Anthropology Final Exam

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Cultural Evolution

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Change over time in learned beliefs and behaviors that shape human development and social life. Many anthropologists believe that cultural evolution ought to continue as a focus of anthropological research.

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Institution

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Complex, variable, and enduring forms of cultural practices that organize social life; anthropologists present evidence to show that different societies use different principles to organize economic life, and the job of anthropologists is arguably to describe and explain these cultural variations.

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Power

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Transformative capacity; the ability to transform a given situation; if this choice affects an entire social group, it is called social power.

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Types of Social Power

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There are three modes of social power: Interpersonal power (involves the ability of one individual to impose his or her will on another individual), organizational power (shows how individuals or social units can limit the action of others in particular social settings), and structural power (organizes social settings themselves and controls the allocation of social labor)

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Ideology

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A worldview that justifies the social arrangements under which people live; Karl Marx argued that rulers consolidate their power by successfully persuading their subjects to accept an ideology that portrays domination by the ruling class as legitimate; dominated groups who accept the ruling class ideology were said to suffer from false consciousness.

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Types of Political Power

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Coercion, coercive domination, persuasion, and hegemony

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Coercion

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Power as a physical force. Often includes weapons, fighting, and war in societies with states. In stateless societies, coercion is often found in the form of witchcraft, oracles, and magic.

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Coercive Domination

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Expensive and unstable; Antonio Gramsci said that hegemony works more effectively than dominating one group without that group actually believing the rulers should be in the position to rule (thus having to resort to violence).

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Persuasion

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Scaffolded by particular social institutions and practices, the belief system continues to appear natural and rational to members of the society; this is why ordinary, rational people support it. When witchcraft is combated with remedies, reinforcing the concept of witchcraft.

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Hegemony

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Rulers persuade the dominated to accept their rule as legitimate, both by providing some genuine material benefits to their subjects and by using schools and other cultural institutions to disseminate an ideology justifying their rule. The persuasion of subordinates to accept the ideology of the dominant group by mutual accommodations that nevertheless preserve the rulers' privileged position

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Governmentality

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The art of governing appropriately to promote the welfare of populations within a state. Foucault called this governmentality. Requires rulers to use statistics to identify a series of possible nad probable events, calculate their cost, and prescribe a form of intervention that would render such events tolerable such that they would not undermine the security of the state. For example, such interventions might include forms of insurance to protect economic activities in the event that a catastrophic event threatened to destroy them. Includes censuses.

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Power in Non-State Societies

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Power exists in many forms, even in non-state societies. Power can be found in social systems such as class and castes. In the class system, the higher ranked groups have more access to wealth while lower ranked groups have limited access to wealth and resources. However, history has proven that the lower classes can overthrow the elite class (French Revolution) in hopes of achieving equality. In the caste system, social stratification is ascribed and endogamous. You cannot achieve a higher status, or power. You cannot even marry into power.

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Mode of Production

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Each way that different human groups carry out production. Eric Wolfe defined a mode of production as a specific, historically occurring set of social relations through which labor is deployed to wrest energy from nature by means of tools, skills, organization, and knowledge. Three Modes of Production that have been important in human history are kin ordered mode (social labor is deployed on the basis of kinship relations), tributary mode (the primary producer is allowed access to the means of production while tribute is exacted from him by political or military means), and the capitalist mode (the means of production are private property owned by members of the capitalist class, workers must sell their labor power to the capitalists in order to survive, and surpluses of wealth are produced that capitalists may retain as profit or reinvest in production, to increase output and generate further surpluses and higher profits).

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Means of Production

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Tools, skills, organization, and knowledge used to extract energy from nature.

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Types of Capital

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Economic capital is used to participate in a market, and include cash and assets. Social capital are resources based on relationships, networks of influence, and kinship. Cultural/human capital are forms of knowledge, skills, education, and advantages that a person has which give them a higher status in society.

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Principles of Exchange

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Markets, and Reciprocity

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Markets

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Invented in capitalist society, is the most recent mode of exchange. The exchange of goods (trade) calculated in terms of a multipurpose medium of exchange and standard of value (money) and carried out by means of a supply-demand-price mechanism (the market).

