Studied by 7 peopleacculturation
culture change resulting from contact between cultures. A process of external culture change.
adaptation
patterns of behavior which enable a culture to cope with its surroundings.
affinal
members of one's kindred who are related through a marital linkage.
ambilineal
a corporate kin group that traces relationships through either the female or male lines. Also called cognatic descent.
anthropology
the study of humanity; divisions are physical anthropology, archaeology, ethnology, and anthropological linguistics.
apartheid
racial, political, and economic segregation of non-European peoples.
applied anthropology
using the knowledge of anthropology to address human real-world problems.
archaeology
study of material culture.
art
human endeavor thought to be aesthetic and have meaning beyond simple description. Includes music, dance, sculpture, painting, drawing, stitchery, weaving, poetry, writing, woodworking, etc. A medium of expression where the individual and culture come together.
assimilation
when one ethnic group absorbs another, so that the cultural traits of the assimilated group become indistinguishable.
attitudes
data that describe how people think, believe, and feel.
avunculocal
residence after marriage is with or near the mother's brother of the husband.
balanced reciprocity
is a direct exchange where the two parties involved seek to arrive at a mutually acceptable price or exchange for goods or services.
band
a small group of related people, who are primarily organized through family bonds. Foraging typifies the subsistence technology. A respected and older person may be looked to for leadership, but the person has no formalized authority.
big-man
a form of leadership in tribes where the leader achieves power and influence based on ability.
bilineal
descent in which the individual figures kinship through both the father's and mother's descent group.
bilingual education
teaching a second language by relying heavily on the native language of the speaker. The theory is that maintaining a strong sense of one's one culture and language is necessary to acquire another language and culture.
bilocal
residence after marriage is with either the wife's or husband's relatives.
brideprice
an economic exchange by the groom's family to compensate the bride's family upon marriage.
cargo
from the Spanish verb cargar which means to carry and to be in charge of.
cargo cult
do not confuse "cargo system" with "cargo cult" which is a revitalization movement characterized by the belief that ancestral spirits will bring wanted goods (cargo) and throw off oppressive customs and colonizers.
cargo system
a set of community offices and obligations a person goes through to achieve recognition and status.
caste system
the ranking of members in a society by occupational status and degree of purity or pollution as determined by their birth.
chiefdom
political organization is typically inherited through kinship lines. A ranked society in which a few leaders make decisions for the group.
clan
a noncorporate descent group in which genealogical links to a common ancestor are assumed but are not actually known.
class stratification
where members of a society are ranked from higher to lower based on wealth, prestige, position, or education.
closed system
each sound is mutually exclusive and can't be combined with others to make a new meaning.
colonialism
forced change in which one culture, society, or nation dominates another.
commodity
an economic good.
consanguineal
members of one's kindred who are related by blood line.
conspicuous consumption
the display of material items for the purpose of impressing others.
core values
attitudes and beliefs thought to uniquely pattern a culture.
cross-cousin
children of the opposite-sexed siblings of one's parents, e.g., mother's brother's and father's sister's children.
cultural anthropology
study of cultural variation and similarities. Includes ethnology and anthropological linguistics. May also include archaeology.
cultural construct
the idea that the characteristics people attribute to such social categories as gender, illness, death, status of women, and status of men is culturally defined.
cultural ecology
the study of human interaction with ecosystems to determine how nature influences and is influenced by human social organization and culture.
cultural relativism
understanding the ways of other cultures and not judging these practices according to one's own cultural ways.
cultural transmission
how culture is passed on through learning from one generation to another. Also referred to as enculturation or socialization.
culture
The learned patterns of behavior and thought that help a group adapt to it's surroundings.
cyclical migration
the annual pattern followed in the production of food.
descent group
a kin group whose members are recruited by one of the principles of descent; e.g., matrilineal, patrilineal, etc.
deviance
to not follow the norms of society.
diffusion
the spread of a cultural pattern from one culture to another, and where no directed change agent is apparent.
distribution
system of allocating resources in a society.
divination
obtaining factual knowledge by magical means which have no apparent empirical connection to the information sought.
division of labor
the division of tasks in a society between women and men, old and young, ability, knowledge, experience.
dowry
the woman's share of her inheritance from the group of her birth, which is taken with her upon marriage.
egalitarian
a society without formalized differences in the access to power, influence, and wealth.
ego
the person from whose point of view kinship relations are referenced.
emic
views of the world that members of a culture accept as real, meaningful, or appropriate.
enculturation
the process of learning one's own culture, also called socialization.
endogamy
rules requiring selecting of a marriage partner from within a particular group.
equality
a measure of how similar people are to one another. It can be measured quantitatively with such measures as wealth concentration, Gini coefficients, and percentiles.
ethics
the principles of conduct governing an individual or group; concerns for what is right or wrong, good or bad.
