Cultural Anthropology Exam 3 & Final Exam (Koziol)

Contagious Magic

Power comes from contact (i.e., spitting alcohol, blowing smoke, hot peppers held in mouth).

Imitative Magic

Like produces like (i.e., voodoo doll, animal skull used to transfer a headache).

Witchcraft

The use of psychic powers, or the result of bodily substances, which alter reality (witches often are viewed as lacking control of, or even awareness of, their powers).

Sorcery

The performance of rites with the intention of altering reality.

Animism

Refers to a belief in spiritual beings, specifically it is the notion that natural objects, animate or inanimate are imbued with spirits (was an early theory used to explain the beliefs encountered in non-industrialized societies).

Polytheism

is the belief in multiple deities. Common examples include: Hinduism, Ancient Greek and Roman pantheons of gods.

Monotheism

is the belief in one supreme being. Common examples include: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity

Science/Reason

Tylor believed that science and secularism would eventually displace other belief systems.

Mana

Raw and sacred impersonal force residing in people, animals, plants, places and objects (makes a chief successful in Melanesian and Polynesian societies).

Polynesia Mana

Mana pollution could sicken commoners.

Melanesia Mana

Mana can be equally obtained by chance and through hard work.

Atheism

Is a rejection of the belief in deities and supernatural forces structuring reality (it is a set of beliefs centered around this notion).

Rituals

Dramatic renderings or social portrayals of meanings shared by members of a group.

Multivocal

Multiple voices (perspectives).

Multivalent

Multiple symbolic meanings.

Orthopraxy

Group members construct boundaries around correct forms of each ritual.

Rituals of Intensification

Rituals structured to the values and norms of a community and to strengthen group identity.

Cultural Cohesion

Social solidarity and connectedness.

Interpretive Drift

"The slow, often unacknowledged shift in someone's manner of interpreting events as they become involved with a particular activity."

Anomie

A breakdown of social standards and values (the ease for individuals to feel disconnected from group guidance - even leading to a deep sense of separation and/or anonymousness).

Race as a social construct

Race is not biological. It is a social construct. There is no gene or cluster of genes common to all blacks or all whites. Were race "real" in the genetic sense, racial classifications for individuals would remain constant across boundaries.

Race as biological fact

As a biological concept, race refers to a classification of people based on hereditary physical characteristics such as skin color, hair texture, and the size and shape of the eyes, lips, and nose.

But there is no scientific basis—no blood test or genetic test—that reveals a person's race.

Another problem with race as a biological concept is that the physical traits used to mark a person's race are arbitrary.

Hypodescent

Automatic assignment of children from mixed unions, such as differently ranked ethnicities, or differential socioeconomic classes to the subordinate group.

Ethnic group

A social group based on the perception of shared ancestry, cultural tradition, and common history that culturally distinguish that group from other groups.

Ethnogenesis

The emergence of new ethnicities.

Ethnocide

The disappearance of an ethnic group seldom means biological extinction, in many cases the members of one group are absorbed into the population of a larger group.

Ethnic Boundary Markers

Clothes, language, foodways, and more!

Biological Sex

Frequently refers to the reproductive forms and functions of the body (not binary).

How many biological sex categories exist?

3 - Male, Female, Intersex

Gender

Encompasses the roles, relationships, values, and positions in society that are permitted to members of each gender category (not binary).

Gender as a social construct

In the U.S., gender associations begins at birth (or sometimes earlier) with the announcement that it's a girl, or a boy, which is usually based on interpretation of an individual's external sexual characteristics.

Gender Boundary Markers

- Voice

- Physique

- Hairstyle

- Dress

- Behavior

- Body Movements

- Spatial and touch preferences

- Language Use

- Occupations

- Hobbies

How many genders are there on average in gender-sex models?

3-5

Gender Stratification

Is the degree of inequality based on culturally defined differences between genders. (May be based on social status, and/or on access to resources, wealth, power or influence).

Sexual Orientation

Typically used to describe which biological sex(es) individuals are attracted to for the purpose of intercourse.

