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239 Cards in this Set
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fieldwork
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going into the "field", which is wherever people and cultures are, to learn about culture through direct observation
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the field
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wherever people and cultures are
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armchair anthropology
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Term refering to how early cultural anthropologists conducted research, by sitting and reading about other cultures. They read reports but never visited the place or had any direct experience.
Examples: Sir Edward Tylor, Sir James Frazer. |
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verandah anthropology
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Term refering to anthropologists who lived near native people and sent for "natives" to come to his verandah for interviewing
Examples: Radcliffe-Brown |
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salvage anthropology
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Collecting what data one can from a remaining people to document their language, social life, and beliefs before they die out.
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Participant observation
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Research method for learning about a culture that involves living in that culture.
Child of Bronislaw Malinowski. Key elements: -Living with the people -Learning the language -Participating in their every day life |
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Where did Malinowski go to conduct his research?
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Trobriand Islands, in the South Pacific during WW1.
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Multisited research
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fieldwork conducted on a topic in more than one location. Helpful in studying migrant populations in both place of origin and new location.
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Literature review
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Reading what others have already written about an area one wants to research or a topic one wants to research.
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Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)
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Universities and institutions that support or conduct research must establish these to monitor all research related to living humans to make sure it conforms to ethical principles.
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Informed consent
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An aspect of fieldwork ethics requiring that the researcher inform the research participants of the intent, scope, and possible effects of the study and seek their consent to be in the study.
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kula
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A trading network linking many of the trobriand Islands in which men have longstanding partnerships for the exchange of everyday goods such as food as well as highly valued necklaces and armlets.
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Annette Weiner
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Went to the Trobriand Islands in the 1970s, and discovered that women had just as intricate trading networks as men.
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rapport
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A trusting relationship between the researcher and the study population
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Gatekeepers
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People who formally or informally control access to the group or community
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False role assignments
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When a people misunderstand who the anthropologist is and why he/she is there. (ex., people thinking that the anthropologist is a spy)
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Culture shock
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Persistent feelings of uneasiness, loneliness, and anxiety that often occur when a person has shifted from one culture to a different one.
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Reverse culture shock
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Culture shock, when the anthropologist returns home. Ex., being bamboozled by the amount of selection in an American grocery store.
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Deductive approach (to research)
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A form of research that starts from a research question (hypothesis) and then involves collecting data related to the question through observation, interviews, and other methods.
More likely to include quantitative data. |
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Inductive approach (to research)
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A form of research that proceeds without a hypothesis and involves gathering data through unstructured, informal observation, conversation, and other methods.
More likely to involve qualitative data. |
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Quantitative data
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Research that emphasizes gathering and analyzing numeric information and using tables and charts when presenting results. Likely to be used by deductive researchers.
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Qualitative data
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Research that emphasizes generating descriptive information.
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Etic
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An analytical framework used by outside analysts in studying culture. Refers to data collected according to the researcher's questions and categories, with the goal of being able to test a hypothesis.
More likely to be used by cultural materialists. |
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Emic
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What insiders do and perceive about their culture, their perceptions of reality and their explanations for why they do what they do.
More likely to be used by interpretivists. |
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Hawthorne effect
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A research bias that occurs when participants change their behavior to conform to the perceived expectations of the researcher.
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Interview
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A research technique that involves gathering of verbal data through questions or guided conversation between at least two people.
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Questionnaire
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A formal research instrument containing a pre-set series of questions that the anthropologist asks in a face-to-face setting, by mail, or by e-mail.
Can be structured (closed-ended) or unstructured (open-ended). Unstructured generates more emic responses. |
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Focus groups
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Also called group interviews. Basically what it sounds like.
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Open-ended interview
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AN interview in which the respondent takes the lead in setting the direction of the conversation, topics to be covered, and the amount of time devoted to a particular topic.
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Life history
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A qualitative, in-depth description of an individual's life as narrated to the researcher.
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Time allocation study
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A quantitative method that collects data on how people spend their time each day on particular activities.
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Textual material
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A category that includes written or oral stories, myths, plays, sayings, speeches, jokes, and transcriptions of peoples' every day conversations. Ex., Franz Boas, Zora Neale Hurston!
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Anthropology of memory
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Fieldwork among living people that yields information about the past, where anthropologists collect information about what people remember as well as gaps in their memory, revealing how culture shapes memory and how memory shapes culture.
