Anthropology Midterm

Front 1

Cultural Evolution

Back 1

gradual change of culture over time

Front 2

Cultural Anthropology

Back 2

study of culture

Front 3

Culture

Back 3

A set of values, beliefs, norms, way of life, system of belief (art, poetry, music, being a student)

Front 4

Culture as a text

Back 4

culture is like a text; culture is everywhere telling a story that needs to be deciphered and interpreted

Front 5

Thick Description

Back 5

multiple meanings; deeper meanings

Front 6

Cultural Construction

Back 6

A perspective on a subject that is shaped by cultural assumptions, rather than having a natural or objective basis. (ex: idea of beauty in one culture)

Front 7

Balinese cockfight

Back 7

used to describe social status; fight of status, pride, and honor

Front 8

Progress

Back 8

the idea that human history is the story of a steady advance from a life depending on the whims of nature to a life of control and domination over natural forces

Front 9

Primitive vs. Civilized

Back 9

problematic terms; deals with ethnocentrism; way of exploitation

Front 10

Scientific racism

Back 10

use of scientific investigation to find differences in race

Front 11

Survival of the fittest

Back 11

natural selection; preservation of favored races in the struggle for life

Front 12

Social evolutionism

Back 12

Social evolutionism – (Lewis Henry Morgan) (Savagery, barbarism, civilization) how an anthropologist described the progress of cultures

Front 13

Rite of Passage

Back 13

acceptance into culture; a boy becoming a man, wedding, graduation; three phases (separation, liminal, integrated)

Front 14

Tacit Culture

Back 14

internalized cultural knowledge

Front 15

Ethnography

Back 15

process of discovering or describing a culture through participant observation

Front 16

Participant Observation

Back 16

active participation in observing subjects

Front 17

Objectivity

Back 17

studying a culture without preconceived notions

Front 18

Ethnocentrism

Back 18

believing your culture is the greatest

Front 19

Cultural relativism

Back 19

the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture; no one can judge any culture

Front 20

Metaphor

Back 20

term taken from one domain and put into another (ex: war on cancer)

Front 21

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Back 21

differences in the way languages encode cultural and cognitive categories affect the way people think, so that speakers of different languages think and behave differently because of it (ex: no word in future tense so people cannot understand it)

Front 22

Sociolinguistics

Back 22

link between grammar and culture

Front 23

Colonialism

Back 23

one country establishes rule over another; increase trade; European exploitation

Front 24

Other/Othering

Back 24

giving negative values to others; way of excluding people

Front 25

Gender Identity

Back 25

Socially constructed gender characteristics given to men and women

Front 26

Nuclear Family

Back 26

Family group with mother and father and children

Front 27

Kinship

Back 27

The recognized ties of relationship by descent, marriage, or ritual that form the basis of social organization

Front 28

Polyandry

Back 28

marriage where woman can have more than one husband (Brothers in Tibet)

Front 29

Patrilineal

Back 29

lineage through father

Front 30

Matrilineal

Back 30

lineage through mother

Front 31

Race as a myth

Back 31

hypo descent; folk taxonomy (different features for different people ex: latinos); The concept of race was created by people

Front 32

Hijab Symbolism

Back 32

Men’s power; wealth; restriction (don’t touch woman); guard woman’s honor