Cultural Anthropology, Exam 1 Flashcards

Front 1

symbol

Back 1

cultural constructs that often do not have universally recognized meanings

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displacement

Back 2

the ability to use symbols to refer to things and activities that are remote from the user

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symbolic classification

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the attempt to create worlds and webs of meaning; language, age, sex, ethnic and cultural features, health, disability

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culture is...

Back 4

1) learned and shared, 2) integrated, 3) adaptations

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ethnography

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• method entails participant observation and interviews-lived experience and social relationships with those we write about; account of a group of peoples lifeways, patterns, practices, beliefs

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ethnocentrism

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• thinking of your own way of doing things as THE right way; disparaging others’ worldviews and practices because they are simply different from one’s own

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cultural relativism

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understanding worldviews and practices of people from other cultures from within their own way of thinking and acting

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representation

Back 8

the act of placing or stating facts in order to influence or affect the action of others; representations are never natural, but always constructed; when representations of an other are constructed to serve the purposes of the powerful (the one doing the construction), those being represented are oppressed

Front 9

essentialism

Back 9

a generalization stating that certain properties possessed by a group are universal, and not dependent on context

Front 10

othering

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the act of assigning difference to an individual or a group based upon one’s own perspective

Front 11

two key developments toward Ethnological Science in the 19th century

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1) completion of European global imperialism; 2) scientific revolution: the theory of evolution

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cultural evolutionism

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Lewis Henry Morgan: Ancient Society (1877); evolve in linear fashion: savage > barbarism > civilized; based on order of technology; Edward Tylor, James Frazier = "armchair anthropologists"

Front 13

American historicism

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Franz Boas’ approach, which induces rather than deduces; Alfred Kroeber, Ruth Benedict, Edward Sapir, Margaret Mead

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British functionalism

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Bronislaw Malinowski; each cultural practice and institution fulfills a particular function for human survival; focused on the individual; A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, E.E. Evans-Pritchard

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French structuralism

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Claude Levi-Strauss; seeks to understand the deep, subconscious, unobservable structure of human realities that is believed to determine observable behavior; binary oppositions or pairs: the fundamental characteristic of human thought; contrasting pairs of items or concepts; Rodney Needham, Edmund Leach

Front 16

feminist anthropology

Back 16

response to male/paternalistic biases in the field: initially focused on women, gender construction, and gender inequality; increasingly concerned now with power and inequality in general;
• Louise Lamphere
• Michelle Rosaldo
• Sherry Ortner

Front 17

interpretive anthropology

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Clifford Geertz; culture as text and Ethnographer as “intercultural translator”; meaning-centered approach; “human beings are caught in webs of meaning they themselves have created”

Front 18

post-modern anthropology

Back 18

• no grand theory of human behavior possible
• emphasizes collaborations and reflexivity
• all knowledge is contextual
• all knowledge is relative
• an elaboration of Boas’ cultural relativism

Front 19

Marxist/critical anthropology and political economy

Back 19

• the political and economic environment influences individuals, societies, and cultures
• “Marxism” is a way of viewing and studying society
• focuses on “power differentials” and power inequalities between individuals, groups, and societies

Front 20

research methods

Back 20

1) participant observation
2) Emosedato: “One who shows the way”; key informants or consultants
3) longitudinal follow-up
4) interview schedules
5) informal conversation
6) genealogical surveys and kinship rules/patterns
7) life histories and narratives
8) literature and archival research

Front 21

Who is Franz Boas?

Back 21

• factors determining the color of sea water
• Eskimos
• a “cultured” individual is relative
• first distinguished white social scientist in U.S. who minimizes race as a factor in human behavior
• willing to take the position of the non-conformist

Front 22

In what region of the U.S. did Boas primarily work?

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Pacific Northwest, visited the coast of British Columbia

Front 23

With what indigenous group did Boas principally work?

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Eskimos, traditional Kwakiutl culture

Front 24

What was the purpose of repeated trips? What did he accomplish?

Back 24

to make race no longer a determinant in human behavior
• people were unequal and miserable
• many scientists used their science to justify inequality

Front 25

Why did he consider his work so important? What is "salvage ethnography"?

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“salvage ethnography” = trying to gather all the data you can to preserve a society, languages die out

Front 26

What are Anthropology's Four Fields?

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• biological/physical anthropology
• archaeology
• linguistic anthropology
• cultural anthropology

Front 27

What makes anthropology unique?

Back 27

• the integration of the four subdisciplines
• emphasis on culture
• holistic approach
• comparative approach
• evolutionary
• methodologically: the type of fieldwork
• contextual approach

Front 28

How did Boas contribute to our understanding of race?

Back 28

Boas sought to challenge the assumptions behind racial superiority
• one of the first prominent Jews, felt he needed to defend the black population in the U.S. and in the world, wanted to study the people that live in white society, contrary to other anthropologists
• wanted to look at race in a new way, Boas believed that science could help in important ways to solve important social and moral problems
• Boas was a Jew in Germany and suffered anti-Semitism
• new way of looking at race > discredits racial and religious prejudice
• he was not successful until the trying of Hitler in court, his view then became more widely accepted

Front 29

Describe Boas' concern with the presentation of research data to the public.

Back 29

museum anthropology sacrificed science for public appeal, more an entertainer than an educator; for research = okay to have western clothes, for the public = Indians needed to be “authentic,” never get the whole picture of a culture from a few art pieces, they cannot express the life of a culture, ex. World Fair in Chicago
• video = for Boas means to study behavior, Edward Curtis, reconstruct culture for the public, concern for authentic detail, footage with context, his fantasy of what it could have been
• heavy involvement in culture, you would like to portray your view, Boas vs. Curtis

Front 30

Who were some of Boas' students?

Back 30

Edward Sapir, Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict

Front 31

What did he demand from his students and how did he encourage/support them?

Back 31

they probably wouldn’t be able to get jobs as anthropologists, taught his students to preserve knowledge of languages

Front 32

Boas eventually turned away from museum work as the "seat" of anthropology and to the university departmen, a move that forever influenced American anthropology. Why did he make this shift?

Back 32

Boas moved away from museums because he discovered that indigenous artwork couldn’t capture the essence of a culture’s daily life, Columbia University

Front 33

politics

Back 33

is the ability to influence or control the direction and the outcome of social interactions

Front 34

sources of power according to Max Weber

Back 34

1) authority = legitimate power-ascribed and/or achieved
2) persuasion = based on control over valuable social resources
3) coercion = threat or use of force or sanction

Front 35

Two Ways to understand the use of Power in or between Societies:

Back 35

1) ideology
2) hegemony

Front 36

ideology

Back 36

o active or agentive
o identifiable instrument of power
o contestable
o spoken

Front 37

hegemony

Back 37

o elusive
o unrecognized
o uncontestable
o taken for granted
o unspoken

Front 38

Mary Douglas' Ideas

Back 38

o Mary Douglas: emphasized the relationship between symbolic classifications, rituals, and social systems.
• There is a recurring connection between the human body and the body politic: rituals designed to protect the human body from pollution or outside contamination are reflected in those rituals designed to protect the boundaries of society.
o Douglas defined two bodies of experience and the relationship between them: the social body and physical (human) body.
o Society is organized as a system of relations which regulates and constrains the way the human body is perceived, thus regulating and constraining social behavior.
o boundaries are physical and conceptual
o boundaries for the individual body
o boundaries for the societal or social body

Front 39

the body politic

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o the human body is used in a symbolic ways by individuals, by society and by authoritarian structures of society to exert power or to resist power (ex: floor is dirty, we sit in chairs)
o physical behaviors often cannot be separated from social and cultural beliefs and ideas
o enculturation involves physical training of the body as well as the learning of cultural rules, norms, and ideologies
o the human body can be a site of political intervention and control because it is the site of repression, possession, and control
o socially appropriate bodily comportment and behavior equals social control and the maintenance of hierarchy (power structures)

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Why do we Form Corporate Groups?

Back 40

• regulate behavior or establishing rights
• owning property
• producing and distributing wealth
• inheriting property
• consuming and residing
• social and emotional needs of members
• creating a sense of identity
• perpetuating the group
• establishing alliances between Groups

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How do Corporate Groups form?

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1) shared non-kinship based characteristics
2) kinship relations

Front 42

Types of Non-Kin Based Corporate Groups

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• age or generation
• common interest (religion, education, etc.)
• “race”
• ethnicity
• nationality/citizenship
• socio-economic status
• sex or gender

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What is Kinship?

Back 43

• main principles of any kinship system:
o marriage: who may one marry?
o residence: where may one live?
o descent: to whom is one related by birth/blood?

Front 44

the three main functions of marriage

Back 44

biological reproduction, social reproduction, inter-group alliance

Front 45

the incest taboo

Back 45

(Claude-Levi-Strauss, Structuralist)
o exists in all cultures in some variation (a cultural universal)
o however, definitions of who one may or many not marry vary cross-culturally
o defines who is and who is not appropriate to marry or have sexual relations with (often based on blood and descent)

Front 46

endogamy

Back 46

should marry within your own group or kind

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exogamy

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should marry outside your own group

Front 48

three common exchange practices in marriage

Back 48

o bride wealth or bride price
• man make monetary gift to female’s family
o bride service
• man does service for female’s family
o dowry
• woman’s family pays by sending wealth with daughter

Front 49

Economy

Back 49

foraging > pastoralism > horticulture > intensive agriculture > industrialism

Front 50

consanguineal relatives

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people to whom we are related through birth or blood

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affinal relatives

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people to whom we are related through marriage

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fictive or metaphorical kin

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people to whom we extend kinship categories

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lineage

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membership in a group by lineal descent from a real or mythical ancestor

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bilateral descent

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people trace their descent equally through the father and mother’s line

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unilineal descent

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patrilineal and matrilineal

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cross cousins

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children of your father’s/mother’s opposite sex siblings

Front 57

parallel cousins

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children of your father’s /mother’s same-sex siblings

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economy

Back 58

the ideas and practices involved in the production, distribution, and consumption by society of needed goods and services

Front 59

band

Back 59

o small, mobile, fluid
o not the entire society by one local group in a disintegrated society
o egalitarian
o largely a kin group
o most associated with foraging

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tribe

Back 60

o often multiple local groups or communities integrated by overarching social and political institutions

Front 61

chiefdom

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o one or more communities under control of a hierarchy with some coercive power
o power is often hereditary
o may have power to compel labor

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nation-state

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o highest level of political integration achieved so far
o often called a “country” or “nation”
o bounded territory
o central government
o make and enforce laws, manage the economy, maintain an army and fight wars
o associated with intensive agriculture and industrialism

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two forms of social control

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o internalized (through enculturation)
o externalized (through agents of social control)

Front 64

generalized reciprocity

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principle that characterizes exchange between closely associated individuals with little calculation of value

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balanced reciprocity

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some calculation of value and some expectation of equal return

Front 66

negative reciprocity

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value is calculated and expectation of receiving more value than is given

Front 67

redistribution

Back 67

a central person, group, or institution which collects wealth and goods and determines how the wealth is used and circulated in society

Front 68

market exchange

Back 68

specialized place for redistribution. Impersonal, supply and demand, pursuit of profit. Increasingly in today’s world a place both physical and virtual.