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Triangulation
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A technique that involves seeking information on a particular topic from more than one angle or perspective.
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Field notes
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Includes daily logs, personal journals, descriptions of events, and notes about those notes.
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Tropes
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Key themes. Many qualitative anthropologists use computers to help sort for these.
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Where did Radcliffe-Brown study?
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The Andaman Islands.
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How ethnographies have changed since the 1980s:
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-Now treat local cultures as embedded within regional and global structures and forces.
-Now focus on one topic of interest and avoid a more holistic approach. -Often situated in Western, industrialized cultures. |
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Collaborative Research
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An approach to learning about culture that involves the anthropologist working with members of the study populartion as partners and teammates rather than researcher and "subject".
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The goal of cultural anthropology research methods
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To study, analyze, and describe culture within a code of ethics.
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Key issues in cultural anthropology research
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1. Basic approach to research (fieldwork and participant observation)
2. What topics? 3. Where? 4. The research process 5. Data collection 6. Analysis and presentation 7. Ethics |
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Where did Margaret Mead go?
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Samoa.
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Parts of the research process
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-getting permissions
-selecting a site -building rapport -culture shock! |
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Realist ethnography
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Obbjective accounts of how perceived
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Reflexive ethnography
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Post-modern, the effect that the anthropologist has is incorporated
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Ethics of anthropology
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1. Do NO harm. (Darkness in El Dorado, journalistic critique of the study of the Yanomami in terms of research ethics.)
2. Studying reasons should be clear! 3. Benefits of research must be shared. |
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Yanomami people
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-At the time of Chagnon’s research, most were “uncontacted”
-No immunities to outside infections -Generally socially egalitarian with competition among men for certain goods Napoleon Chagnon's research, gave them measles vaccines, spread disease throughout community, sparked wars |
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Napoleon Chagnon
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Researcher in the 60s and 70s who visited the Yanomami people and gave them all measles vaccines. People got sick, though that people from other villages had cursed them, sparked war.
Um, just a little unethical. |
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Economic system
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Includes three areas:
-production, making goods or money -consumption, using up goods or money -exchange, transfer of goods or money between people or institutions |
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Mode of production
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The dominant pattern of making a living in a culture
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Types of modes of production
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-Foraging
-Horticulture -Pastoralism -Agriculture -Industrialism/Informatics |
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World economy
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A global division of labor, in which countries compete unequally for share of wealth
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Core areas
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(part of Global Economy) Monopolize the profitable activities, such as high-tech service, manufacturing, and financial activities. Have strongest governments, which play dominating roles in affairs of other countries.
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Three stratifications of global economy
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Core, periphery, and semiperiphery
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Peripheral areas
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(part of Global Economy) Relegated to least profitable activities, including production of raw materials, foodstuffs, and labor-intensive goods, and they must import high-tech goods and services from the core. Have weak governments that are dominated, either directly or indirectly, by core states
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Semiperipheral areas
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Global economy. Somewhere in between peripheral and core.
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Foraging
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Based on collecting food that is available in nature, by gathering, fishing, or hunting.
Oldest way of making a living, begining to go extinct. Two types: temperate foraging and circumpolar foraging. Have diverse set of tools used for gathering, transporting, and processing wild foods. Many times are migratory. No concept of private property. Use "use rights" instead. Sustainable system! |
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Temperate foraging (diet, gender division, and shelter)
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Diet: variety of nuts, tubers, fruit, small animals, and occasional large game.
Gender division of labor: Men and women forage, men hunt large game Shelter: Casual construction, nonpermanent, little maintenence. ex. The Ju/'hoiansi people |
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Circumpolar foraging (diet, gender division, and shelter)
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Diet: large marine and terrestrial animals
Gender division of labor: Men hunt and fish Shelter: Time-intensive construction and maintenance, some permanent Lots of adaptive technology! Very dangerous process. Adoptive clothing, otherwise you'll die! |
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Man the Hunter model
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Says that early humans relied heavily on animal meat in their diets, that men were responsible for providing the meat, which explains men's high status in many societies relative to women, and that the need to hunt in groups formed basis for social life.
