What is anthropology?
The study of the full scope of human diversity, past and present, and the application of that knowledge to help people of different backgrounds better understand one another.
Through what lenses do anthropologists gain a comprehensive view of human cultures?
Four field-approach and Holism
What is globalization, and why is it important for anthropology?
The worldwide intensification of interactions and increased movement of money, people, goods, and ideas within and across national borders.
Intertwined with history and the contemporary world, also transforming the ways anthropologists conduct research an
How is globalization transforming anthropology?
Changing communities and changing research strategies.
Define Ethnocentrism?
The belief that one culture or way of life is normal and natural; using one's own culture to evaluate and judge the practices and ideals of others.
Define Ethnographic Fieldwork?
A primary research strategy in cultural anthropology typically involving living and interacting with a community of people over an extended period to better understand their lives.
Define four-field approach?
The use of four interrelated disciplines to study humanity: physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology.
Define holism?
The anthropological commitment to look at the whole picture of human life-- culture, biology, history, and language-- across space and time.
Define physical anthropology?
The study of humans from a biological perspective, particularly how they have evolved over time and adapted to their environments.
Define paleoanthropology?
The study of the history of human evolution through the fossil record.
Define primatology?
The study of living nonhuman primates as well as primate fossils to better understand human evolution and early human behavior.
Define archaeology?
The investigation of the human past by means of excavating and analyzing artifacts.
Define prehistoric archaeology?
The reconstruction of human behavior in the distant past (before written records) through the examination of artifacts.
Define historic archaeology?
The exploration of the more recent past through an examination of physical remains and artifacts as well as written or oral records.
Define linguistic anthropology?
The study of human language in the past and the present.
Define descriptive linguists?
Those who can analyze languages and their component parts.
Define historic linguists?
Those who study how language changes over time within a culture and how languages travel across cultures.
Define sociolinguists?
Those who study language in its social and cultural contexts.
Define cultural anthropology?
The study of people's communities, behaviors, beliefs, and institutions, including how people make meaning as they live, work, and play together.
Define participant observation?
A key anthropological research strategy involving both participation in and observation of the daily life of the people being studied.
Define time-space compression?
The rapid innovation of communication and transportation technologies associated with globalization that transforms the way people think about space (distances) and time.
Define flexible accumulation?
The increasingly flexible strategies that corporations use to accumulate profits in an era of globalization, enabled by innovative communication and transportation technologies.
Define increasing migration?
The accelerated movement of people within and between countries.
Define uneven development?
The unequal distribution of the benefits of globalization.
Define anthropocene?
The current historical era in which human activity is reshaping the planet in permanent ways.
Define climate change?
Changes to Earth's climate, including global warming produced primarily by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases created by the burning of fossil fuels.
Define ethnology?
The analysis and comparison of ethnographic data across cultures.
What is culture?
A system of knowledge, beliefs, patterns of behavior, artifacts, and institutions that are created, learned, shared, and contested by a group of people.
How was the culture concept developed in anthropology?
It has become more than a definition; it is now a key theoretical framework for anthropologists attempting to understand humans and their interactions.
How are culture and power related?
See power as an aspect of all human relationships, reflects stratification among participants that often persists over generations.
How much of who you are is shaped by biology, and how much by culture?
100 trillion cells (90% are independent organisms); culture is NOT written into our DNA, but learned form the people around us.
How is culture created?
Over time, shaped by people and the institutions they establish a relationship to the environment around them.Not fixed, but changed, invented, contested and negotiated. It moves and flows across regions and between people.
How is globalization transforming culture?
Today's flows of globalization are intensifying the exchange and diffusion of people, ideas, and goods, creating more interaction and engagement among cultures.
Define enculturation?
The process of learning culture.
Define norms?
Ideas or rules about how people should behave in particular situations or toward certain other people.
Define values?
Fundamental beliefs about what is important, what makes a good life, and what is true, right, and beautiful.
