ANTH 111 Sociocultural Anthropology

Biological Anthropology

Studies human biological diversity, evolution, genetics, primates, and living peoples across time and space. (ex: hominin evolution in the fossil record, human genetics, non-human primates)

Archaeology

Reconstructs, describes, and interprets human practices and cultural patterns through material remains. (ex: caves, artifacts, material culture, animal bones; never dinosaurs!)

Linguistic Anthropology

Examines the relationships between language, culture, and society across space and time. (ex: variations in language, inferences about past languages)

Socio-cultural Anthropology

Studies society and culture to describe, interpret, and explain social differences and similarities in how people think, act, and live. (ex: family structures, spiritual practices, power dynamics)

Franz Boas

German-American "father of American Anthropology" who developed the four-field approach, opposed scientific racism, and supported cultural relativism.

Armchair Anthropology

An early approach that made conclusions about people without doing direct fieldwork, often perpetuating scientific racism. (ex: referring to non-Western peoples as "primitive")

Cultural Relativism

The idea that we should understand another person's beliefs and behaviors from the perspective of their own culture rather than our own.

Ethnocentrism

Judging another culture based on the standards, values, and perspective of one's own culture.

Enculturation

The process by which people learn the appropriate ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving in their culture. (ex: gender roles, language, greeting habits)

Ruth Benedict

Anthropologist who defined culture as a coherent "pattern" or "configuration" shaping how people think, feel, and behave.

Bronislaw Malinowski

"Father of social anthropology" who popularized fieldwork and participant observation. (ex: ceremony of the Kula ring in the Trobriand Islands)

Kula Ring

A system of ceremonial exchange that maintains social alliances, prestige, and political connections. (ex: Trobriand Islands shell exchange system)

Ethnography

A written description and analysis of a culture or community based on extended fieldwork and direct observation.

Thick Description

Providing rich context and meaning behind behaviors to explain what they mean within a culture and connect them to larger themes.

Emic Perspective

The insider's perspective on beliefs and practices from within a specific culture.

Etic Perspective

The outsider's analytical perspective on a culture, making observations meaningful to external observers.

Fieldnotes

Qualitative daily records, diaries, or observations kept by researchers to document data, impressions, and context during fieldwork.

Informed Consent

An ongoing, voluntary process where participants freely agree to be studied after understanding the study's purpose, risks, and benefits.

Kinship

A system of culturally recognized ties and social relationships based on shared ancestry, marriage, or chosen family bonds.

Consanguineal Ties

Kinship relationships based on blood connections or birth descent. (ex: parents and children)

Affinal Ties

Kinship relationships created through marriage. (ex: in-laws)

Nuclear/Conjugal Family

A two-generation household consisting of parents (typically married) and their dependent children.

Extended Family

A household containing three generations sharing living space.

Polygamy

A family structure involving multiple spouses. (ex: polygyny with multiple wives, polyandry with multiple husbands)

Bilateral Descent

Tracing descent and kin group membership equally through both the mother's and father's sides.

Unilateral Descent

Tracing descent through only one side of the family. (ex: patrilineal through the father, matrilineal through the mother)

Parallel Cousins

The child of a parent's same-sex sibling. (ex: mother's sister's child, father's brother's child)

Cross Cousins

The child of a parent's opposite-sex sibling. (ex: mother's brother's child, father's sister's child)

Endogamy

The practice of marrying within a specific cultural, social, or kinship group.

Exogamy

The practice of marrying outside of one's own cultural, social, or kinship group.

A.R. Radcliffe-Brown

English social anthropologist who studied kinship and developed structural functionalism to view society as a system working together for stability.

Functionalism (Religion)

Malinowski's theory that religious beliefs and rituals satisfy psychological needs, lower anxiety, and keep society stable. (ex: rituals lowering anxiety before dangerous sailing)

Rites of Passage

Formalized rituals marking transitions in life stages, consisting of separation, liminality, and incorporation phases. (ex: getting a driver's license)

Liminality

The middle, ambiguous phase of a rite of passage where a person is between social statuses.