Old theory! Appears to be a minority pattern found in resource-limited environments. Also male biased! |
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Woman the Gatherer model
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Feminist anthropologist theory, 1975. Based on evidence that most food in most foraging groups in temperate regions comes from gathering, which is mainly women's work. In the Ju/'hoansi, gathering is 75 - 80% of food. And in some foraging societies, women hunt.
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Property rights
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Concept of owning something that can be sold to someone else. Does not exist in foraging societies.
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Use rights
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A system of property relations in which a person or group has socially recognized priority in access to particular resources such as gathering, hunting, and fishing areas and water holes.
Access is willingly shared with others by permission. Visiting groups are welcome and will be given good and water. |
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Original affluent society
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Needs of foragers are satisfied with minimal labor efforts.
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Foraging as a sustainable system
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Crucial resources are regenerated over time in balance with the demand that the population makes on them.
Needs are modest! (original affluent society) Minimal labor efforts are required to satisfy these minimal needs |
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Horticulture
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Emerged about 12k years ago
Mode of production based on cultivating domesticated plants in gardens using hand tools. Supplemented by foraging and by trading with patoralists for animal products. |
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Shifting cultivation
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Referring to the required rotation of garden plots in order for them to regenerate.
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Division of labor in horticulture
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Gender and age are key factors in division. Men clear the garden area while both men and women plant and tend the staple food crops.
Unusual cases: Iroquois, women cultivate the maize and control its distribution. Yanomami, men clear the fields and tend and harvest the crops. Women process manioc. Children do more productive work in horitculture. In the Gusii of western Kenya, they care for siblings, collect fuel, and carry water. |
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Manoic
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Also called cassava, staple root crop among the Yanomami, processed by women.
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Property relations in horitculture
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Not characteristic. Use rights are important. By clearing and planting an area, family puts claim on it.
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Sustainability of horticulture
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Fallowing is crucial in maintaining viability of horticulture.
Harmful things for horticulture: -pressure on access to land as consequence of encroachment by outsiders -government policies that force horticulturalists to increase production for cash in order to pay taxes -Interest of horitculturists in increasing production for cash -pressure on land from internal population growth when outmigration is not an option |
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Fallowing
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Depending on the soil and the crop grown, the land must be left unused for a specified number of years so that it regains its fertility
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Five stages in horticulture
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-Clearing
-Planting -Weeding -Harvesting -Fallowing |
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Clearing (Horticulture)
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Stage of horiticulture. Section of the forest is cleared, partially or completely, by cutting down trees and brush and then setting the area on fire to burn off other growth. The fire creates a layer of ash that is rich fertilizer. The term "slash and burn cultivation" refers to this stage of clearing.
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Planting (Horticulture)
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People use digging sticks to loosen the soil. They place seeds through the broadcasting method (scattering ths eeds by hand) or place slips of plants by hand into the loose soil.
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Weeding (Horticulture)
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Horticulture involves little weeding because the ash cover and shady growing conditions keep weed growth down.
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Harvesting (Horticulture)
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This phase requires substantial labor to cut or dig drops and carry them to the residential area.
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Pastoralism
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Mode of production based on domesticated animal herds and the use of their products, such as meat and milk, for 50% or more of the diet.
Animals in domesticated herds (sheep, goats, camels, etc.) Meat, milk, blood, and hydes Relies on trade for things they can't get from animals Ex. Maasai people of east Africa |
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Division of labor in pastoralism
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Family units and clusters are basic unit of production. Gender and age are key differentiators.
Men in charge of herding. Women responsible for processing herd's products. Exception: in Navajo, women herd, and men craft jewelry Girls and women herd smaller animals. |
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Property relations in pastoralism
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Most important form of property is animals. Followed by housing and domestic goods.
Ownership of animals inherited through males (through females in Navajo) Concept of private property exists for animals, but use rights regulate pasture land and migratory routes, and these tend to be informally regulated through an oral tradition. |
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Pastoralism as a sustainable system
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Very sustained in varied and lush environments.
Mongolian empire based on herding animals and pillaging. BUT, when outside forces squeeze space available for population movements, overexploitation of environment. Many governments want to sedentarize pastoralists. |
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Agriculture
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A mode of production that involves growing crops with the use of plowing, irrigation, and fertilizer.
