Anthropology exam 3

gender

Gender is a culturally influenced perception of the roles the range of sexes are expected to play. In many societies, gender is best conceived as a continuum, not a dichotomy

Continuum

a continuous whole without clear division into parts; spectrum

dichotomy

a division into two parts; binary

What is an umbrella term?

A term used to cover a broad category of things rather than a single specific item

Example of umbrella term

intersex is an umbrella term for a group of biological conditions reflecting an unusual combination of X and Y chromosomes and/or a discrepancy between external and internal genitalia

Gender roles

Tasks and activities a culture assigns by gender

Rosie the riveter in WWII

A propaganda character designed to increase production of female workers in the factories. It became a rallying symbol for women to do their part.

pre/post war perceptions of women working

when men left to fight in WWII, jobs that had largely been
performed by men needed to be completed
Postwar, women were encouraged to "give back" jobs to men returning from overseas.
Women were still paid far less than men, despite meeting a need, and women of color were discriminated against (if hired at all). This provides evidence of gender roles being
arbitrarily assigned and changeable.

Gender stereotypes

Oversimplified, strongly-held views about the characteristics associated with a particular gender

Changes in body shapes in hero action figures.

After the 1960's body shapes in hero action figures changed dramatically with an intense emphasis on the musculature of the figures, including unrealistic and unattainable proportions

Gender stratification

An unequal distribution of rewards among people of different genders, reflecting different positions in a social hierarchy
-the intensity of this stratification varies by society
-there is nothing "natural" about this unequal access, it is a product of culture, and connected to gender roles and stereotypes

The Guerilla Girls

A group of individuals who actively contest the gender stratification with in the western art world. They are known for wearing gorilla masks. Performance to raise awareness to send a message.

Gender identity

Innate, personal sense of gender. Self-identification.

Cisgender

Identifying with the gender assigned at birth

Transgender

Gender identity differs from the sex and/or gender assigned at birth.
•This is an umbrella term covering an extremely wide range of experience

Suprabinary gender categories

Genders in addition to males and females, in this case in the context of Indigenous nations across North America

Two-spirit

Like "Transgender," this is an umbrella term for a suprabinary gender category.
•"Two-spirit identity prioritizes cultural roles within one's Indigenous nation over connections with Settler-dominated LGBTQ communities."
•Two-spirit individuals perform roles traditionally assigned to both women and men.

Matriarchy

a political system ruled by women, or one in which women play a more prominent role in sociopolitical organization than men.

Patriarchy

A political system ruled by men

Why is religion so hard to define?

The question of what the difference is between an "established religion," a "new religious movement," and a "cult" is often a political, culturally-influenced question. It can depend greatly on how a cult is viewed by more-established religious groups and/or the state
Any definition that is made can almost always have an exception

What does religion do?

Provide explanations, validates decisions, gives meaning to events, familiarizations people to their surroundings, social control, mobilizing emotions, provides incentive rewards and benefits

Animism

Belief in spiritual beings (deities, ghosts, souls, doubles)

Communitas

An intense feeling of social solidarity

Effervescence

strong emotions of togetherness, strengthened belief in commonality

Monotheism

Belief in a single all-powerful deity

Polytheism

Multiple deities who control different aspects of nature

Love has won cult

•New Age Movement.
•Makes heavy use of social media and live streaming.
•Selling "healing and wellness" products.
•Mummified their leader, Amy Carlson, who they view as divine.

Why is it hard to define a cult?

"cult" is a tricky word because it is often used in ways that disparage or attack new or less popular religions, motivated by racism or xenophobia. New religious movements have often gotten the disparaging label of "cult" to devalue them or actively suppress them.
Webster's Dictionary defines a cult as "A religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious" (spurious meaning false or fake) but what makes determining whether something is a cult or not difficult is that any religion takes some amount of faith so what determines a religion being spurious?

What are some ways to know if you are in a cult?

•Isolating members/not allowing them to leave.
•Claims to enlightenment and higher knowledge.
•Demanding inappropriate amounts of loyalty to a leader.
•Rigid controls on behaviors that the leader is not subject to

Have we culturally been associating cults with violence and coercion for all of history?

Our pejorative definition of a cult and associations with violence, mind control, and "brainwashing" is relatively recent.

What is Charismatic authority and what are the qualities of a charismatic leader?

Authority is derived from a leader's charisma, as opposed to other kinds of legal or traditional authority.
•Applied to a person who is treated as endowed with supernatural or superhuman powers and qualities.
•Must be "routinized" when the leader dies.

