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43 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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alternating sounds
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Boas's discovery that indigenous languages use different alternating sounds than English -- the sounds are organized differently, but the languages are equally complex. In English, we pronounce sounds differently but think they are the same sound. Early example of cultural relativism
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Icon-Index Symbol
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icon: an image/pattern that physically resembles what it stands for; physical resemblance between signal & meaning; e.g. a picture of an apple stands for an apple.
index: a sign that directly points to the message or instruction; have a correlation in space and time with its meaning; e.g. dark clouds are an index of impending rain. Professor also said that physically pointing at something could be considered an index, for example, when he pointed to Yojo. symbol: a symbol does not have direct connection to what it represents, the meaning usually needs to be learned through association; can be linguistic; e.g. a cross symbolizes Christianity. |
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Semiotic Analysis
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Analyzing culture through signs, symbols, and indices In anthropology, every cultural phenomenon can be studied as communication.
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Sapir‐Whorf Hypothesis (+ criticism)
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Holds that we undergo experiences within our environment & form concepts about them. then we develop language to express our concepts. finally, language itself influences how we see the world.
“The principle of linguistic relativity [aka the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis] holds the structure of a language affects the ways in which the speakers conceptualize their world, i.e. their world view, or otherwise influences their cognitive processes” The ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group, so no two languages are ever similar enough to represent same social reality (sapir). emphasis on grammar The Hypothesis: language shapes our thinking. It is impossible to think of notions which do not have a word associated to it. The Criticism: It is possible to think outside of language, i.e. it is possible to think of notion which do not have a word associated to it. |
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Hopi Concepts of Time (from the reading)
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The Hopi, according to Whorf, had “no words, grammatical forms, construction or expressions that refer directly to what we call ‘time’.” in the sense that they’ve no conception of time as an object that can be divided and subdivided.
There’s no tense (past, present, future), but the relation between the statement and the observer; so, different words = different perceptions. |
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Language and Ideology
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How particular ways of using language can carry certain moral, religious, social or political values. (ex. using of word “illegals” encourages dehumanization of certain group of people.)
For example, the difference between ‘global warming’ and ‘ climate change’ indicates something about your political ideas. |
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Illocutionary Acts
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An action performed in/by an utterance, also may be referred to as a “speech act”. It must fulfill two requirements: (1) The performed act must be made public to at least one other person (or in the sense of a dramatic monologue if you’re talking about dramatized instances like Scarlet O’Hara’s “As God is my witness speech”) and (2) it must invoke a set of consequences (rights, obligations, or commitments) upon the speaker or someone/something else. Basically it comprises things like asking a question, making a promise, giving someone detention, etc
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Space
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An area (sometimes ill defined) that humans may interact with, refer to, and enter and leave. It is not tangible but constrains, rules, and produces a variety of social relations. In contemporary society, material space is more “compressed” and territory is less important. (i.e the internet cyberspace) Brodie references 5 types of spaces: Euclidean Space - Sacred & Profane Space - Urban & Rural Space - Public & Private Space - Personal Space (if you can elaborate please do!) - Indoor and Outdoor Space - Cyberspace. In illustrating his point that places are concrete while spaces are more abstract, Ian used the example of “community spaces,” as opposed to “community places.” While community places are considered to have a specific, demarcated use or activity associated with them (example: classroom, church, playground), community spaces are nothing until we fill them, they have no intrinsic meaning because different activities can take place in them.
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Place
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A bounded, readily Identifiable domain that is “specific, demarcated, and tied to material existence.” Humans create and adapt to places by giving meaning to a space. Places are associated with identity and contribute to our understanding of how to interact with the world. We learn through our interactions with places and we create more places through what we learn.
Basso- place could itself have semiotic meaning |
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Landscape
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A mark or characteristic of a place that represents the material world. “A culturally influenced model of experiencing the world.” A social construction that represents a culturally influenced idea of a place. Landscapes can be understood through multi sensory data (visual, sound, smell, touch, taste)
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Space‐Time Compression
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The idea that our objective perception of space and time are changed at certain points (or at least our perception of them) with the introduction of revolutionary technologies. Our experience of time passes quicker and the significance of distance is reduced.
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Medical Anthropology
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Seeks to analyze how medical facts and the truth are constructed historically and socially.
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Biomedicine
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Is a term used to describe a culture (the same as Moroccan being a culture). Informants can and do include doctors, nurses, social workers, patients and family members. Includes a set of terms that creates a culture based language
Western medicine |
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Nervosa
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A condition that happens after severe starvation. Symptoms include anxiety, depression, paralysis, nervousness, pain. Nancy Scheper Hughes lived among a tribe in Brazil who suffered from this condition. Doctors came to aid the people, not with food but with antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication, thus the “medicalization” of hunger was instigated. The condition could be cured with food, but rather drugs were readily given.