Intensive use of the same plot. Is sedentary. Increased production, but at cost to humanity (private property, and social inequality) and earth Came into being about 10k years ago. |
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Intensive strategy
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A form of production that involves continuous use of the same land and resources
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Indigenous knowledge
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Local knowledge about the environment, including plants, animals, and resources. Different from Western, scientific knowledge.
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Family farming
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Labor inputs: kin-based
Capital inputs: low/moderate Sustainability: high Prodcution is geared to support the family and to produce goods for sale. Men perform "bulk" labor in 3/4 of societies. |
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Public/private dichotomy
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Gender division in society that emerged with agriculture, whereby men are more involved with the nondomestic domain and women are more involved in activities in or near the home.
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Three hypotheses to explain male dominance in gender division of labor in agriculture.
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1) Men and plowing hypothesis
2) Women and child care hypothesis 3) Women and food processing hypothesis |
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Men and plowing hypothesis
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Explanation of male dominance in gender division of labor in agriculture.
Men are physically stronger. Is an adaptive cultural strategy because it increases chance for good crop |
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Women and Child Care hypothesis
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Explanation of male dominance in gender division of labor in agriculture.
Women not involved as much because such tasks are incompatible with child care. |
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Women and food processing hypothesis
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Explanation of male dominance in gender division of labor in agriculture.
Agriculture increases demand for labor within and near the house. These labor demands restrict women to the house. |
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Industrial Capital Agriculture
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Labor inputs: hired, impersonal
Capital inputs: high Sustainability: low A form of agriculture that is capital-intensive, substituting machinery and purchased inputs for human and animal labor. |
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Wet rice agriculture
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Highly labor-intensive way of growing rice that involves starting the seedlings in nurseries and transplanting them to flooded fields. Men plow fields with water buffaloes. Women own land and make decisions about planting and harvesting.
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Industrial Collectivized Agriculture
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Labor inputs: communal (duh)
Capital inputs: moderate/high Sustainability: low/moderate Form of industrialized agriculture that involves state control of land, technology, and goods produced. Example: Mao Tse-Tung in China |
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Industrialism/Informatics
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A mode of production in which goods are produced through mass employment in business and commercial operations, and through the creation and movement of information through electronic media.
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Terracing
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Beautifully-laid out plots of agriculture.
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Mechanized agriculture
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Requires LOTS of land.
Megafarms! |
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Cash crops
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Grown specifically to sell. Often you cannot eat them (tea, chocolate, coffee). Grown as monocrops: no fallback, no food
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Formal sector
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Salaried or wage-based work registered in official statistics.
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Informal sector
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Includes work what is outside the formal sector, not officially registered, and sometimes illegal.
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How do you get an elephant up a hill?
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You take the f out of fun, and the f out of way.
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Four subfields of anthropology
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If you don't know these, you're an idiot.
Biological anthropology, aka your possible major Archaeology Linguistic anthro Cultural anthropology, aka your other possible major |
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Biological Anthropology
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Also called Physical anthropology.
The study of humans as biological organisms, including their evolution and contemporary variation. Subsubfields: -Paleoanthropology -Primatology -Contemporary human biological variation |
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Primatology
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Subsubfield of bio anth
The study of nonhuman members of the order of primates Includes range from strepsirhines to gorillas. |
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Paleoanthropology
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Subsubfield of bio anth
Study of human evolution on the basis of the fossil record ROCKS. |
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Contemporary human biological variation
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Subsubfield of bio anth
Define, measure, and seek to explain differences in the biological makeup and behavior of contemporary humans. Early anthropologists defined these things as "race", but we know that to be bullshit. |
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Archaeology
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Also called 'prehistory'
The study of past human cultures through their material remains. Major areas: prehistoric archaeology historical archaeology Specialties: -underwater archaeology -industrial archaeology etc. |
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Prehistoric Archaeology
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Major area of archaeology
Concerns the human past before written records |
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Historical Archaeology
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Major area of archaeology
Deal with the human past in societies that have written documents |
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Underwater Archaeology
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Study and preservation of submerged archaeological sites (could be prehistoric or historic)
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Industrial archaeology
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Focuses onchanges in material culture and society during and cinet he Industrial Revolution. Very active in Great Britain.
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Linguistic anthropology
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The study of human communication, including its origins, history, and contemporary variation and change.
Subfields: -historical linguistics -descriptive linguistics -sociolinguistics |
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Historical linguistics
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The study of language change over time and how languages are related.