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Reciprocity

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The most ancient mode of exchange and often found in egalitarian societies. Three kinds of reciprocity: generalized reciprocity (when those who exchange do so without expecting an immediate return and without specifying the value of the return- parent/child), balanced reciprocity (when those who exchange expect a return of equal value within a specified time limit- Christmas presents), negative reciprocity (exchange of goods and services in which at least one party attempts to get something for nothing without suffering any penalties- haggling or seizure).

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Maximization

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To make the most profitable use of resources.

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Classic Economic Theory

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Karl Marx named this theory. Proposes a difference between market and natural prices. Has three givens: the level of outputs, technology, and wages.

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Kinship

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Social relationships that are prototypically derived from the universal human experiences of mating, birth, and nurturance. Based on, but not limited to, biology. It is a cultural interpretation of the culturally recognized "facts" of human reproduction.

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Nuclear vs. Extended Family

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Nuclear families are made up of two generations: the parents and their unmarried children; monogamous families; sometimes jealousy, competition, controversy, and affection develop between the series of evolving relationships found in nuclear families (sibling rivalry). Extended families are made up of three generations living together: parents, married children, and grandchildren.

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Bilateral (Cognatic) Descent

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The descent group isf ormed by people who believe they are just as closely related to their father's side of the family as their mother's. Bilateral kindred is the most common kind of bilateral descent. This group includes all the people linked to an individual through kin of both sexes on the mother's and the father's sides of the family. Referred to as "Ego" in terminology of kinship studies. Each member also has his or her own separate kindred. Forms broad overlapping networks of people who are somehow related to one another.

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Unilineal Descent

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Based on the assumption that a person's most significant kin relationships come either through one's mother or through one's father.

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Matrilineal

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Lineages traced through a mother. A man's children are not in his lineage. Brothers often marry out of the lineage and live with the family of their wives.

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Patrilineal

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Lineages that are made up of links traced through a father. Most common form of lineage organization. Female members usually leave the lineage when they marry. A woman's children are not in her lineage.

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Ambilineal

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System containing matrilineal and patrilineal aspects. Sometimes a person belonging to an ambilineal system may choose whether they want to link to their mother's lineage or to their father's lineage. Jewish people often follow this rule.

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Lineage vs. Clans

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Lineage membership is transmitted in a direct line from father or mother to child. Lineages endure at least as long as people can remember from whom they are descended. Most lineages have a depth of about five generations: grandparents, parents, Ego (yourself), children, and grandchildren. Clans are made up of lineages that the society's members believe to be related to each other through links that go back into mythic times. The common ancestor of each clan is often said to be an animal that lived at the beginning of time. Lineage members can specify all the generational links back to their common ancestor, whereas clan members ordinarily cannot. Clans are larger than lineages.

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Kinship Terms

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Generation, Gender, Affinity, Collaterality, Gender of linking relative, Bifurcate merging, Relative age

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Generation

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A way to distinguish between relatives and their ages. Cousins are generally in the same generation.

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Gender

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A way to distinguish between relatives who are male or female. Aunt distinguishes between gender and generation.

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Affinity

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Distinction made on the basis of connection through marriage. (Mother in law)

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Collaterality

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Distinction made between kin who are believed to be in a direct line and those who are "off to one side," and linked through a lineal relative, such as mother and aunt or father and uncle.

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Gender of linking relative

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Distinguishes cross relatives (such as cousins) from parallel relatives (also usually cousins). Parallel relatives are linked through two brothers or two sisters. Cross relatives are linked through a brother-sister pair. The important factor is the gender of the linking relative.

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Bifurcate merging

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Distinction employed when kinship terms referring to the mother's side of the family differ from those referring to the father's side.

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Relative age

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Relatives of the same category may be distinguished on the basis of whether they are older or younger

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Adoption

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Practices that allow people to transform relationships based on nurturance into relations of kinship. Biological versus social father (genitor/pater). Ascribed statuses are ones you are born with, and achieved statuses are those you gain throughout your life. You can achieve different statuses throguh adoption into kinship, such as gaining the title "daughter in law" when a father's son marries.

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Characteristics of Marriage

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Transforms status of participants, stipulates sexual access between partners, perpetuates rights and obligations to children, creates kin relationships, and is symbolically marked.

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Types of Marriage

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Male/female, homosexual, woman marriage to retain property or if husband dies and she doesn't want to be alone, ghost marriage if first son dies and second son can't marry before the first. Serial polygamy, polgyny, polyandry, monogamy.