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Myth
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A narrative of how things came to be through unproven knowledge. Carries across a sense of tradition that explains something we cannot prove. Myth both resolves and expresses contradictions logically.
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Cosmology
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Has two definitions:
1) One’s way of understanding how the world works. 2) Story of creation (of earth). * We are considered to be living in cosmology. ; i.e. it’s never really ‘complete’ 3 types of cosmology: Myth, Religion (Genesis - Judeo-Christian), Science (Big Bang Theory) |
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The Trickster: An archetypal character in myth
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Ostensibly neither morally good nor evil. Marginal figures (such as scavengers). They produce change through disobeying norms and conventions. They often represent a sort of ‘id’ or primal desires which society regulates against. Ex. Reynard the Fox or Loki (or Coyote)
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Levi‐Strauss’ Perspective on Myth:
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Interested in the relationship between language, culture and myth. He takes a structuralist approach to myth. He sees the importance in studying the entire collection of different variations on a single myth, as they represent a pattern of data. Myth, like the rest of language, is made up of constituent units, called mythemes. Mythemes are relations, and the meaning of a myth is to be found in "bundles of such relations." He characterizes time in myth diachronically and synchronically. He uses the Principle of Opposition to explain that myth progresses from the awareness of oppositions to their resolution.
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Ritual
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change and repetition. Signify and/or produce stative changes in either individuals or the world around us. They often function to reinforce social norms. They often use symbolic language and/or metaphor. Often measure and experience the passing of time Ex. Rites of Passage, Calendrical ritual
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Rites of Passage
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A ritual event that marks a person’s progress from one status to another. Often marked by a ceremony (i.e the jewish bar mitzvah). Rites of passage show anthropologists what social hierarchies, values, and beliefs pertain importance in specific cultures. Arnold van Gennep wrote Les rites de passage (1909) where he determines Three stages to rites:
1. Preliminary (separation) - ritual participants removed from their family residences and or context (can be physical or spiritual or both) 2. Liminary (liminality): participants exist “betwixt and between” states (ex. neither child nor adult) --> or perhaps both at the same time? 3. Postliminary (incorporation): Participant is now a full member of a new social state. Initiates return to their original context, yet are fundamentally changed |
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Liminal
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Developed by Arnold van Gennep (1909- Rites de Passage), characterizes the actual passing through the threshold that marks the boundary between two phases of ritual. Participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete. “standing at the threshold”.
E.g. “I’m not a girl.... not yet a woman” - Britney Spears. |
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Ritual Calendar
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Rituals often measure the passing of time such as the seasons. Rituals can be explicitly or implicitly associated with markers of sustenance (harvest, fertility, etc) Midwinter Festivals are an example of a ritual calendar that marks the . Ex. Chinese New Year is the coming of spring but it is celebrated in January...
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Nationalism
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Associated with modernity as a relatively new term --> there are also arguments that nationalism is perennial as well. An understanding of your participation in a nationality based on the physical location of where you were born (That is a primarily Western concept, the idea that one’s nationality is tied to location at birth, for many cultures it depends on blood). --> not necessarily, since citizenship has become more common of an importance in some aspects, not necessarily which nation one is born in
-simply identifying with one’s nation is key here ; not necessarily conveying positive associations with nation, but at least identifying yourself as being a part of that membership |
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Patriotism
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Having positive feelings toward a country. Not to be confused with nationalism. Nationalism: involves identifying with a country. Although does not always, involve an affection for that country.
To be patriotic, one needs be a nationalist first. But to be a nationalist, one needs not to be patriotic. |
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Flags
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According to Durkheim, flags are society’s ways of worshipping itself; are obviously symbolic. ex: flag campaign as seen in Turkey; hanging flags as a public way of conveying national unity in some sense (could be perceived as a spontaneous protest of the people against those who sought to establish autonomy)
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Benedict Anderson: Imagined Communities
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Nationalism cannot be observed, it’s a feeling of identity, an affection, a shared connection with one’s community. This became possible through:
1) Rise of print capitalism 2) Proliferation of newspapers: with the printing press, the newspapers printed in a language that most people could read in (in order to maximize profit). Newspapers unite everyone in the same country because they are all reading the same news. |
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Nation Building
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Epics such as Homer’s Iliad or King Arthur help a nation’s population build a common identity for itself.
Building a national identity through values, language, etc. that will unify the population and increase political stability and legitimacy. |
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Turkish Nationalism
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Nationalism in Turkey strongly spontaneous and not forced by the government. Soccer games and farewell to soldiers exemplify beliefs that Turkey is the best and that nothing is more important than the greatness of the country. The Flag example perfectly illustrates this. Secularism is almost like a religion.
