Week 8-Ritual, Play, and Politics Flashcards
What roles can art play within a culture?
Commemoration
-visual representations to remind us of a specific event, concept, or person that we want to remember
Resistance
-reacting/expressing feelings for something (like the Berlin Wall)
Cultural Persistence
- maintain cultural traditions
- stay culturally tied to members of your community
Appropriation
-westerners using objects from another culture in offensive/incorrect ways
Myths
A story that describes how certain aspects of the world came to be (not necessarily made up)
Rituals
Symbolic repetitive action composed of dance, speech, gestures, song, objects, etc.
A “marked” action set apart from everyday life
(4th of July-fireworks)
How do myths and rituals relate to religion?
Religion is a combination of myths, rituals, and sometimes art.
These all help people understand the world around them
What is a rite of passage?
A type of ritual in which an individual begins as one type of person and is transformed into another type.
Ex:Graduation, Boy Scout, Bat mitzvah
How do people cope with having their worldview challenged?
Creole=mixing cultures
Revitalization= deliberate attempt to create a more satisfying culture
Nativism= outright rejection of new ways in favor of old ones
What was the ghost dance movement?
Native people were forced to move onto small reservations. The US government was attempting to force culture change. Messed with their world views and many became depressed.
An Indian man (of the Paiute people) had a vision that said a figure would return to earth to save them all if they danced a specific circular dance to evoke the memeories of their dead ancestors.
US government saw this as a threat so they arrested sitting Bull (a prominent member of the Lakota) hoping it would prevent the spread of the dance. While trying to arrest him, shots were fired, and people died.
Culture shock
The feeling people get (panic) when experiencing a culture they do not understand.
Many cultural anthropologists go through this when visiting/living in a culture unlike their own.
Dialectic of fieldwork
The process in which anthropologists and informants build a bridge between them in order to better understand each other.
-Steps toward mutual understanding-
Power (anthropological definition)
The ability to transform/control a situation and people
-Social power
Affecting whole social groups
-Interpersonal power
One individual forcing their will on another
-organizational power
Individuals or groups limiting the actions of individuals
-structural power
Power over social settings and assignment of social labor
Biopower
Forms of power dealing with bodies
-how power centers around the physical body of people and the social body of the state-
Hegemony
Persuasion of the people to accept the ideology of the dominant group
Domination
Coercive power/rule
Expensive and unstable-rulers do better if they can persuade the people to accept their rule as legitimate
How do hegemony and domination occur and how do people resist them?
Occur
-people who want power use hegemony and domination to achieve it. Rulers try to persuade the dominated to accept their rule by providing material benefits and using schools/institutions to teach/spread the ideology justifying their rule
Resist
- developing countering cultural practices
- creating structures that help people get better access to education, art, food, transportation, etc.
- helps people raise money and protect others so the dominating power has less coercion over them
Ideology
The worldview (ideas and beliefs) that justifies the social arrangements people live by