Gender Congruence

The degree to which individuals feel genuine, authentic, and comfortable within their external appearance and accept their genuine identity.

Transgender

Individuals who identify with gender roles and identities perceived less common for their biological sex (may include temporary or permanent marking of preferred identity association).

Cisgender

Individuals who identify with gender roles and identities perceived as common for their biological sex (may include temporary or permanent marking of preferred identity association).

Transvestitism

A behavior that may include cross-dressing (or blending of gender symbols in dress). Can be a non-permanent identity marking.

Transsexualism

A behavior where an individual has undergone (or deeply desires) sexual reassignment surgery and/or treatments (permanent marking of gender-sex identity).

Multiple Gender Identities

The social recognition of more than two gender possibilities within a culture.

Figapa

Their bodies contain high quantities of substances symbolically considered feminine (Nu).

Kakora

Their bodies are depleted of Nu.

Nu

Substance that is considered dirty. The level of ones nu classifies them as figapa or kakora.

Two-Spirits (berdache)

Two Spirit individuals adopt dress, tasks, family roles and other personality and behavior aspects that are atypical for male and female gender identities. (Native American Culture)

Dialects

Are regional or Social variants of languages.

Speech Community

A group of people who share a set of norms and expectations regarding the use of language. Essentially, it is scaled down to smaller social groups.

Dialects are influenced by...

- Ancestral language(s)

- Geographic boundaries, particularly if they may isolate communities

- Social preferences and attitudes (e.g., choices related to status perceptions, emulation, appropriation)

Dialects may include variations in...

- Pronunciation

- Vocabulary (lexicon)

- Timing/Pauses

- Body language

- Gender/Age rules

- Socio-economic status

Artifacts (nonverbal communication)

Are the forms of body ornamentation or modification that communicate messages about individual or group identity. (Includes clothing, piercings, tattoos, etc. that can say something about the identity of the wearer).

Kinesics (body language)

Studies the role of bodily motions (i.e., position, movement, facial expressions, gaze, etc.) in communication. This includes how we use touch (haptics) to convey messages as part of the speech act experience.

Proxemics

Studies the meanings conveyed by space and distance.

Globalization

The widening scale of cross-cultural interactions caused by the rapid movement of money, people, goods, images, and ideas within nations and across national boundaries

Cultural Convergence

In the 1960's, the idea emerges that the world was becoming a "global village." This theory underlies concepts of "McDonaldization" and "Coca-Colonization," which focus on powerful culturally influential nations imposing culture (products and beliefs) on others

Clash of Civilizations

Proponents suggest that cultural differences (problematically assumed to be analogous with religion) have not disappeared and that we are becoming increasingly aware of these differences. This is not supported by history nor by cultural data.

Cultural Hybridization

Persistent cultural mixing that has no predetermined direction or end-point

Non-Academic Careers for Anthropologists

- Authors

- In education

- The entertainment industry

- Business

- Marketing

- Medicine

- Law

- Government

- Working for NGOs (non-governmental organizations)

Conspicuous Consumption

The practice by consumers of using goods of a higher quality or in greater quantity than might be considered necessary in practical terms.

Coding

- To maintain anonymity

- To obtain and compile themes in interviews (i.e. race, socioeconomic status etc.)

Wade Davis (Ted Talk)

- Ethnosphere is the sum total of all thoughts, dreams, myths, ideas, inspirations, intuitions brought into being by the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness. It is all the we are and all that we can be as an astonishingly inquisitive species.

- Greatest indicator for cultural loss: language loss.

- 6000 languages - half are no longer being whispered to children.

- Ethnosphere is eroding:

Ellen Barry's "Mortal to Divine and Back: India's Transgender Goddesses" (3 questions)

- Devanapattinam, India

- "Skin becomes stone"

- Mayana Kollai festival in a fishing village in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

- Indians who decide to live as kothis — also known as hijras, kinnars or aravani, depending on the region — are born male and typically have male lovers.

- Many reveal their identities as teenagers and

are met with years of taunts, beatings and forced sex.