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Descriptive linguistics
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Structural linguistics. The study of how contemporary languages differ in terms of their formal structure.
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Sociolinguistics
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The GOOD one.
The study of the relationships among social variation, social context, and linguistic variation, including nonverbal communication. |
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Cultural anthropology/social anthropology
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The study of living peoples and their cultures, including variation and change.
Includes: -making a living -reproduction and life cycle -health -marriage and family -social groups, politics -language -art -religion...and MORE! |
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Culture (Babs definition)
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Learned and shared ways of behaving and thinking.
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Material Culture (UNESCO)
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Buildings, monuments, etc. associated with great civilizations.
Part of UNESCO's definition of "culture". |
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Intangible Culture (UNESCO)
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Dance, music, rituals, and more.
Part of UNESCO's definition of culture |
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Culture (UNESCO definition)
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Material Culture and Intangible Culture
These are ways to LIST and DOCUMENT culture. |
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Culture (Sir Edward Tylor)
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The complex whole, which includes knowledge, belief, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.
IS a human universal! Definition wrote in 1871. |
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Sir Edward Tylor
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Anthropologist who defined "culture" in 1871.
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Cultural materialism
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Emphasis on behavior (eating, making a living, politics)
Focus of Marvin Harris. |
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Marvin Harris
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Cultural Materialist
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Cultural Interpretism
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Emphasis on BELIEF.
Clifford Geertz |
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Clifford Geertz
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Cultural Interpretist!
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Applied Anthropology
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Also called practicing anthropology, or practical anthropology.
The use of anthropological knowledge to prevent or solve problelms or to shape and achieve policy goals. Jobs of this include: -Cultural resource management -Forensic anthropology and more! |
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Cultural Resource Management (CRM)
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Assessing presence of possible archaeological remains before construction projects proceed
Part of applied anthro. |
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Forensic anthropology
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Participants in criminal investigations through laboratory work identifying bodily remains. Mostly bones.
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Biruté Galdikas
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Primatologist who went to Indonesia to study orangs. She became very active in orang conservation.
Orangs live exclusively in Smatra and Borneo. |
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Functionalism
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Established by Malinowski.
View that a culture is similar to a biological organism, in which parts work to support the operation and maintenance of the whole. Linked to the concept of holism. |
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Holism
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The view that one must study all aspects of a culture in order to understand the whole culture (also Malinowski)
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Franz Boas
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I LOVE Boas
Founder of North American cultural anthropology. Studied with the Inuit, the indigenous people of Baffin island. Introduced cultural relativism, and historical particularism. Helped to institutionalize North American anthropology as a discipline. |
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Cultural relativism
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The view that each culture must be understood in terms of the values and ideas of that culture, and not be judged by the standards of another.
No culture is more advanced than another! |
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Historical particularism
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Boas.
The view that individual cultures must be studied and described in their own terms and understood within their own historical context. Generalizations about culture are invalid because they ignore specific realities of individual cultures. |
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Margaret Mead
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An important public anthropologist.
Studied South Pacific cultures, gener roles, and impact of child-rearing practices on personality. |
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Public anthropologist
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One who takes seriously the importance of bringing cultural anthropology knowledge to the general public in order to create positive social change.
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Claude Lévi-Strauss
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Developed theory of French structuralism, which developed into symbolic analysis.
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French structuralism
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Lévi-Strauss. The best way to understand a culture is to collect its myths and stories and analyze the underlying themes in them. Inspired development of symbolic anthropology.
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Symbolic anthropology
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The study of culture as a system of meanings. Especially priminent in the US in later part of 20th century.
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Postmodernism
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An intellectual pursuit that asks whether modernity is truly progress, which questions such aspects of modernism as the scientific method, urbanisation, etc.
Influenced two theoretical directions that have taken prominence since the 1990s: -Structurism -Agency |
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Structurism
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Coined by Babs!
The view that powerful structures such as economics, politics, and media shape cultures and create entrenched systems of inequaity and oppression. |
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Agency
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Emphasizes human ability to make choices and exercise free will, and the power of individuals to create and change culture by acting against structures.
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Feminist Anthropology
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A perspective that emphasizes the need to study female roles and gender-based inequality.
