Cultural Anthropology Ch. 3

Front 1

Narratives

Back 1

Stories and myths that dramatize actual memories or events in symbolic form consistent with cultural practices of storytelling.

Front 2

Oral Traditions

Back 2

Cultural narratives that have validity as artifacts of culture and experience.

Front 3

Empiricism

Back 3

The practice of conducting studies through direct observation and objective description.

Front 4

Functionalism

Back 4

View that cultural traits have social functions that contribute to the smooth operation of the whole society.

Front 5

Material Perspectives

Back 5

Explanations of cultural differences that emphasize environmental adaption, technologies, and methods of acquiring or producing food.

Front 6

Cultural Ecology

Back 6

Field that studies cultures as dynamic wholes based on the satisfaction of human needs through cultural behaviors.

Front 7

Cultural Materialism

Back 7

Explanations of cultural differences as the results of cultural adaptations through economic production.

Front 8

Emic

Back 8

Subjective, based on insiders' views, as in explanations people have for their own cultural behavior.

Front 9

Etic

Back 9

Objective, based on outsiders views, as in explanations of people's behavior by anthropologists or other observers.

Front 10

Structuralism

Back 10

View that cultural differences can be explained by differences in forms or conceptual categories rather than in meanings.

Front 11

Interpretive Anthropology

Back 11

View that cultural differences can be understood as complex webs of meaning rather than through forms.

Front 12

Conflict Perspectives

Back 12

Understanding cultural differences as a consequence of conflict in the interests and goals of various groups within society and focusing on issues of power and resistance.

Front 13

Fieldwork

Back 13

In anthropology, living and interacting with the people or group under study.

Front 14

Ethnohistory

Back 14

Field of study for reconstructing and interpreting the history of indigenous peoples from their point of view as well as the points of view of ethnohistorians.

Front 15

Cross-cultural Comparisons

Back 15

Means of understanding cultural differences and similarities through data analysis rather than direct observation.

Front 16

Culture Shock

Back 16

The feeling an anthropologist may have at the start of fieldwork of being out of place in unfamiliar surroundings.

Front 17

Urban Anthropology

Back 17

Field that focuses on studying the lives of people living in cities or urban neighborhoods.

Front 18

Reflexive Anthropology

Back 18

The anthropology of anthropology, which focuses on the labels that anthropologists use, the impacts of anthropologists on the people they study, and prfessional ethics.

Front 19

Polyphony

Back 19

The many voices of people from all the different segments and groups that make up a society; a quality of ethnographic writing today that presents multiple views of a culture.