Anthropology 201 Final; Iowa State University

Culture

Knowledge that people acquire through socialization

Shared Culture

You can't have a culture of one person; must be shared among a group of people

Variable Culture

Not homogeneous
There are always differences in every culture
Culture is shared, but not shared equally; cross cut by gender, age, etc.

Learned Culture

Cultural knowledge is not passed through genes
Culture is a product of someone being socialized
Emerges from little interactions

Dynamic Culture

Changes through time
All cultures are always changing

Symbolic culture

Hand gestures

Practiced Culture

Culture is something people do, not something people think
Physical interactions; engaging with people on a daily basis

Culture is...

Symbolic, practiced, dialectic, power, and inequality

Dialetic

One thing is defined by its interactions with another

Antonio Gramsci

Culture is everything people take for granted; the way people assume the world should be; people are socialized to believe these things are true

Common Sense

Internalization of cultural myths

Roland Barthes

Concept-independent truth of falsity; comes to be a widely shared assumption in a given culture

Ethnography

Long-term
Intensive
Face-to-face research
Participant observation

Relativism

No culture is superior; all cultures are equally complex

Ethnocentrism

Using your own culture as the yardstick for measuring all others; it is ethnic superiority

Ethnography helps us to understand...

How social phenomena emerge from everyday practice

AAA Ethics Statement

Whatever you do as an anthropologist, you need to make sure that no harm comes to those you're studying

Transnationalism

Any processes (people, ideas, etc.) that cross boundaries and connect all sorts of people

Alterity

Otherness

Fredrik Barth

Production of ethnicity through interaction with cultural others; Neighboring others

Edward Said

Project Weakness of other, to perform strength of self

Race

A cultural category
Not a biological reality derived from scientific classifications
The cultural meaning attached to visible physical differences

One-drop rule

Invisible blackness"
There could be people out there among us who didn't look black but had blackness in them
Idea that you are black if you have any relatives who are black

Eugenics

You can create a better human race through selective breeding

Native Americans' "quantum" of blood

Used to determine access to territory
In order for you to be officially apart of xtribe you need to be able to demonstrate that one of your grandparents has been legally documented as a member of the tribe

Dichotomous relationship

Always have one that is assumed to be the default and the other side is used as a way to define the other; unequal relationship (eg: white and black)

Bourdieu & Capital

Social, Economic, Cultural, and Symbolic

Embodied

The way people act, carry themselves-learn through socialization

Objectified

Objects you own that give you prestige because they have symbolic worth attached to them (e.g. fancy car? you don't get it for the use value, you get it for

Institutionalized

Different levels of certification? Ability to say this person has achieved a level of important knowledge (e.g. a diploma)

El Barrio

Dignity and hard work vs. formal education
An important part of masculinity was not having anyone publically tell you what to do

State

Claim by government to control a territory and its population

Weber: State

Claim to legitimate violence

Foucault: State

Claim to deem which groups are a threat to society

Antonius Robben

Threat of those in the middle; unclassifiable

Linda Green

Pain of ambiguity

Naomi Klein: Shock Doctrine

Torture as "cure"; "heal" national body