Cultural Anthropology Chapters 1, 2, And 3

Front 1

Anthropology

Back 1

The study of human beings, their biology, their pre-histories and histories, and their changing languages, cultures, and social institutions

Front 2

Industrialization

Back 2

Economic process of shifting from an agricultural economy to a factory based one

Front 3

Evolution

Back 3

The adaptive changes organisms make across generations

Front 4

Charles Darwin

Back 4

Created theory of natural selection and argued life exists under complex, changing conditions and those individuals having inherited traits best suited to a particular environment will survive and reproduce

Front 5

Emperical

Back 5

Verifiable through observation rather than through logic or theory

Front 6

Colonialism

Back 6

Historical practice of more powerful countries claiming possession of less powerful ones

Front 7

Salvage paradigm

Back 7

To observe indigenous ways of life before knowledge of traditional languages and customs were presumed to disappear

Front 8

Cultural anthropology

Back 8

the study of social lives of living communities

Front 9

Archeology

Back 9

Studies past cultures, by excavating sites where people lived

Front 10

Historical archeology

Back 10

Excavate sites where written historical documentations about the sites also exists

Front 11

Biological anthropology

Back 11

Focuses on the physical aspects of the human species, past and present, along with those of our closest relatives, the non-human primates

Front 12

Linguistic anthropology

Back 12

Looks at how people communicate through language and how languages use and shapes group membership and identity

Front 13

Culture (with linguistic anthropology)

Back 13

Referring to ideas about the world and ways of interacting in society or in the environment in predictable or unexpected ways

Front 14

Ethnocentrism

Back 14

The assumption that one's own way of doing things is correct while dismissing other people's practices or views as wrong or ignorant

Front 15

Cultural relativism

Back 15

The moral and intellectual principle that one should withhold judgement about seemingly strange or exotic beliefs and practices. This avoids ethnocentrism

Front 16

E.B. Tylor

Back 16

Believed that the social and cultural differences of humanity could be explained as the product of evolutionary forces and stages (social evolutionism).

Primarily concerned with developing an evolutionary sequence that would explain how people evolved from a state of “primitive savagery” to more “advanced levels of civilization

Front 17

Initial definition of culture (by E.B. Tylor)

Back 17

Complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society

Front 18

Diversity

Back 18

The sheer variety of ways of being human around the world

Front 19

Holism

Back 19

Efforts to synthesize distinct approaches and finds into a single comprehensive interpretation

Front 20

Scientific method

Back 20

The standard methodology of science that beings from observable facts, generates hypotheses from these facts, and then tests these hypotheses

Front 21

Theory

Back 21

A tested and repeatedly supported hypothesis

Front 22

Quantitative method

Back 22

Methodology that classifies features of a phenomenon, counting or measuring them, and constructing mathematical and statistical models to explain what is observed

Front 23

Qualitative method

Back 23

Research strategy producing in depth and detailed descriptions of social actives and beliefs

Front 24

Ethnographic method

Back 24

Prolonged and intensive observations of and participation in the life of a community

Front 25

Comparative method

Back 25

Research method that derives insights from careful comparison of aspects of two or more cultures

Front 26

Applied Anthropology

Back 26

Anthropological research commissioned to serve an organization's needs

Front 27

Practicing Anthropology

Back 27

Anthropological work including research, design, implementation and management of some organizations, process or product

Front 28

Ethics

Back 28

Moral questions about right and wrong and standards of appropriate behaviors

Front 29

Culture

Back 29

(no single definition)

Acquired, complex whole, stable, learned, dynamic, integrated with daily experiences, shared by groups of people and passed along from generation to generation

Front 30

Social evolutionism (theory of culture)

Back 30

All societies pass through stages, from primitive state to complex civilization. Cultural differences are the result of different evolutionary stages. (E.B. Tylor)

Front 31

Historical particularism (theory of culture)

Back 31

Individual societies develop particular cultural traits and undergo unique processes of change. Culture traits diffuse from one culture to another. (Franz Boas)

Front 32

Functionalism (theory of culture)

Back 32

Cultural practices, beliefs, and institutions fulfill psychological and social needs. (Bronislaw Malinowski)

Front 33

Structural Functionalism (theory of culture)

Back 33

Culture is systematic,its pieces working together in a balanced fashion to keep the whole society functioning smoothly. (A.R. Radcliffe-Brown)

Front 34

Structuralism (theory of culture)

Back 34

People make sense of the world through binary oppositions. These binaries are expressed in social institutions and cultural practices like kinship, myth, and language. (Claude Levi-Strauss)

Front 35

Interpretive Anthropology (theory of culture)

Back 35

Culture is a shared system of meaning. People make sense of their worlds through the use of symbols and symbolic activities like myth and ritual. (Clifford Geertz)

Front 36

Enculturation

Back 36

Th process of learning the social rules and cultural logic of a society

Front 37

Clifford Geertz

Back 37

Created interpretive theory of culture

Front 38

Symbols

Back 38

Something (an object, idea, image, figure, or character) that represents something else

Front 39

Cross cultural perspective

Back 39

Analyzing human social phenomenon by comparing the phenomenon in different cultures

Front 40

Cultural construction

Back 40

The meanings, concepts, and practices that people build out of their shared and collective experiences

Front 41

Claude Levi Strauss

Back 41

Postulated that all humans think in the same way based on the biology of the brain and structure of the mind. This brought metaphor as an universal logical principle.