Ritual

"Formal, repetitive, stereotyped behavior; based on a liturgical order."
•Liturgy implies a sequence that has been invented prior to the ritual taking place.
Rituals transmit messages.
•Rituals can be individual, but far more often they happen as part of a group.

Ritual is how we see religion

•Signaling acceptance of a common social or moral order (linked to social control).
•Acknowledgement of something that transcends the individual.
•A way to learn and a way to teach

Secular Ritual

formal behavior of man and it is not religious in nature

example of secular ritual

Presidential inauguration

Cosmology

A system for imagining and understanding the universe. Also a way of delineating the sacred.

Syncretism

Cultural, especially religious mixes, emerging from acculturation

acculturation

The adoption of cultural traits, such as language, by one group under the influence of another.

Religious Pluralism

Religious pluralism is the state of being where every individual in a religiously diverse society has the rights, freedoms, and safety to worship, or not, according to their conscience

Rites of Passage

Rites marking stages of transition in life involving an identity change of some kind, or the crossing of a social division

Stage 1 of Rite of Passage

Separation

Stage 2 of Rite of Passage

Liminality

Separation

-withdrawing from society (expectations and obligations that came with your previous status)
-marks a departure from one's identity or status
-the marking of the transition can be highly emotional and invested with meaning

Liminality

- "in-between phase"
-as it is transitional, a person has a different status than that of a "normal" social life
-Liminality is often the most striking and potentially the most uncomfortable) stage in a rite of passage, because you are "between" not totally in the new identity and not totally out of the old one
-learning (enculturation) is occurring, often on a constant basis

Stage 3 of Rite of Passage

Incorporation

Incorporation

-re-entering society with a changed status
-things are not the same as they were before
-new identity/skill/experience with which you may be treated differently
-helping others go through their ritual with your knowledge

Give an example of a rite of passage

Marriage
Separation: leaving the single life
Liminality: preparation for the marriage (bachelor/bachelorette parties, ceremonies, etc.)
Incorporation: marriage is legally/religiously/culturally recognized

circle

woman

triangle

man

square

individual regardless of sex, could be nonbinary, gender nonconforming, or gender fluid

/

deceased

I

descent including adopton

=

married

=/

divorced

ego

The person that we trace from in a kin group

Nuclear Family

Parents and children who often live in the same house

Expanded Family Household

Household including relatives other than (but still including) a married couple and their children

Extended Family Household

Household including 3+ generations

Family of orientation

The nuclear family into which one is born and grows up in

Family of procreation

The nuclear family established when one is married and has children

Lineal relatives

the ego's direct ancestors and descendants (parents and children)

Collateral relatives

relatives outside ego's direct line (siblings and grandkids)

Affinal

related by marriage (husband/wife, brother-in-law)

Cross cousins

the children of a brother and a sister. Your mother's brother's children, or your father's sister's children

Parallel cousins

the children of two brothers or two sisters If you were considering your parallel cousins it would be your mother's sister's children or your father's brother's children

Bifurcate merging kinship terminology

Mother refers to the genealogical mother and any sisters she has (they are also "mother") while any brothers she has are "uncle", father refers to the genealogical father as well as his brothers (they are also father) while any sisters he has are "aunt"

Generational kinship terminology

All direct relatives to the genealogical couple are also mother and father, this does not refer to people who marry in

Patrilineal

Line traced through men, people belong to their father's group for life

Matrilineal

Line traced through women, people belong to their mother's group for life

Chosen family

"The concept of fictive kin lost credibility with the advent of symbolic anthropology and the realization that all kinship in some sense is fictional, that is meaningfully constituted rather than "out there" in a positivist sense
Significantly, chosen families do not directly oppose genealogical modes of reckoning kinship. Instead, they undermine procreation's status as a master term imagined to provide the template for all possible kinship relations
Kath Weston argues that forms of family that are not consanguineal or affinal are best perceived as transformations and not derivatives (i.e., they are not imitations of a more "ideal"type of family).
•Weston's fieldwork explored gay and lesbian families, with love and/or choice as a sufficient criterion for kinship.

What marriage does

Establishes legal parentage, gives spousal rights (regarding sexuality, property, labor, etc.), establishes joint property, establishes a new socially significant relationship that is affinity-based between spouses and relatives (joins families)

Same-Sex marriage

Far from seeking to devalue marriage, the petitioners seek it for themselves because of their respect—and need—for its privileges and responsibilities. The ancient origins of marriage confirm its centrality, but it has not stood in isolation from developments in law and society. The history of marriage is one of both continuity and change. That institution—even as confined to opposite-sex relations—has evolved over time......[changes to marriage] worked deep transformations in its structure, affecting aspects of marriage long viewed by many as essential.