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Rituals for the State
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Soccer. Wrestling. Soldier farewells. Traditional customs that help further devotion to the state. Started spontaneously by the population.
e.g. Olympic wrestling: considered more a victory for the nation rather than for the athlete |
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Tradition
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The customs and practices held to have been handed down from generation to generation within a culture, or a particular instance of them. It is often regarded as a cultural birthright; to label something traditional imbues it with significance. Tradition may be connected with religion - with the notion of a tradition that must be learned in order to participate in a faith (from Concise Dictionary of Social & Cultural Anthropology).
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The Invention of Tradition
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should not assume that all “traditions” have been around for thousands of years, some are in fact invented to assert legitimate & political power. The understanding that the things which we take as being traditions are historically and socially constructed and often have linkages to who is in power at a particular time, resistance methods, colonization, centralization, patriotism, nation-building etc.
Alternatively, a tradition is not necessarily something that has been repeatedly in the past, but something that is expected to repeat itself in the future. |
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Nationalism and Tradition
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Traditions can be specific to a particular nation, and used to praise that nation. An example is the war dance performed by the New Zealand rugby team. Foods can also be associated with different nations, regardless of whether or not the food actually originated there. Example: spaghetti = Italy, but pasta originated in China, tomatoes from South America...
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The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa
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The idea that many of the things we take to be traditions are in fact historically produced with the goal of providing a certain authority or legitimacy on something. That’s not to say these things are not traditional but the word should not necessarily refer to something that people have done for thousands of years. (The previous is the definition of the invention of tradition, not necessarily how it was implemented in colonial Africa, although obviously an understanding in general is imperative to understanding the specifics).
Colonists in Africa paid and implemented ‘chiefs’ to be their puppet kings and created traditions that would help their own ends, such as accepting the colonists or providing them what they need. |
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Globalization
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As discussed by Sidney Mintz, the division of labour amongst societies. The ability to trade and communicate on a global scale of capitalism.
- Something perennial (We’ve always been global). - New/Modern - Very new-modern Imagination has changed due to globalization i.e. what is ‘potential’ for many privileged individuals has changed due in-large to the various effects of a globalized world and what possibilities it holds (for instance, working in a foreign country even if one only speaks English is quite common in postmodern times) |
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Sugar
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Started out as exclusively for the rich - as a medical commodity - but became very widespread in the 18th and 19th centuries. Example of how history and globalism (through trade) influences culture.
Mintz says that sugar juxtaposes anthropology and history. We can look at taste as a cultural phenomenon linked to a global system of trade. Levi Strauss uses honey as a fundamental binary (sweetness) |
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Neoliberalism
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Neoliberalism is an ideology which promotes minimal state intervention in local economies in favour of regulation by market forces. Consequently, it supports open markets and free trade. It also advocates for the privatization of state-owned corporations.
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Flexible Citizenship
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very basically, the act of holding certain citizenships for economic and political advantages rather than identity aspects
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Communities of Consumption
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MAC vs. PC a community based upon what you choose to consume
Not just what you consume, but also what you do not consume. For example, choosing to not buy products from a particular company because their practices conflict with your principles. |
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Communities of Affirmation
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A community of like-minded individuals who are a minority in the larger context of their society/world, but who create a forum within which they would be the majority (because they control the forum and can exclude others). In the context of the class we learnt about how online communities centered around specific axis of culture/nature act as communities of affirmation (i.e. veggiedate, BDSM community, medical syndromes or sensitivities, etc)
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Networks
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People are connected by who they know. The best example is Facebook. You are (or should) friends with people you know. Your friends make out your network.
Connected regardless of distance. --It would be incorrect, however, to conceive of networks as solely comprising one’s friends. A network would include your family, your coworkers, your sworn enemy (if you have one!), your neighbours, people in/on the same clubs/committees as you even to some extent the barista at the coffee shop you always go to |
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Coffee Cafes (From Reading)
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- Many aspects of the coffee café are designed to make the customers feel sophisticated and worldly – it’s geared toward a yuppie (“young urban professional”) crowd
- According to customers, “coffee cafes are about indulging yourself” o Saw their visits as being a “daily indulgence” - Coffee cafes provide people with a public space where indulgence is sanctioned and where they could escape from the control they try to maintain in the rest of their lives o Customers did not permit the indulgence of the coffee café in other spaces, such as at home - I could anticipate this term being paired with the notion of various ‘spaces’ on the exam? -Haha, yeah, good call. |
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Indulgence
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Concept used by cafe users to justify their actions of drinking unhealthy things. Feeling that “I deserve this because....” or “I will exercise later” or “I only do this once a week” makes them at peace with themselves and their denial. Coffee cafes and buffets are indulgence centers.
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Buffets in America (From Film)
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People overindulge on food because they feel that buffets exist for that reason. Justify it for various reasons seen in the Coffee Cafe article. Creates large amount of waste. Indulgence to the point of self-destruction (vomiting). Waste feeds pigs, which in turn supply the buffets = cycle of indulgence.
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