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Residence patterns and household organization

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Matrilocal keeps women together. Patrilocal is near or with the parents of the husband (virilocal is when the wife moves into the man's family's house. Brothers stay together.) Neolocal is when you create your own new home in a new place and kinship is ambilineal.

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Incest

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Biological universal; degree of exclusion varies by culture (marrying cousins); ritualized incest; taboo.

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Endogamy vs. Exogamy

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Endogamy is marrying within kin group (within caste). Exogamy is marrying outside of your kin group (marrying anybody except kin).

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Polygamy

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Polygyny is one husband and multiple wives. Polyandry is one wife and multiple husbands (sometimes brothers) often so that land stays intact. Serial polygamy is divorce and remarriage.

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Bridewealth/dowry/groom price

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Bridewealth is the compensation for bride's family for the loss of her labor and offspring. Dowry is the transfer of wealth from parents to their daughter. Groom price compensates groom's family for loss of his labor and offspring.

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Sex vs. Gender

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Sex refers to the observable physical characteristics that distinguish the two kinds of human beings, females and males, needed for reproduction. Differences in morphological sex (different appearances in males and females), gonadal sex (ovaries or testes), and chromosomal sex (XX in females and XY in males). Sexual dimorphism states that body size and hormonal production differs between sexes. Gender is the cultural construction of beliefs and behaviors considered appropriate for each sex.

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Gender identity characteristics

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Ways a person shows what gender they identify with; the way one dresses, talks, acts, preferred sexual partners, preferred gender roles, etc.

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Gender Variation

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3rd and variant categories, labor patterns and division, symbolism, stratification/subjugation, and manipulation

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3rd and variant categories

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Turner's syndrome (1 X but manifests as female); XXX (female has learning disabilities and menstral problems); XY (androgen insensitivity, manifests female but are male); XXY (Klinefelter's syndrome, male); XYY (male, aggressive).

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Labor patterns and division

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Due to sexual dimorphism, men are typically given jobs/careers that require more strength, and women are expected to do more house work

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Symbolism

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Categorization of persons, artifacts, event sequences, that draw on sexual imagery. Female subordination- not inevitable

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Stratification/subjugation

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Sexual dimorphism (body size and hormonal production differences between sexes) which creates gender roles and thus stratification (especially in jobs that are stereotypically for women or men)

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Manipulation

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Rosie the Riviter (showing how women can take on men's gender roles). Politics and women's roles in US.

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Identity categories

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Ascribed identity is something you are born into, such as a caste. Achieved identity is something you gain throughout life, however it is limited by one's ascribed identity. Identity construction is when you are told what identity you are (castes use vote locks, saying certain castes vote for certain parties).

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Fluidity of identity

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There are multiple categories of identity, and some identities can change throughout one's life.

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Segmentary opposition

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A mode of hierarchical social organization in which groups beyond the most basic emerge only in opposition to other groups on the same hierarchical level.

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Style shifting

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Context specific; alternating between different styles of speech

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Identity explanations

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Essentialist, Instrumentalist, Constructivist

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Essentialist

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Emic; inherited, static, and biological

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Instrumentalist

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Etic; hold over from pre-industrial times; power holders invest in entities to manipulate groups

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Constructivist

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Etic; segmentary opposition (democrats have nothing in common with republicans); identity is fluid and exists only in opposition to another group; political in nature; identity as a process; historically contingent; socially constructed (exact opposite of essentialist)

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Sources of inequality

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Rank, class, race, ethnicity- and people's perspective of these differences. Education/opportunities. Hegemony. Ascribed status. Etc.

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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. Much takes the form of infectious and parasitic disease. Can also include hunger, torture, and rape. Victims are often blamed for their own distress (from a Western outside perspective).

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Racism

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The systematic oppression of one or more socially defined "races" by another socially defined "race" that is justified in terms of the supposedly inherent biological superiority of the rulers and the supposed inherent biological inferiority of those they rule.

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Nationalism

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Also called nation building. The attempt made by government officials to instill into the citizens of a state a sense of nationality (a sense of identification with and loyalty to the nation-state). Ruling groups can go too far in attempts to achieve nationalism- Nazis after WWII in attempts to liquidate the Jews

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Transformist hegemony

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A nationalist program to define nationality in a way that preserves the cultural domination of the ruling group while including enough cultural features from subordinated groups to ensure their loyalty. The hope that if at least some aspects of their ways of life are acknowledged as essential to national identity subordinated groups will identify with and be loyal to the nation.

