Cultural Anthropology Ch 01

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anthropology

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

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holistic

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trying to fit together all that is known about human beings

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comparative

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using the similarities and differences in as wide a range of human societies as possible before generalizing about what it means to be human

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evolutionary

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studying all human beings in all places and at all times

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biological anthropology

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the subfield of anthropology that looks at human beings as biological organisms (examines similarities/differences with other living organisms)

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primatologists

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those who study nonhuman primates (chimpanzees and gorillas)

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paleoanthropologists

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those who study fossilized bones and teeth of the earliest human ancestors

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forensic anthropologists

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use knowledge of human anatomy to aid law-enforcement/human rights investigators by assisting in the identifications of skeletal material found at crime or accident sites/sites of possible human rights violations

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medical anthropology

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the study of the factors taht contribute to human disase or illness as well as the ways in which human groups respond to them

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cultural anthropology

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investigates how variation in the beliefs and behaviors of members of different human groups is shaped

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culture

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sets of learned behaviors adn ideas human beings acquire as members of society

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fieldwork

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a personal, long-term experience with a specific group fo people and their way of life

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informants

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people who share information abotu their way of life with anthropologists

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participant-observation

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taking part as much as possible in a group's social activities in addition to observing those activities as outsiders

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monograph

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a book written about a single culture or way of life

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ethnography

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an ethnographic monograph (ethnos = people and graph = write)

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ethnology

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the comparative study of two or more ways of life

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anthropological linguistic/linguistic anthropology

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the branch of anthropology concerned with the study of human languages

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language

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the system of arbitrary vocal symbols we use to encode our experience of the world and of one another

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archaeology

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involves the analysis of the material remains of earlier human societies

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prehistory

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the long stretch of time before the development of writing

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applied anthropology

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the use of anthropology to address problems in the contemporary world

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development anthropology

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the aim to improve people's capacities to maintain their health, produce their food, and adapt to the challenges of life in the contemporary world

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objective knowledge

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undistorted and universally valid knowledge about the world

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positivism

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the application of scientific methods in any area of interest, with the idea that these would produce a genuine "Science of Man"

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modernism

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liberation from outdated traditions that prevent people from building better lives for themselves and their children

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postmodernism

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an active questioning of all the boundaries and categories that modernists set up as objectively true (Western-style "progress" has meant the loss of political autonomy, an increase in economic impoverishment and environmental degradation, and destruction of systems of social relations and values that clash with the "modern" way of life

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reflexive

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when one examines both their own contribution to fieldwork interactions and the responses these interactions elicited from informants

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multisited fieldwork

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to follow people, or objects, or cultural processes that re not contained by social, national, ethnic, or religious boundaries