Define symbol?
Anything that represents something else.
Define mental maps of reality?
Cultural classifications of what kinds of people and things exist, and the assignment of meaning to those classifications.
Define unilinear cultural evolution?
The theory proposed by nineteenth century anthropologists that all cultures naturally evolve through the same sequence of stages from simple to complex.
Define historical particularism?
The idea, attributed to Franz Boas, that cultures develop in specific ways because of their unique histories.
Define society?
The focus of early British anthropological research whose structure and function could be isolated and studied scientifically.
Define interpretivist approach?
A conceptual framework that sees culture primarily as a deep symbolic system of deep meaning.
Define thick description?
A research strategy that combines detailed description of cultural activity with an analysis of the layers of deep cultural meaning in which those activities are embedded.
Define power?
The ability or potential to bring about change through action or influence.
Define stratification?
The uneven distribution of resources and privileges among participants in a group or culture
Define hegemony?
The ability of a dominant group to create consent and agreement within a population without the use or threat of force.
Define agency?
The potential power of individuals and groups to contest cultural norms, values, mental maps of reality, symbols, institutions, and structures of power.
Define epigenetics?
In area of study in the field of genetics exploring how environmental actors directly affect the expression of genes in ways that may be inherited between generations.
Define human microbiome?
The complete collection of microorganisms in the human body's ecosystem.
What is unique about ethnographic fieldwork, and why do anthropologists conduct this kind of research?
Puts the people first as we analyze how human societies work and it shapes the anthropologists by immersing themselves in another culture.
How did the idea of fieldwork develop?
Explorers, missionaries, traders, government bureaucrats, and travelers recorded descriptions of people they encountered.
How do anthropologists get started conducting the fieldwork?
Call on a set of techniques designed to assess the complexity of human interactions and social organizations. Preparation, strategies, mapping, skills and perspective, and analysis.
How do anthropologists write ethnography?
Articles or books, sometimes films.
What moral and ethical concerns guide anthropologists in their research and writing?
Do no harm, obtain informed consent, and ensure anonymity.
How are fieldwork strategies changing in response to globalization?
The increased movement of people, information, money, and goods associated with globalization has transformed ethnographic fieldwork in terms of both its process and its content.
Define ethnographic fieldwork?
A primary research strategy in cultural anthropology typically involving living and interacting with a community of people over an extended period to better understand their lives.
Define salvage ethnography?
Fieldwork strategy developed by Franz Boas to collect cultural, material, linguistic, and biological information about Native American populations being devastated by the westward expansion of European settlers.
Define cultural relativism?
Understanding a group's beliefs and practices within their own cultural contexts, without making judgements.
Define reflexivity?
A critical self examination of the role anthropologists plays and awareness that ones identity affects one's fieldwork and theoretical analysis.
Define engaged anthropology?
Applying the research strategies and analytical perspectives of anthropology to address concrete challenges facing local communities and the world at large.
Define anthropologist toolkit?
Tools needs to conduct fieldwork, including information, perspectives, strategies, and even equipment.
Define quantitative data?
The statistical information about a community that can be measured and compared.
Define qualitative data?
The descriptive data drawn from non statistical sources including personal stories, interviews, life histories, and participant observation.
Define key informant? (also called cultural consultant)
A community member who advises the anthropologists on community issues, provides feedback, and warns against cultural miscues.
Define life history?
A form of interview that traces the biography of a person over time examining changes in the persons life and illuminating the interlocking network of relationships in the community.
Define survey?
An information gathering tool for quantitative data analysis.
Define kinship analysis?
A fieldwork strategy of examining interlocking relationships of power built on marriage and family ties.
Define social network analysis?
A method for examining relationships in a community often conducted by identifying whom people turn to in times of need.
Define field notes?
The anthropologists written observations and reflections on places, practices events and interviews.
Define mapping?
The analysis of the physical and/or geographic space where fieldwork is being conducted.
Define built environment?
