"What is Anthropology"

Question 1

define anthropology

Answer 1

the study of human nature, human society, and the human past

Question 2

define holism

Answer 2

a characteristic of the anthropological perspective that describes, at the highest and most inclusive level, how anthropology tries to integrate all that is known about human beings and thier activities

Question 3

what is comparison

Answer 3

a characteristic of the anthropoligcal perspective that requires anthropologists to consider similarities and differences in as wide a range of human societies as possible before generalizing about human nature, human society, or the human past

Question 4

define evolution

Answer 4

requires anthropologists to place their observations about human nature, human society, or the human past in a temporal framework that takes into consideration change over time

Question 5

define culture

Answer 5

sets of learned behavior and ideas that human beings acquire as members of society together with the material artifacts and structures that human beings create and use. human beings use culture to adapt to and transform the world in which they live

Question 6

define biocultural organisms

Answer 6

organisms (in this case, human beings) whose definging features are codetermined by biological and cultural factors

Question 7

define material culture

Answer 7

objects created or shaped by human beings and given meaning by cultural practices

Question 8

define races

Answer 8

social groupings that allegedly reflect biological differences

Question 9

define racism

Answer 9

the systematic oppression of one or more socially defined “races” by another socially defined “race” that is justified in terms of the supposed inherent biological superiority of the rulers and the supposed inherent biological inferiority of those they rule

Question 10

define biological anthropology (or physical anthropology)

Answer 10

the speciality of anthropology that looks at human beings as biological organisms and tries to discover what characteristics make them different from other organisms and what characteristics they share

Question 11

define primatology

Answer 11

the study of nonhuman primates, the closest living relatives of human beings

Question 12

define paleoanthropology

Answer 12

the search of fossilized remains of humanity’s earliest ancestors

Question 13

define cultural anthropology

Answer 13

the speciality of anthropology that shows how variation in the beliefs and behaviors of members of different human groups is shaped by sets of learned behaviors and ideas that human beings acquire as members of society- that is, by culture

Question 14

define sex

Answer 14

observable physical characteristics that distinguish two kinds of humans, female and males, needed for biological reproduction

Question 15

define gender

Answer 15

the cultural construction of beliefs and behaviors considered appropriate for each sex

Question 16

define globalization

Answer 16

the reshaping of local conditions by powerful global forces on an ever-intensifying scale

Question 17

define cyborg anthropology

Answer 17

a form of anthropological analysis based on the notion of animal- machine hybrids, or cyborgs, that offers a new model for challenging rigid social, political, or economic boundaries that have been used to seperate people by gender, sexuality, class, and race, boundaries proclaimed by thier defenders as “natural”

Question 18

define fieldwork

Answer 18

an extended period of close involvement with the people in whose language or way of life anthropologists are interested, during which anthropologists ordinarily collect most of thier data

Question 19

define informants

Answer 19

people in a particular culture who work with anthropologists and provide them with insights about thier way of life, also called respondents

Question 20

define ethnography

Answer 20

an anthropologist’s written or filmed description of a particular culture

Question 21

define ethnology

Answer 21

the comparative study of two or more cultures

Question 22

define language

Answer 22

the system of arbitrary symbols used to enocde one’s experience of the world and of others

Question 23

define linguistic anthropology

Answer 23

the specialty of anthropology cincerned with the study of human languages

Question 24

define archaeology

Answer 24

a cultural anthropology of the human past involving the analysis of material remains left behind by earlier societies

Question 25

define applied anthropology

Answer 25

subfield of anthropology in which anthropologists use information gathered from the other anthropological specialties to solve practical cross-cultural problems

Question 26

define medical anthropology

Answer 26

the specialty of anthropology that concerns itself with human health- the factors that contribute to diseasae or illness and the ways that human populations deal with disease or illness

Question 27

define science studies

Answer 27

research that explores the interconnections among sociocultural, political, economic, and historic conditions that make scientific research both possible nad successful