Exogamy

Marrying outside one's group (local group or family group)
Linked people in a wider social network and allows new networks and partnerships to form, also prevents incest which is often restricted

Endogamy

Marriage of people in the same social group. Most societies are relatively endogamous, even though there are no formal rules about it.
This is NOT the same as incest, as it refers to a social group and not a family group
This preserves existing alliances among groups.

example of endogamy

Amish, marrying within the same religious group if this is valued, marrying within the same social groups

Royal endogamy

Endogamous marriages permitted among royalty which might otherwise be considered incestuous

Lobola

gift from the husband and his kin to the wife and her kin

Dowry

gifts to the husband's family from the wife's group

Sororate

a widower marries the sister of his deceased wife

Levirate

a widow marries the brother of her deceased husband

Plural marriage/polygamy

Having more than two spouses simultaneously

Polygyny

having more than one wife at the same time (common)

Polyandry

having more than one husband at the same time (rare)

Serial monogamy

Having more than one spouse consecutively (e.g., taking a new spouse multiple times after death or, more often, after divorce)

Colonialism

A major way in which core nations monopolize global networks is through colonialism, the political, social, economic, and cultural domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power for an extended time.
•Defined by the extraction of resources, wealth, people, and labor.
•Presence in a dominated territory by means of colonists and administrative personnel
Emphasis on action.

Imperialism

conscious policy aimed at seizing and ruling foreign territories and peoples
Emphasis on intent

World System Theory

"The idea that a discernable social system, based on wealth and power differentials, transcends individual countries."
•Basically, all the nation-states of the world are within a global system based on capitalism and marked by differences in wealth and power.
•This has existed since roughly the late 15th century

Core

The dominant position in the world system; nations with advanced systems of production
-monopolizes profitable activities like control of world finance
-greatest concentrations of capital

Semiperiphery

intermediate position between core and periphery
-produce and export industrialized goods and commodities, less power and/or economic dominance

Periphery

least privileged structural and economic positions
-largely produces raw materials, agricultural commodities, and/or human labor for export

What does the Flint Water crisis teach us about the world system

•Contamination of the drinking water in the city of Flint, Michigan with extremely high levels of lead.
•Accusations of environmental racism, disproportionate exposure of Flint's majority-nonwhite population to environmental and ecological hazards.
Just because the US is a core system doesn't mean that everyone here has a good time

What is the importance of trade networks to the development of the world system?

International trade existed long before the 15th century (or capitalism) but became extremely widespread afterward.
•Look at an item you have in front of you and think about the trade partners and international connections involved.These networks facilitate the flow of resources and the production of commodities, often to the benefit of core nations.
•This heightens inequalities and plays a part in systems of domination (like colonialism).

The Benin Bronzes

Pieces of figural sculpture that worked as historical records that came from the kingdom of Benin, In the disaster of Benin the Benin bronzes were taken by England, now since a majority of these sculptures reside in the British museums many Nigerians will never be able to see them as the museums that they reside in are not returning them to their historical origin

What museums have Benin Bronzes?

Many US museums but a majority of the benin bronzes are in the british museum

Leopold II and the "Congo Free State"

Leopold violently exploited the congo, he took ownership of it calling the congo free state, when it was discovered that congo had the largest reserves of what it took to make rubber he placed impossible quotas on the villages which if they were not met had violent and horrific consequences, eventually when these atrocities came to light he relinquished his ownership of it and the land was given to Belgium, this was met with praise from Belgium

Postcolonial

1. The "end" of the colonial period of European nations in the 20thcentury and its aftermath.
2. The conceptual reworking of institutions (like academia) with an eye toward contesting colonialism and imperialism.

Audre Lorde's "tools" argument

"The Master's tools will never dismantle the Master's house"
-Lorde is reminding feminist academics of the late 1970s to question racism and homophobia
-"academic arrogance" to discuss feminist theory without the input of non-white, non-heterosexual, and non-western women
-working within the patriarchal system makes it hard to contest the patriarchy

Linda Tuhiwai Smith's definition of and framing of decolonization

Decolonization is a process which engages with imperialism and colonialism at multiple levels. For researchers, one of those levels is concerned with having a more critical understanding of the underlying assumptions, motivations and values which inform research practices.

What does it mean to decolonize an academic discipline

"...we scrutinize our insides, what lies at the very core of ourselves as individuals and as a discipline, and bring it out into the light of day."

How decolonization can be applied to anthropological method

•Acknowledge and address colonial histories.
•Refute systems of producing knowledge that
produce inequality.
•Rethinking methodologies.
•Rethinking how we teach.
•Reckoning with how we understand our
goals and procedures.
•Embracing collaboration.