Cultural Anthropology: A Toolkit for a Global Age Chapter 1

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.

Ethnocentrism

The belief that one's own culture or way of life is normal and natural; using one's own culture to evaluate and judge the practices and ideals of others.

Ethnographic Fieldwork

A primary research strategy in cultural anthropology involving living with a community of people over an extended period to better understand their lives.

Four-Field Approach

The use of four interrelated disciplines to study humanity: physical anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology and cultural anthropology.

Holism

The anthropological commitment to consider the full scope of human life, including culture , biology, history, and language, across space and time.

Physical Anthropology

The study of humans from a biological perspective, particularly focused on human evolution.

Paleoanthropology

The sudy of the history of human evolution through the fossil record.

Primatology

The study of living nonhuman primates as well as primate fossils to better understand human evolution and early human behavior.

Archaeology

The investigation of the human past by means of excavating and analyzing artifacts.

Prehistoric Archaeology

The reconstruction of human behavior in the distant past (before written records) through the examination of artifacts.

Historic Archaeology

The exploration of the more recent past through an examination of physical remains and artifacts as well as written or oral records.

Linguistic Anthropology

The study of human language in the past and present.

Descriptive Linguists

Those who analyze languages and their components parts.

Historic Linguists

Those who study how language changes over time within a culture and how languages travel across cultures.

Sociolinguists

Those who study language in its social and cultural contexts.

Cultural Anthropology

The study of people communities behaviors beliefs and institution including how people make meaning as they live work and play together.

Participant Observation

A key anthropological research strategy involving both participation in and observation of the daily life of the people being studied.

Ethnology

The analysis and comparison of ethnographic data across cultures.

Globalization

The worldwide intensification of interactions and increased movement of money, people, goods, and ideas within and across national borders.

Time-space compression

The rapid innovation of communication and transportation technologies associated with globalization that transforms the way people think about space and time.

Flexible Accumulation

The increasingly flexible strategies that corporations use to accumulate profits in an era of globalization, enable by innovative communications and transportation technologies.

Increasing Migration

The accelerated movement of people within and between countries.

Uneven Development

The unequal distribution of the benefits of globalization.

Rapid Change

The dramatic transformations of economics, politics, and culture characteristic of contemporary globalization.

Climate Change

Changes to the earth's climate, including global worming produced primarily by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases crated by human activity such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation.