Culture And The Human Condition,

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culture

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behavior and ideas that humans acquire as members of society. Humans use
culture to adapt to and transform the world in which we live.

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symbol

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Something that stands for something else.

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dualism

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The philosophical view that reality consists of two equal and irreducible forces.

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idealism

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The philosophical view (dating back at least as far as Plato in Western thought) that ideas—or
the mind that produces such ideas—constitute the essence of human nature.

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materialism

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The philosophical view that the material activities of our physical bodies in the material
world constitute the essence of human nature.

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determinism

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The philosophical view that one simple force (or a few simple forces) causes (or
determines) complex events.

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essence

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an unchanging core of features that is unique to things of the same kind and that makes them
what they are.holism perspective on the human condition that assumes that mind and body, individuals and society,
and individuals and the environment interpenetrate and even define one another.

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holism

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perspective on the human condition that assumes that mind and body, individuals and society,
and individuals and the environment interpenetrate and even define one another.coevolution The dialectical relationship between biological processes and symbolic cultural processes, in
which each makes up an important part of the environment to which the other must adapt.

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coevolution

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The dialectical relationship between biological processes and symbolic cultural processes, in
which each makes up an important part of the environment to which the other must adapt

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ethnocentrism

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The opinion that one’s own way of life is natural or correct and, indeed, is the only true
way of being fully human.

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cultural relativism

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Understanding another culture in its own terms sympathetically enough so that the
culture appears to be a coherent and meaningful design for living.

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human agency

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human agency the exercise of at least some control over their lives by human beings.

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fieldwork

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An extended period of close involvement with the people in whose language or way of life an
anthropologist is interested, during which anthropologists ordinarily collect most of their data.

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participant-observation

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The method anthropologists use to gather information by living as closely as
possible to the people whose culture they are studying while participating in their lives as much as
possible.

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positivism

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The view that there is a reality “out there” that can be known through the senses and that there
is a single, appropriate set of scientific methods for investigating that reality.

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objective knowledge

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Knowledge about reality that is absolute and true.

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informants

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People in a particular culture who work with anthropologists and provide them with insights
about their way of life. Also called teachers or friends.

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intersubjective meanings

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The shared, public symbolic systems of a culture.

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reflexivity

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Critically thinking about the way one thinks; reflecting on one’s own experience.

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dialectic of fieldwork

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The process of building a bridge of understanding between anthropologist and
informants so that each can begin to understand the other.

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multi-sited ethnography

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Ethnographic research on cultural processes that are not contained by social,
ethnic, religious or national boundaries, in which the ethnographer follows the process from site to
site, often doing fieldwork in sites and with persons that traditionally were never subject to
ethnographic analysis

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culture shock

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The feeling, akin to panic, that develops in people living in an unfamiliar society when
they cannot understand what is happening around them.

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fact

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A widely accepted observation, a taken-for-granted item of common knowledge. Facts do not speak
for themselves, but only when they are interpreted and placed in a context of meaning that makes
them intelligible

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language

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The system of arbitrary vocal symbols we use to encode our experience of the world.

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linguistics

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The scientific study of language.

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design features

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Those characteristics of language that, when taken together, differentiate it from other
known animal communication systems.

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linguistic competence

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A term coined by linguist Noam Chomsky to refer to the mastery of adult
grammar.

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communicative competence

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A term coined by anthropological linguist Dell Hymes to refer to the
mastery of adult rules for socially and culturally appropriate speech.

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linguistic relativity

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A position, associated with Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf, that asserts that
language has the power to shape the way people see the world

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grammar

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A set of rules that aim to describe fully the patterns of linguistic usage observed by members of
a particular speech community.

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phonology

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The study of the sounds of language.

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morphology

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In linguistics, the study of the minimal units of meaning in a language.

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syntax

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The study of sentence structure.

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semantics

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The study of meaning.

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metaphor

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A form of thought and language that asserts a meaning-ful link between two expressions from
different semantic domains.

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pragmatics

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The study of language in the context of its use.

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discourse

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a stretch of speech longer than a sentence united by a common theme

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ethnopragmatics

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A study of language use that relies on ethnography to illuminate the ways in which
speech is both constituted by and constitutive of social interaction.