Supported idea of structuralism.

Front 42

Metaphor

Back 42

Establishes that one thing can be associated with another thing because the two share some similarity

Front 43

Egocentrism

Back 43

Having the self or the individual as the center of all things and having little to no regard for interests, beliefs, or attitudes other than one's own

Front 44

Relativism

Back 44

Interpret and make sense of another culture in terms of other culture's perspective

Front 45

Critical relativism

Back 45

Taking stance on a practice or belief only after trying to understand it in its cultural and historical context

Front 46

Cultural determinism

Back 46

The idea that all human actions are the product of culture, which denies the influence of other factors like physical environment and human biology on human behavior

Front 47

Franz Boas

Back 47

Came up with cultural relativism. Major figure responsible for establishing anthropology in America. Conducted research in Baffin Islands (Newfoundland). Befriended inuit people and learned that they thought about the world differently. Came up with valuable lesson → to learn about other people’s perspective, one has to try to overcome one’s own cultural framework AKA cultural relativism.

Front 48

Culture (defined in book)

Back 48

Culture consists of the collective process that make the artificial seem natural

Front 49

Values

Back 49

Symbolic expression of intrinsically desirable principles or qualities

Front 50

Norms

Back 50

Typical patterns of actual behavior as well as the unwritten rule about how things should be done in everyday life

Front 51

Social sanctions

Back 51

A reaction or measure intended to enforce norms and punish their violation

Front 52

Customs

Back 52

Long established norms that have a codified and law-like aspect

Front 53

Tradition

Back 53

Practices and customs that have become most ritualized and enduring

Front 54

Social institutions

Back 54

Organized sets of social relationships that link individuals to each other in a structured way in particular society

Front 55

Holistic perspective

Back 55

A perspective that aims to identify and understand the whole - that is, the systematic connections between individual cultural beliefs and practices - rather than the individual parts

Front 56

Cultural appropriation

Back 56

The unilateral decision of one social group to take control over the symbols, practices, or objects of another

Front 57

Nature and nurture

Back 57

A kind of shorthand for biological (nature) and cultural or environmental (nurture) influences

Front 58

Biocultural

Back 58

The complex intersections of biological, psychological, and cultural processes

Front 59

Neurons

Back 59

Brain cells that transmit information through chemical and electrical signals

Front 60

Neural plasticity

Back 60

The moldability and flexibility of brain structure

Front 61

Mind

Back 61

Emergent qualities of consciousness and intellect that manifests themselves through thought, emotion, perception, will, and imagination

Front 62

Cultural models

Back 62

Implicit and typically non-conscious cognitive models shared by a group of people of what is real and natural

Front 63

Personal models

Back 63

Individual's idiosyncratic way of making sense of things

Front 64

Psychological anthropology

Back 64

The subfield of anthropology that studies psychological states and conditions

Front 65

The culture and personality school

Back 65

A school of thought in early and mid twentieth century American anthropology that studied how patterns of child-rearing, social institutions and cultural ideologies shapes individual experience, personality, characteristics, and thought patterns

Front 66

Ruth Benedict

Back 66

American anthropologist of mid twentieth century. Mentored by Franz Boas. Strong advocate of culture and personality school. Argued for the power of culture over biology in explaining how and why individual develop their personalities.

Front 67

Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss

Back 67

Explored cultural concepts of a person.Focused on individuals as a social category and what it revealed about how a society focused on the individual as a social category and what it revealed about how a society works. Were not part of culture and personality school.

Front 68

Person

Back 68

The socially recognized individual

Front 69

Self

Back 69

An individual's conception of his or her fundamental qualities and consciousness

Front 70

Ethnopsychology

Back 70

The study of culturally specific ideas of personhood, self emotion, and other psychological states

Front 71

Emotion

Back 71

The affects and feelings we experience as humans

Front 72

Culture Bound Syndrome

Back 72

A mental illness unique to a culture.

Front 73

Phenotype

Back 73

Visible characteristics of an organism

Front 74

Natural Selection

Back 74

Process through which the natural environment selects those individuals with the most suitable characteristics for that environment to have more successful offspring than other, less well adapted individuals

Front 75

Mutation

Back 75

Seemingly random changes in an organism's genetic code

Front 76

Gene Flow

Back 76

The movement of genes through interbreeding or intermarriage in humans between distinct populations so the two populations become more similar or maintain shared traits

Front 77

Genetic drift

Back 77

Random sampling effects - not natural selection - that bring changes to the distribution of traits within a population

Front 78

Biological determinism

Back 78

The belief that human behaviors and beliefs are primarily, if not solely, the result of biological characteristics and processes

Front 79

Geneticization

Back 79

The use of genetics to explain health and social problems over other possible causes