Anth Week 1: The Anthropological Perspective On The Human Condition

Front 1

What is Determinism?

Back 1

- Biological reduction of complex events to single forces

Front 2

What is Dualism?

Back 2

- View that sees reality as consisting of two different but equal parts

Front 3

What is Idealism?

Back 3

- Gives primacy to the mind that produces ideas

Front 4

What is Materialism?

Back 4

- Emphasizes the actions of the physical body in the material world

Front 5

Assumes that mind and body, person and society, humans and their environment interpenetrate and define one another. What is the definition for this?

Back 5

- Holism

Front 6

What is Culture?

Back 6

- Learned behaviors and ideas acquired by humans as members of society

Front 7

What is Co-evolution?

Back 7

- Emphasizes the mutual evolution of biology, culture and environment

Front 8

Anthropology is ____________ in that it views humans across _____ and ______.

Back 8

comparative, time + space

Front 9

Anthropology is _____________ in that it includes the view of ___________, the relationship between ________and _______ processes.

Back 9

- evolutionary
- co-evolution
- biological and symbolic processes.

Front 10

What is Biological Anthropology? Includes _____________, ________ and variation, and primatology.

Back 10

- Focus is on human beings as living organisms.

- paleoanthropology, human biology

Front 11

________ focuses on the past ways of life.

Back 11

Archaeology

Front 12

Focus is on language and the relationship between language and identity, and language within sub-culture. What is this?

Back 12

Linguistic anthropology.

Front 13

What is Cultural anthropology? What other topics does it examine? What field-work method does it use? How do they use this fieldwork; who do they contact and what information do they gather? What are these information givers called?

Back 13

- Focus is on present-day societies/ethnography and ethnology.
- Examines topics like globalization, gender and sexuality, transnational labor migration, urbanization, communication technology, cyber culture, etc.
- Extended fieldwork method
- Researchers gather information from people they encounter in the field who are variously called informants, participants, consultants, teachers, etc.

Front 14

What is applied anthropology? What are some examples? What do people argue most about applied anthropology?

Back 14

- Focus is on the application of anthropological theories and methods to the solution of everyday problems. e.g., health policy, refugee supports, forensic investigation
- There are examples in all four fields.
- Some argue that applied anthropology should be considered a fifth field or sub-discipline.

Front 15

Culture as learned, ________, and ________.

Back 15

- symbolic, adaptive

Front 16

Routine activities rooted in habitual behaviours that are learned. What is the definition for this?

Back 16

- Habitus

Front 17

Cultures are not neatly bounded and _______ off from other cultures, nor are they _________ within.

Back 17

- closed off, uniformed

Front 18

There is some debate around the use of culture as ____________, symbolically mediated ideas versus cultures as learned ways of life of a specific group.

Back 18

- patterned

Front 19

This person identifies five basic, foundational elements of culture. What are they and who identified this concept?

Back 19

- Richard Potts

1.Transmission

2. Memory

3. Reiteration

4. Innovation

5 Selection

Front 20

What 3 other elements did Richard Potts argue that evolved later and made human culture possible?

Back 20

1.. Symbolic coding/representation
2. Complex symbolic representation
3. Institutional development

Front 21

Anthropology and Culture/Cultures: Critique and Response: There is much debate surrounding the continued use of the culture concept in anthropology. Who are the two anthropologists that emphasize the negative connotation by "othering" these groups?

Back 21

- Trouillot and Kuper

Front 22

_______ ______ argues for a reconfiguration of the concept of culture that reduces difference, emphasizes the issue of meaning-making, and is situated beneath larger analyses of social and political events and processes.

Back 22

Sherry Ortner

Front 23

What is Ethnocentrism?

Back 23

The opinion that one’s own way of life is natural or correct, indeed the only way of being human

Front 24

What is Cultural relativism? What kind of concept is it? What does it make more complex of?

Back 24

- The perspective that all cultures are equally valid and can only be truly understood in their own terms
- A methodological concept
- Makes moral reasoning more complex

Front 25

The Challenge of Cultural Differences : The argument that “______________________ (phrase)” is flawed from many angles.

Back 25

- my culture made me do it

Front 26

The Challenge of Cultural Differences: Humans do not passively follow the ________ of their culture. There is __________ and ________ to some cultural norms and beliefs. Cultures are not ____________ within.

Back 26

- dictates

- dissent, resistance

- uniform

Front 27

Culture, History, and Human Agency : Humans have agency and can choose to act in certain ways, to keep or reject traditions or reconfigure traditions to fit new realities. Yet as _____ ______ noted, human agency is also limited by history, culture, and the material conditions of existence.

Back 27

Karl Marx

Front 28

The Promise of the Anthropological Perspective: List some ways anthropology helps us in our every day lives?

Back 28

- Forces us to question common-sense assumptions.
- Makes moral and political decisions more difficult.
- Decreases ethnocentric thinking.Provides a holistic, comparative, and cross-cultural understanding of the human condition(s).
- Exposes us to the diversity of other lifeways.