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World System Theory

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Identifiable social system, based on wealth and power differentials, extending beyond individual states and nations. Consists of the core, semi-periphery, and periphery.

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Core, semi-periphery, periphery

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Core is powerful politically and economically, they monopolize finance, and emphasize technology. Semi-periphery is mostly industrialized, they primarily export, they lack the power of the core, and they are ambiguous. The periphery is poor, they have little political power, and have less mechnization

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Colonialism

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Political, social, economic, and cultural domination of territory and people

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Imperialism

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Extending rule and holding colonies

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Globalization

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Undermines the nation-state. Reterritorialization (harder to police state boundaries) and less assimilation than there used to be (you don't have to even learn the language where you move, you are accommodated for; easy to return home). Hard to limit information flows. Governments are losing a certain degree of control. Can lead to instability and chaos.

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Chilika

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River/water bank in India. Originally only poor castes lived and fished here. Then upper level castes, the government, and the mafia came and started doing aquaculture there. Their methods started hurting the water system, and made silt fill the water. This made it more difficult to fish. The government wouldn't listen to the poor people and help them get their rivers back

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Effects of colonialism/imperialism

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Contribute to the loss of cultural diversity. Shape our current race and ethnic relations. Have created modern power differentials. Have shaped the world as we know it (relationships between countries, societies, and peoples; inequality between core, semi-periphery, and periphery, etc)

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Phases of colonialism

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Savagery to barbarism to civilization

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Settled vs. Extractive colonies

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Majority of colonies are extractive (use them for their natural resources or agricultural commodities). Settled colonies are when one country settles a colony elsewhere just for the territory and people

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Justifications for colonialism

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Ideological, outsiders must "guide" native peoples in specified directions, progressual social evolution

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Colonial legacies

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Identity (invention of countries and social groups, such as southern/eastern African "tribes") and healthcare (few native doctors, Mozambique)

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Neoliberalism/neocolonialism

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Continuous indirect domination of poor countries by wealthy ones

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Consumption

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Mass production of the 20th century gave rise to mass consumption

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Ecological footprint

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Measure of a human's demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It compares human demand with the planet's ecological capacity to regenerate. Currently, humanity uses the Earth's resources 1.4 times as fast as the Earth can regenerate. This means we are using resources faster than the Earth can regenerate them.

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Globals, mobals, locals

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Globals are the richest and have the least amount of limits; mobals migrate, wither legally or illegally, in order to gain more opportunities for their families and themselves; locals are those who are the poorest, least mobile, and most susceptible to the impress of place

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Medical anthropology

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Both academic (theoretical) and applied (practical); study of disease and illness in their sociocultural context

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Conservation anthropology

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Use of anthropological theories, methods, and data to identify, assess, and solve contemporary environmental problems

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Problems to avoid in development and conservation projects

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Conflicts of interest between the conservationists and the local people. Who owns the land? Do the locals want help conserving? Problems can be avoided with projects: should be culturally compatible, rely on traditional organization, with full support of local communities, involvement from men and women, and respond to local needs.

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Definitions of health/disease and illness

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Disease is a scientifically defined ailment; illness is an ailment experienced and perceived by the sufferer. Illness has 3 theories: personalistic disease theory blames illness on agents such as sorcerers, witches, ghosts, or ancestral spirits. Naturalistic disease theories explain illness in impersonal terms (germs, bacteria). Emotionalistic disease theories assume emotional experiences cause illness.

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The Ax Fight

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initial thought was 2 women were in garden, 1 was seduced by son, then a club fight led to an ax fight. The actual situation was: old villagers returned, wouldn't work, demanded food, hit a woman for not giving them food, she ran into the village screaming and crying, this led to a club fight, and eventually led to an ax fight. The visitors left several days after the fight. They weren't actually trying to kill each other, so they hit each other with the blunt side of their axes.

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Inequality (class, caste, race)

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"Race" isa social category that divides people arbitrarily and has been used to justify discrimination, exploitation, and genocide ("they" are always inferior to "us"). Classes have differences in prestige and economic resources. There is a possibility of moving from one class to another. The caste system is a hierarchical system of social stratification that is ascribed- it leads to differences in economic status as well.