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Gay and Lesbian Anthropology
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A perspective that emphasizes the need to study gay peoples' culrures and discrimination based on sexual identity and preferences.
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Anti-Racist Anthropology
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Steps outlined by Leith Mullings in 2005 to make anthropology less "white":
-examine and recognize anthro's long history and implicactions with racism -work to increase diversity in the discipline -teach about racism in anthro classes and textbooks -treat concept of culture within a political-economy framework |
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Native Anthropology
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The study of one's own cultural group.
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Microculture
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Local culture. Refers to distinct patterns of larned and shared behavior and ideas found in local ergions and among particular groups. Based on ethnicity, gender, age, etc.
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Characteristics of culture
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1. Culture is adaptive
2. Culture is not the same as nature. 3. Culture is based on symbols 4. Culture is LEARNED. 5. Cultures are integrated 6. Cultures interact and change! |
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Culture is adaptive
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Characteristic of culture!
Culture is often adoptive, helping us adopt to our environment. BUT, we also do things that are destructive and not adaptive, and can harm ourselves and environment (love canal, chernobyl) |
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Culture is not the same as nature
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Consider essential, universal biological functions:
eating, drinking, sleeping, and eliminating bodily waste. Each is culturally specific, highly variable, and requires learning! Look at entire context of doing each of these actions. Who eats what, with whom, who sleeps where, at what times, for how long, where people eliminate, if they do it publically or privately....all of these things are culturally variable! |
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Culture is based on symbols.
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Symbols are arbitrary! (thank you Dent.)
They refer to anything and change over time. |
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Symbols
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Things that stand for something else.
Are arbitrary! |
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Culture is learned!
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Characteristic of culture.
Learned through processes of enculturation or socialization. |
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Cultures are integrated
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Characteristic of culture!
Relates to conccept of holism. One aspect of culture affects another, which affects another, etc. Hard to separate and isolate just one aspect of culture. |
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Cultures interact and change
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Characteristic of culture!
Globalization is a major force of contemporary culture change. Four models of cultural interaction: -clash of civilizations -McDonaldization -Hybridization -Localization And, migration. |
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Globalization
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The process of intensified global interconnectedness and movement of goods, information, and people. Major force of contemporary change.
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Clash of civilizations
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Model of cultural interaction.
Says that the spread of Euro-American capitalism and lifeways through the rest of the world has created disenchantment, alienation, and resentment among other cultural systems. Divides world into "West and the rest" |
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McDonaldization
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Model of cultural interaction.
Under the powerful influence of US-dominated corporate culture, the world is becoming cultural homogenous. |
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Hybridization
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Also called syncretism, creolization, and cultural crossover.
Occurs when aspects of two or more cultures mix to form something new. People using satellite imagery to map and protect the boundaries of their ancestral lands, or a Japanese woman bowing in gratitude to an ATM. |
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Localization
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Transformation of global culture by local microcultures into something new.
Taking something like McDonalds and each culture transforms it to fit their own culture. |
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Ethnology
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The study of a particular topic in more than one culture using ethnographic material.
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Absolute cultural relativism
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Whatever goes on in a particular culture must not be questioned or changed because it would be ethnocentric to question any behavior or idea anywhere.
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Critical cultural relativism
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Poses questions about cultural practices and ideas in terms of who accepts them and why, and who they may be harming or helping.
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Three theoretical debates in cultural anthropology
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-Biological determinism versus cultural constructionism
-interpretive anthropology versus cultural materialism -individual agency versus structurism |
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Biological determinism
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Seeks to explain why people do and think what they do by considering biological factors such as peoples' genes and hormones.
Things like sexual selection, etc. |
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Cultural Constructionism
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Maintains that human behavior and ideas are best explained as products of cuturally-shaped learning.
Parents teach boys and girls different things. |
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Potlatch
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A grand feast in which gusts are invited to eat and to receive gifts from the host.
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Social safety net
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Groups with a surplus help out those with less. Ensures that the entire community gets to eat.
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Mode of consumption
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The dominant way, in a culture, of using up goods and services.
Refers to providing for needs and desires through intake OR expending effort or money to acquire. |
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Mode of exchange
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The dominant way, in a culture, of transferring goods, services, and other items between and among groups and people.
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Minimalism
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A mode of consumption characterized by few and finite consumer demands and an adequate and sustainable means to achieve them.