etic
views of a culture that are accepted by a group of scientists as a valid description fo the culture.
ethnic identity
a named group identified through their ethnic boundary markers. Ethnic identity can vary with changes in social context.
ethnocentrism
judging other cultures by the standards of your own, which you believe to be superior.
ethnographic present
a description of a culture as it was prior to contact.
ethnography
description of a culture, usually based on the method of participant observation.
ethnology
comparative analysis of cultural patterns to explain differences and similarities among societies.
evolution
change in the form of a culture. Usually a process of internal cultural change.
exogamy
rules requiring selection of a marriage partner from outside a particular group.
extended family
a composite family composed of other relatives besides the nuclear families. Extended families can be constructed across generations by including parent's or children's families or extended laterally by including multiple wives or sibling's families.
extinction
when a culture dies out. Often the people die out too. Some may become peasants or pass into contemporary society.
folk art
art produced by people not professionally identified as artists.
foragers
getting food by collecting or hunting what is naturally available. The term used to refer to the subsistence patterns of cultures different from our own continually changes as our values change. Initially, these groups were called "primitives." This term came to be viewed as too ethnocentric since it emphasized they were less developed than "modern" cultures. The term "hunters and gatherers" has been replaced by foragers because of the gender associations with male hunters and female gatherers. Since !Kung women produce 85% of the food by volume, is it appropriate to call them a hunting and gathering society?
fusion
blending traits from two different cultures to form a new trait. The cargo is a fusion of Mayan and Catholic religious elements. Also called syncretism.
genealogy
a family tree or web of kinship relationships traced through parents and children. Also called a kindred.
generalized reciprocity
an exchange where a person gives a good or a service to someone else but does not receive anything back at that time. There is the expectation that in the future should the person receiving the good or service have something that it will be given at a later time.
holistic
no dimension of culture can be understood in isolation, cultures are integrated wholes.
horticulture
an agricultural technology distinguished by the use of hand tools to grow domesticated plants. Does not use draft animals, irrigation, or specially prepared fertilizers.
imperialism
economic control gained through the corporate organization of nation states.
industrial society
a society integrated by a complex network of occupational specialties supporting the manufacture of material goods.
informal economy
the economy common to shanytowns, , slums where goods and services sold or bartered are unregulated by formal institutions.
information society
a society integrated by complex communication networks that rapidly develop and exchange information.
information age
a form of culture where electronics joins members of diverse cultural backgrounds together. Greater quantities of information than ever before are available to individuals, yet certainty about the way systems operate is less and more subject to question.
innovation
introducing an object as if it were new.
institutions
the patterns of living and social organizations that carry out the values and goals of a society.
intensive agriculture
use of irrigation, draft animals, terracing, natural fertilizers, selective breeding, mechanization, etc., to grow more food.
kayasa
competitive display for the purpose of settling disputes; it occurs in the context of ceremonial exchange.
key informants
a few individuals selected on the basis of criteria such as knowledge, compatibility, age, experience, or reputation who provide information about their culture.
kindred
people related to one another by blood, marriage, and adoption.
kula
a set of trade relations among Trobriand men involving the giving away of shell artifacts with the objective of displaying prestige and reinforcing alliances.
magic
practices designed to gain control over the supernatural. Magic and religion are separated in several ways in anthropology. For some anthropologists magic tries to gain control over the supernatural. Others see magic as being individual, while religion is a group phenomena that creates lasting social bonds. Malinowski saw magic as a means to an end, while religion was the end in itself. Other anthropologists find separating magic and religion very difficult.
markets
systems that exchange goods and services using all-purpose money as a standard measure of relative value. Early market systems are characterized by market places or bazaars which are often cyclical, moving among a fixed set of localities, each having its specific market days.
matriarchy
where a mother figure and women have authority.
matrilineal
descent traced exclusively through the female line.
matrilocal
residence after marriage in association with the wife's mother's relatives.
modernization
the process by which cultures are forced to accept traits from outside.
moiety
division of a society into two halves based on descent.
monogamy
marriage in which an individual has one spouse.
multiculturalism
stressing the importance of different cultures, races, and ethnicities.
myth
a common or shared historical experience
negative reciprocity
when one person in an exchanges tries to get something for nothing or for less than its recognized worth.
negotiation
the use of direct argument and compromise by the parties to a dispute to arrive at a mutually satisfactory agreement.
neolocal
residence in which the married couple's household has no connection with either the husband's or wife's family.
nuclear family
a woman and/or husband and dependent children.
origin story
description of how the culture came into being.
parallel-cousin
children of the same-sexed siblings of one's parents, e.g., mother's sister's and father's brother's children.
participant observation
living in a culture that is not your own while also keeping a detailed record of your observations and interviews.
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