The intentional design features of human settlement including buildings, transportation, and public service infrastructure and public spaces.
Define zeros?
Elements of a story or a picture that are not told or seen and yet offer key insights into issues that might be too sensitive to discuss or display publicly.
Define mutual transformation?
The potential for both the anthropologists and members of the community being studied to be transformed by the interactions of fieldwork.
Define emic?
An approach to gathering data that investigates how local people think and understand the world.
Define etic?
The description of local behavior and beliefs from the anthropologists perspective in ways that can be compared across cultures.
Define polyvocality?
The practice of using many different voices in ethnographic writing and research question development, allowing the reader to hear more directly from the people in the study.
Define informed consent?
Key strategy for protecting those being studied by ensuring that they are fully informed of the goals of the project and have clearly indicated their consent to participate.
Define anonymity?
Protecting the identities of the people involved in a study by changing or omitting their names or other identifying characteristics.
What is language and where does it come from?
A system of communication organized by rules that uses symbols such as words, sounds, and gestures to convey information. Neandertals who lived from about 130,000 to about 30,000 years ago.
How does language shape our ways of thinking?
Languages establish certain mental categories, or classifications of reality, almost like a grammar for organizing the worldview that shapes peoples' ways of perceiving the world.
How do systems of power intersect with language and communication?
What people actually say and how they say it are intricately connected to the cultural context, to the speakers' social position, and to the larger systems of power within which the language operates.
What are the effects of globalization on language?
As people move, elements of vocabulary and grammar are loaned to and imposed on populations that come into contact.
Define descriptive linguistics?
The study of the sounds, symbols, and gestures of a language, and their combination into forms that communicate meaning.
Define phonemes?
The smallest unit of sound that can make a difference in meaning.
Define phonology?
The study of what sounds exist and which ones are important in a particular language.
Define morphemes?
The smallest unit of sounds that carry meaning on their own.
Define morphology?
The study of patterns and rules of how sounds combine to make morphemes.
Define syntax?
The specific patterns and rules for combining morphemes to construct phrases and sentences.
Define grammar?
The combined set of observations about the rules governing the formation of morphemes and syntax that guide language use.
Define kinesics?
The study of the relationship between body movements and communication.
Define paralanguage?
An extensive set of noises (such as laughs, cries, sighs, and yells) and tones of voice that convey significant information about the speaker.
Define Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?
The idea that different languages create different ways of thinking.
Define lexicon?
All the words for names, ideas, and events that makeup a language's dictionary.
Define focal vocabulary?
The words and terminology that develop with particular sophistication to describe the unique cultural realities experienced by a group of people.
Define sociolinguistics?
The study of the ways culture shapes language and language shapes culture, particularly the intersection of language with cultural categories and systems of power such as age, race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and class.
Define dialect?
A nonstandard variation of a language.
Define prestige language?
A particular language variation or way of speaking that is associated with wealth, success, education, and power.
Define code switching?
Switching back and forth between on linguistic variant and another depending on the cultural context.
Define historical linguistics?
The study of the development of language over time, including its changes and variations.
Define language continuum?
The idea that variation in languages appears gradually over distance so that groups of people who live near one another speak in a way that is mutually intelligible.
Define language loss?
The extinction of languages that have very few speakers.
Do biologically separate races exist?
No, human are almost identical, sharing more than 99.9% of our DNA.
How is race constructed around the world?
Beginning in the 1400s from western Europeans as the colonized the world. Skin color, intelligence, physical abilities, capacity for culture, and basic worth--ethnicity, gender, sexuality, kinship, or class.
How is race constructed in the United States?
Census forms, school applications, and birth certificates, as well as media and casual conversation. Shapes the allocation of power, privilege, rewards, and status, and it infuses all of our political, economic, religious, recreational, educational, and c
What is racism?
Individuals' thoughts and actions and institutional patterns and policies that create or reproduce unequal access to power, privilege, resources, and opportunities based on imagined differences among groups.