- Kothi performers had agreed not to drink alcohol or have sex for the duration of the 10-day festival.

- Kavia Varshini, a traditional Indian dancer, is a celebrity in this part of Tamil Nadu.

Frances Lappé and Joseph Collins's "Why Can't People Feed Themselves?" (3 questions)

- Minority of nations that had "taken

off" through their agricultural and industrial revolutions to reach a level of unparalleled

material abundance.

- Majority that remained behind in a primitive, traditional, undeveloped state.

- Colonialism destroyed the cultural patterns of

production and exchange by which traditional societies in "underdeveloped" countries

previously had met the needs of the people.

- The degree of malnutrition, the levels of agricultural production, or even the country's ecological endowment, are not static factors--they are not "givens." (for an underdeveloped country).

- English economist John Stuart Mill reasoned that colonies should not be thought of as civilizations or countries at all but as "agricultural establishments" whose sole purpose was to supply the "larger community to which they belong."

Jennifer Cole's "Producing Value among Malagasy Marriage Migrants in France." (3 questions)

- Vadimbazaha: "The spouse of a European."

- Malagasy women who forged relationships with European men stayed in Madagascar - used the material resources and social connections from these relationships to manage concessions, buy and sell land, run hotels, or trade luxury items.

- Vazaha - "European Men."

- In recent years, Madagascar has become known in France as a place for sexual tourism therefore Malagasy women sometimes find they are perceived as prostitutes or as women with little virtue.

- More than 200 year old tradition.

Race: The Power of an Illusion

- Simple external difference are rooted to different internal differences (e.g. athletic or musical ability).

- No genetic markers that define race.

- Race is rather an idea that one ascribes to biology (1/1000 nucleotides is genetically different in humans, but in penguins there are x2 as many and in fruit flies there are x10 as many).

- Frederick Hoffman (extinction thesis of the 'American Negroes'): data analysis was flawed because he negated poverty and social status.

- The science of Eugenics - Mendelian belief.

- 1936 Berlin Olympics - Jesse Owens wins 4 Olympic gold medals.

- Race classification in America - COMPLETELY CULTURAL.

Cynthia Keppley Mahmood: "Doing Fieldwork: Studying the Sikh Militants" (2 questions)

- From 1980, a militant group of ethnic Sikhs in the northwestern Indian state of Punjab had been engaged in an armed insurgency aimed at forming a sovereign nation called Khalistan ("Land of the Pure").

- Over the period of 3 years in the early 1990s, Mahmood met intermittently with militant Sikhs in various parts of the United States and Canada .

- Wrote a book called: "Fighting for Faith and Nation: Dialogs with Sikh Militants (1997)". She had also changed the names of her informants because their interviews would have been dangerous for her.

Life and Death: Language Preservation

- Constructed Languages: is a language that is descended from another language (e.g. English from German, simply).

- Natural Languages: not engineered/constructed, unconscious in nature.

- Esperanto: created as a language that would unite people but mainly drawing on language in Europe (problematic for those who don't live in Europe, and therefore is a circumcised notion of "bringing people together" because not everyone is from Europe).

- Esperanto is spoken in 90 different countries today and to be able to try and learn it, one would usually contact other Esperantists, make friends and travel around the world.

Kwakwaka'wakw (Translation)

Hunger

The Kwakwaka'wakw Cannibal Dance

- Traditionally a four-day ritual

- Serves as the highlight of the Kwakwaka'wakw Winter Ceremonial (a period of celebration and ritual in which all worldly activities cease).

- It centers on the taming of a cannibal spirit, the Hamatsa, who has an unquenchable desire for human flesh.

The Kwakwaka'wakw view humans as cannibals who must be socialized and tamed.

Hamatsa

Cannibal spirit who has an unquenchable desire for human flesh.

How do you tame the Hamatsa?

- Swaddling

- Ritual fasting

- Denial of food

- And other actions

Fundamentalism

Literal interpretation and strict adherence to basic principles of a religion (or a religious branch, denomination, or sect).

Fundamentalist Project

Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority (1980s U.S politics)