to the way in which humans organise themselves into groups and networks. Society is created and sustained by social relationships among persons and groups. The term ‘society’ can also be used to refer to a human group that exhibits some internal coherence and distinguishes itself from other such groups.
Space
Space may be considered as socially constructed. Physical spaces have a dialectical relationship with the societies that inhabit them.
State
A state is an organised political community living under a single system of government.
Status
The position a person has within a social system- this may be ascribed (beyond an individual’s control) or achieved (acquired on the basis of merit). Persons’ statuses are usually multiple and come with sets of rights, obligations, behaviours and duties that individuals of certain positions are expected to perform.
Structure
An abstract concept derived from all social institutions and social relations existing in a society. Generally seen as the resilient, regulating aspects of society that constrain the actions of its members.
Structure-centred
Structure-centred perspectives view social action as determined by social and material context, such as physical environment, access to resources, community organisation, social institutions, and the state.
Subaltern
Refers to social groups that are socially and politically outside of the hegemonic power structure of the society. This term particularly relates to colonial and post-colonial contexts.
Suffering
The human consequences of war, famine, depression, disease, torture, and other problems that result from how political, economic, and institutional power may impact people negatively.
Sustainability
Development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
Symbolism
Symbolism is the study of the significance that people attach to objects, actions, and processes creating networks of symbols through which they construct a culture’s web of meaning.
Synchronic
Synchrony refers to the occurrence of events at the same time, seeking to uncover the relationships between aspects of society and culture in the present or at a specific point in time.
Technology
Broadly, technology describes the tools that we use to assist our interactions in society. Technologies can be referred to as innovation and can initiate changes in culture and society. The value placed on technologies at any level of society influences the rate of change to society and culture. Technologies are constantly changing and their impacts vary over time.
Body
The body as it differs across cultures may be viewed as an anthropological problem. Anthropologists investigate its use, values, and limits. The body may be considered not just as a biological fact or cultural construction, but also as an ontological problem that makes us rethink bodies in terms of space, time and matter.
The Other
Anthropologists use the term ‘the other’ to describe the way people who are members of a particular social group perceive other people who are not members.
The Self
The ‘self’ is the socially constructed understanding of individual and cultural identity that, in people’s thinking, distinguishes them from the ‘other.’
Time
Individuals, communities and societies are situated in a particular period of time and also change over time. Time can be examined as past, present or future. Cultural experiences from the past impact the present and shape thinking about the future.
Transnationalism
A fluid, multi-centred concept of global politics and economics. Rather than discrete clearly bounded nation states and international relations, social fields are criss-crossed by personal networks and flows of ideas, people and material things.
Universalistic
Universalistic anthropological perspectives seek to discover underlying laws and principles common to all societies and cultures.
Urban anthropology
Urban anthropology involves the study of the cultural systems of cities, the communities within them, and the connections of cities to larger and smaller places and populations as part of the worldwide urban system.