Define race?
A flawed system of classification, with no biological basis, that uses certain physical characteristics to divide the human population into supposedly discrete groups.
Define genotype?
The inherited genetic factors that provide the framework for an organism's physical form.
Define phenotype?
The way genes are expressed in an organism's physical form as a result of genotype interaction with environmental factors.
Define colonialism?
The practice by which a nation-state extends political, economic, and military power beyond its own borders over an extended period of time to secure access to raw materials, cheap labor, and markets in other countries or regions.
Define miscegenation?
A demeaning historical term for interracial marriage.
Define white supremacy?
The belief that whites are biologically different from and superior to people of other races.
Define whiteness?
A culturally constructed concept originating in 1691 Virginia designed to establish clear boundaries of who is white and who is not, a process central to the formation of U.S. racial stratification.
Define Jim Crow Laws?
Laws implemented after the U.S. Civil War to legally enforce segregation, particularly in the South, after the end of slavery.
Define hypodescent?
Sometimes called the "one drop of blood rule"; the assignment of children of racially "mixed" unions to the subordinate group.
Define nativism?
The favoring of certain long-term inhabitants, namely whites, over new immigrants.
Define racialization?
The process of categorizing, differentiating, and attributing a particular racial character to a person or group of people.
Define individual racism?
Personal prejudiced beliefs and discriminatory actions based on race.
Define microaggressions?
Common, everyday verbal or behavioral indignities and slights that communicate hostile, derogatory, and negative messages about someone's race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion.
Define institutional racism?
Patterns by which racial inequality is structured through key cultural institutions, policies, and systems.
Define racial ideology?
A set of popular ideas about race that allows discriminatory behaviors of individuals and institutions to seem reasonable, rational, and normal.
Define intersectionality?
An analytical framework for assessing how factors such as race, gender, and class interact to shape individual life chances and societal patterns of stratification.
Where did Jason De Le�n do his fieldwork? What type of fieldwork was it?
Arizona (the Sonoran Desert); Engaged
What is the purpose of the "Land of Open Graves"?
To recount a first hand story of what happens to those that try and cross the border into the US. The description used in the text is meant so that the reader can actually feel what is going on and the conditions that the immigrants actually faced.
Where did Nancy Scheper-Hughes do her fieldwork? What type of fieldwork was it?
Brazil (Alto de Cruzerio); Ethnographic Fieldwork, Multi sited Research
What is the purpose of the "Mind(ing) the Body: On the Trail of Organ-Stealing Rumors"?
To bring broader social and social justice concerns to bear on global practices of organ harvesting and distribution as an alternative to the myopic, case by case view of transplant surgeons.
Where did Lila Abu-Lughod do her fieldwork? What type of fieldwork was it?
...
What is the purpose of "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving"?
To fundamentally re-examine and re-learn our approach to cultural "others" and to cultural differences.
Where did Horace Miner do his fieldwork? What type of fieldwork was it?
America;
What is the purpose of the "Body Ritual among the Nacirema"?
To look at our lives from another lens and to see for ourselves what other people see when they examine our culture.
Where did Laura Ahearn do her fieldwork? What type of fieldwork was it?
...
What is the purpose of "Literacy, Power, and Agency: Love Letters and Development in Nepal"?
Literacy is both a catalyst for social change and a result of numerous other types of social transformation.
What went on during the film "Margaret Mead: Coming of Age"?
She went to American Samoa and recorded that the culture was more relaxed, there were a large number of adults that could be turned to for help, sex at a young age was accepted and encouraged, and her book published afterward was written so that all peopl
What went on during the film "Bronislaw Malinowski: Off the Veranda. 2000 [1990]"?
You must make yourself a part of the culture to fully grasp all of its parts.
What went on during the film "Film Ishi, the last Yahi (1992)"?
Anthropologists found one man that was the last of his tribe. He would not talk, and they tried to get him to tell about his people and his culture but he would not.