ANTH 100 – Politics & Power Flashcards

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers core concepts of power, political typologies, the state, globalization, violence, and social movements as discussed in the ANTH 100 lecture.

Power

The ability to create change through action or influence, existing in all human relationships whether violent or nonviolent.

Politics

In the context of anthropology, the mobilization of people’s beliefs into collective action.

Elman Service

The anthropologist who proposed the four-part political typology of bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states in $1962$.

Band

A small kinship-based group of foragers who hunt and gather in a particular territory, characterized by decentralized power and very little inequality.

Christopher Boehm

An evolutionary biologist who argued that egalitarian band societies encouraged cooperation among humans.

Tribe

An evolutionary anthropology term for a culturally distinct multiband population believed to descend from a common ancestor, emerging around $10,000$ to $12,000$ years ago.

Chiefdom

An autonomous political unit composed of villages or communities ruled by a paramount chief with centralized authority.

The State

An autonomous regional structure with political, economic, and military authority that can make laws and use force.

Max Weber

A political philosopher who argued that the defining feature of the state is a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.

Hegemony

The ability of a dominant group to gain consent without direct force, reinforced by institutions like schools, religion, and media.

Neoliberal Policies

Policies promoted by the World Bank, IMF, and WTO that support free trade and reduced government control over markets.

Civil Society Organization

A local NGO that challenges state policies and advocates for community needs, often forming transnational networks.

Frans de Waal

A primatologist who discovered that primates often reconcile after conflict, suggesting natural tendencies toward cooperation.

Militarization

The social process through which society organizes for military violence, including the glorification of war and shaping institutions around military goals.

Catherine Lutz

Author of Homefront ($2001$) who studied militarization and the expansion of the military-industrial complex.

Susan Shepler

Researcher who studied child soldiers in Sierra Leone and argued that reintegration programs ignored local ideas about childhood and economic roles.

Carolyn Nordstrom

An anthropologist who studied how civilians in Mozambique resisted violence during civil war and how local wars connect to global business networks.

Thomas Hobbes

A philosopher who believed humans are naturally violent, a view challenged by Carolyn Nordstrom's research.

Agency

The ability of individuals or groups to challenge power structures and cultural norms.

Social Movement

Collective action aimed at transforming cultural patterns and government policies.

Omotayo Jolaosho

Author of You Can’t Go to War without Song ($2022$), who studied how freedom songs strengthened resistance against apartheid in South Africa.

Framing Process

The creation of shared meanings that motivate collective action within social movements.

Jeffrey Juris

Argued that modern social movements depend on both online activism and physical protest.

Yarimar Bonilla and Jonathan Rosa

Researchers who studied how social media and physical protests worked together in movements like Black Lives Matter.

Hussein Ali Agrama

Researcher who found that people in Egypt often trusted nonbinding fatwas from the Al Azhar Fatwa Council more than official court rulings.

Maria Ovsyannikova

A Russian journalist who protested the invasion of Ukraine on live television, demonstrating individual resistance against state power.