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pidgin

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A language with no native speakers that develops in a single generation between members of
communities that possess distinct native languages.

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perception

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The processes by which people organize and experience information that is primarily of
sensory origin.

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schemas

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Patterned, repetitive experiences.

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prototypes

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Examples of a typical instance, element, relation, or experience within a culturally relevant
semantic domain.

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elementary cognitive processes

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The ability to make abstractions, reason inferentially, categorize, and
perform other mental tasks common to all normal humans.

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functional cognitive systems

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Culturally linked sets of cognitive processes that guide perception,
conception, reason, and emotion.

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cognitive style

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Recurring patterns of cognitive activity that characterize an individual’s perceptual and
intellectual activities.

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global style

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A way of viewing the world that is holistic. People who use such a style first see a bundle of
relationships and only later see the bits and pieces that are related. They are said to be field
dependent.

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articulated style

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A way of viewing the world that breaks it up into smaller and smaller pieces, which can
then be organized into larger chunks. People who use such a style consider whatever they happen to
be paying attention to apart from its context. They are said to be field independent.

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cognition

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(1) The mental process by which human beings gain knowledge; (2) the nexus of relations
between the mind at work and the world in which it works.

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thinking

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An active cognitive process that involves going beyond the information given.

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syllogistic reasoning

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A form of reasoning based on the syllogism, a series of three statements in which
the first two statements are the premises and the last is the conclusion, which must follow from the
premises.

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reasoning styles

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How we understand a cognitive task, how we encode the information presented to us,
and what transformations the information undergoes as we think. Reasoning styles differ from culture
to culture and from context to context within the same culture.

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logic

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A symbolic system used to represent objects and relationships between objects in the world.

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emotion

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The product of a dialectic between bodily arousal and cognitive interpretation, emotion
comprises states, values, and arousals.

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socialization

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The process by which human beings as material organisms, living together with other
similar organisms, cope with the behavioral rules established by their respective societies.

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enculturation

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The process by which human beings living with one another must learn to come to terms
with the ways of thinking and feeling that are considered appropriate in their respective cultures.

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self

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The result of the process of socialization/enculturation for an individual.

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personality

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the relative integration of an individual’s perceptions, motives, cognitions, and behavior
within a sociocultural matrix

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subjectivity

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“the felt interior experience of the person that includes his or her positions in a field of
relational power”

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structural violence

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violence that results from the way that political and economic forces structure risk for
various forms of suffering within a population

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trauma

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“events in life generated by forces and agents external to the person and largely external to his or
her control; specifically, events generated in the setting of armed conflict and war,”

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play

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A framing (or orienting context) that is (1) consciously adopted by the players, (2) somehow
pleasurable, and (3) systemically related to what is nonplay by alluding to the nonplay world and by
transforming the objects, roles, actions, and relations of ends and means characteristic of the nonplay
world.

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metacommunication

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Communicating about the process of communication itself.

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framing

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A cognitive boundary that marks certain behaviors as “play” or as “ordinary life.”

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reflexivity

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Critically thinking about the way one thinks; reflecting on one’s own experience.

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sport

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A physically exertive activity that is aggressively competitive within constraints imposed by
definitions and rules. Sport is a component of culture that is ritually patterned, gamelike, and consists
of varying amounts of play, work, and leisure.

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art

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Play with form producing some aesthetically successful transformation-representation.

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transformation-representation

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The process in which experience is transformed as it is represented
symbolically in a different medium

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myths

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Stories whose truth seems self-evident because they do such a good job of integrating our personal
experiences with a wider set of assumptions about the way society, or the world in general, must
operate.

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orthodoxy

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“Correct doctrine”; the prohibition of deviation from approved mythic texts.

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ritual

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A repetitive social practice composed of a sequence of symbolic activities in the form of dance,
song, speech, gestures, or the manipulation of objects, adhering to a culturally defined ritual schema,
and closely connected to a specific set of ideas that are often encoded in myth.

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rite of passage

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A ritual that serves to mark the movement and transformation of an individual from one
social position to another

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liminality

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The ambiguous transitional state in a rite of passage in which the person or persons undergoing
the ritual are outside their ordinary social positions.