Communitas

An intense sense of social solidarity and togetherness produced through collective group rituals or rites of passage.

Émile Durkheim

Sociologist who argued religion creates a "collective consciousness" and defined it around the divide between the sacred and profane.

E.E. Evans-Pritchard

Anthropologist who studied Azande witchcraft as a rational framework to explain misfortunes and release social tension. (ex: mangu explaining hut collapse, illness, infidelity)

Political Anthropology

The study of power, status, social regulation, and authority across diverse human societies.

Ascribed Status

A social position or rank automatically assigned at birth. (ex: nobility)

Achieved Status

A social position earned through personal actions, choices, and effort.

Marcel Mauss

Sociologist who wrote The Gift (1925), framing gift-giving as a "total social fact" governed by obligations to give, receive, and reciprocate.

Potlatching

A ceremonial event where leaders give away material goods in exchange for social prestige and alliances. (ex: Indigenous Northwestern potlatch ceremonies)

Gender Binary

A dual gender system separating all people strictly into men and women based on presumed biological correlation.

Determinism

The view that human behavior, culture, and social roles are caused by pre-existing external or biological factors. (ex: excluding women from combat)

Essentialism

The belief that social groups have an underlying, unchanging "essence" that defines them. (ex: claiming women are naturally nurturing, men are breadwinners)

Gayle Rubin

Feminist theorist who coined the "sex/gender system" in The Traffic in Women (1975).

Colonialism

The long-term political, economic, social, and cultural domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power.

Intersectionality

Concept coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) examining how overlapping social identities shape experiences. (ex: race, gender, class, disability overlapping)

Assimilation

The process by which a minority group adopts the patterns of a host culture until its distinct cultural identity ceases to exist.

Plural Society

A society where distinct ethnic or cultural groups live side by side while maintaining separate identities.

Caste

A closed, ranked social class system where individuals cannot move between groups. (ex: Jati / India's caste hierarchy of Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras, Dalits)

Food Security

When all people at all times have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food.

Food Desert

A low-income area where residents lack access to fresh food. (ex: living over 1 mile away in urban areas or 10 miles in rural areas from a supermarket)

Food Swamp

An area heavily saturated with unhealthy food establishments. (ex: areas with 4+ corner stores within 0.4 miles)

Food Apartheid

Term coined by Karen Washington pointing to intentional racial and economic policies that create unequal food access. (ex: redlining, discriminatory zoning)

Redlining

Discriminatory housing and financial practices that deny services or investments to minority neighborhoods. (ex: denying mortgages, higher interest rates)

Kinesics

The scientific study of non-verbal communication through body movements, gestures, posture, and facial expressions.

Pragmatic Gesture

A gesture that defines the communicative act itself. (ex: shrugging to express uncertainty, a soldier saluting)

Deictic Gesture

A pointing gesture used to direct attention to a specific referent. (ex: pointing while saying "Look over there!", a baby crying)

Representational Gesture

A gesture that visually depicts an idea, object, or action. (ex: making a heart shape with hands, saying "It was this big!")

Home Signs

Nonverbal systems of gestures invented and used for intimate communication within close relationships that are not standardized sign languages.

Epistemology

The branch of philosophy/anthropology that evaluates what knowledge is, how we acquire it, and how we distinguish truth from opinion.

Sacred

Objects/ideas that are set apart, unknowable, and treated with awe

Profane

Objects that are ordinary and sensory.

Normative vs. Pragmatic

Normative prescribes how things ought to be; pragmatic deals with real-world conditions in practical ways.

Three phases of rites of passage

Separation: withdraw from group

Liminality: ambiguous social position

Incorporation: reenter group

Four fields of anthropology

Archaeology

Biological anthropology

Linguistic anthropology

Cultural anthropology

Cultures are…

Learned: learned through enculturation

Symbolic

Shared

Integrated: coherent patterns or configurations that shape how people think, feel, behave

Adaptive

Interact with nature

Dynamic: always changing