Characteristic of free-ranging foragers, and to some degree of horticulturists and pastoralists. |
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Consumerism
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A mode of consumption in which people's demands are many and infinite, and the means of satisfying them re never sufficient, thus driving colonialism, globalization,a nd other forms of expansionism.
Distinguishing feature of industrial/informatic cultures. |
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Leveling mechanisms
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Unwritten, culturally embedded rules that prevent an individual from becoming wealthier or more powerful than anybody else
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Costs of growth of consumerism
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-environment and biological species diversity
-world's cultural diversity -the poor, everywhere |
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Personalized consumption
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When goods are produced by people with whom the consumer has a personal, face-to-face relationship
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Depersonalized consumption
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When products are often multisourced, with parts assembled in diverse prats of the world by hundreds of unknown workers.
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Consumption fund
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A category of a personal or household budget used to provide for consumption demands.
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Five categories for consumption funds
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-Basic needs fund
-recurrent costs fund -entertainment fund -ceremonial fund -rent and tax fund |
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Basic Needs Fund
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Consumption funds for food, beverages, shelter, clothing, fuel, and the tools involved in producing or providing for them
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Recurrent Costs Fund
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Consumption funds for maintenance and repair of tools, animals, machinery, and shelter
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Entertainment Fund
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Consumption funds for leisure activities
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Ceremonial Fund
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Consumption funds for social events such as rituals
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Rent and Tax Fund
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Consumption funds for payments to landowners or governments for use of land, housing, or civic responsibilities.
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Difference in consumption funds between consumerists and minimalists
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-size of budget is larger for consumerists
-relative size of consumption funds varies in household budgets cross-culturally |
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Entitlement
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Defined by Amartya Sen.
A culturally defined right to provide for one's life needs. Divided into direct entitlements and indirect entitlements. |
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Direct entitlement
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Most secure form.
Producing your own food, foraging. |
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Indirect entitlement
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Less secure. Employment cor cash wage, welfare checks.
If money suddenly became worthless, you'd be screwed. |
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Three levels of entitlements
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-Global
-Country/region -Local/microculture |
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Food taboos
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Rules about prohibited foods
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Cultural materialist stance on food taboos (ex, pigs)
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Pigs are thermodynamically ill-adapted to hot, dry climates. They can't sweat! They have bad body regulation systems. They would be really difficult to raise.
Acknowledges that not all religiously sanctioned food can be explained ecologically. |
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Cultural interpretivist stance on food taboos (ex, pigs)
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Mary Douglas says that eating pigs is symbolic of completeness and purity, and that not eating pigs, people are constantly reminded of God's perfection, completeness, and purity.
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Nonmarket economies
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A market where time, labor, and goods are prominent exchange items
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Material goods
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Food to family and group members
Gifts for special occasions such as weddings Money |
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Nonmaterial goods
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Myths, stories, rituals
Time, labor |
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Human goods
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Offspring in marriage, slavery
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General purpose money
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Can use it to buy anything (?)
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Limited purpose money
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Can only use to purchase certain things (?)
Ex. Raffia cloth in DRC, can only be used in things like marriage or compensation for wrongdoing. Cannot be used for commercial transactions such as buying food or a house. |
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Balanced exchange
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A system of transfers in which the goal is either immediate or eventual balance in value.
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Unbalanced exchange
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A system of transfers in which one party attempts to make a profit
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Generalized reciprocity
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Exchange involving the least conscious sense of interest in material gain or though of what might be received in return.
ex. buying coffee for a friend |
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Pure gift
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Something given with no expectation or thought of a return.
Extreme form of generalized reciprocity. Some people say there are no pure gifts because the giver always gets SOMETHING in return. |
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Expected reciprocity
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The exchange of approximately equally valued goods or services, usually between people roughly equal in social status.
Less personal than generalized reciprocity, and more "economic". ex. kula |
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Redistribution
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A form of exchange that involves on person collecting goods or money from many members of a group who then, at a later time and at a public events, "returns" the pooled goods to everyone who contributed.
Type of balanced exchanged. ex. political leaders who gain status by giving feasts full of yams |
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Market exchange
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A prominant form of unbalanced exchange.
The buying and sellingn of commodities under competitive conditions in which the forces of supply and demand determine value and the seller seeks to make a profit. Relationship between buyer and seller is often informal. Type of unbalanced exchange. |
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Trade
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The formalized exchange of one thing for another according to set standards of value.
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Gambling
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The attempt to make a profit by playing a game of chance in which a certain item of value is staked in hopes of acquiring the much larger return that one receives if one wins the game.
A form of unbalanced exchange. |
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Kula
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Trading in the Trobriand islands. Armbands.
To give is to receive, to receive is to give. |
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fertility
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The rate of births in a population, or the rate of population increase in general.
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Mortality
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Deaths in a population, or the rate of population decline in general or from particular causes.
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Migration
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the movement of a person or people from one place to another
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Democraphy
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The study of population dynamics in a cross-cultural perspective.
Three areas: -fertility -mortality -migration |
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Mode of Reproduction
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The predominant pattern of fertility and mortality in a culture
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Foraging mode of reproduction
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Level rates of population growth associated with moderate birthrates and moderate death rates. This mode of reproduction existed for most of human prehistory.
Long birth intervals because of breastfeeding and women's low level of body fat. |
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Agricultural mode of reproduction
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High rates of population growth associated with higher birth rates than death rates. Emerged with farming and sedentism.
Pronatalism! |
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Industrialism/informatics mode of reproduction
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Low and declining rates of population growth associated with low birth rates and low death rates. Emerged in mid-19th century and is associated with richer countries.
Declines to the point of replacement-level fertility, or below-replacement-level fertility. Associated with stratified reproduction, population aging, and high level of involvement of scientific technology in all aspects of pregnancy. |
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Pronatalism
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An ideology promoting many children
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Replacement-level fertility
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A situation when births equal deaths, leading to maintenance of current population size.
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Below-replacement-level fertility
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A situation in which births are fewer than deaths, leading to population decline
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Demographic transition
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The change from the agricultural pattern of high fertility and high mortality to the industrial pattern of low fertility and low mortality
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Stratified reproduction
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When social inequality is reflected in population patterns.
Typically, middle-class and upper-class people tend to have few children, with high survival rates, while among the poor, fertility and mortality are high. |
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Population aging
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In Japan, fertility rate declined to below-replacement-level. Basically, people are getting old, and not having enough kids.
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Lost semen complex
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A belief among Hindu men that having frequent sex reduces sperm count.
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Four factors in determining the desire for children
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-children's labor value
-children's value as old-age support for parents -infant and child mortality rates -economic costs of children |
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Sex-selective infanticide
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Killing an infant or child because of its sex
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Three categories of causes of death
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-Proximate
-Intermediate -UltimateP |
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Proximate cause of death
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A factor, or factors, closest to the actual death
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Intermediate cause of death
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A factor, or factors, that led to the proximate cause of death
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Ultimate cause of death
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A factor, or factors, underlying both intermediate and proximate causes of death
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The modernization of mortality
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Class-based, mirroring a deep division in entitlements between the rich and the poor. Life expectancy is low.
Ex., Bom Jesus, in Brazil |
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sex ratio
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the number of males per 100 females in a population
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Dowry
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The transfer of cash and goods from the bride's family to the newly married couple and to the groom's family
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Groomprice/groomwealth
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The transfer of cash and goods, often large amounts, from the bride's family to the groom's family.
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Brideprice/bridewealth
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The transfer of cash and goods from the groom's family to the bride's family and to the bride.
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Sati
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The suicide of a wife after the death of her husband
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Femicide
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The murder of a person based on the fact of her being female
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Genocide
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The destruction of a culture and its people through physical extermination
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Ethnocide
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The destruction of a culture without physically killing its people.
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Gospronkhoz
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A government hunting and fishing enterprise. It’s like a collective, owned by the government. A lot more bigger than the clans.
Most of the folks during the Communist era worked for one of these. People with quota of 300 caribou, they had to work for gospronkhoz. |
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Family clan/holding (tundra)
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They are held by those with aboriginal descent. You have to prove that you are a family member of folks that had lived there prior to the communist era. If you do not have that but have historically lived there and hunted there, they can give you a “peasant hunting holding”.
How to get one of these holdings: Go to the government and pay a certain amount of money, fill out lots of forms. A lot of people don’t have these holdings because it’s labor-intensive and expensive. The other option is to hunt in the common pool areas. |
