Cultural Anthropology Review Flashcards

The flashcards cover key concepts and definitions from the lecture notes, focusing on cultural anthropology, modernity, statistics, evolution, livelihoods, the economy, kinship, social structure, gender, race, religion, human rights, and development.

What is cultural anthropology?

The study of the similarities and differences of living communities and cultural groups. It is about observation.

What does Universalism assert?

Certain values, rights, or truths apply universally to all people and cultures.

What does Relativism state?

Values and truths are relative to specific cultures, contexts, or individuals.

What does Modernity refer to?

Refers to the social, political, and cultural conditions that emerged in historical worlds that emerged globally.

What is Ethnography?

Ethnography is a detailed writing about culture and people.

List four characteristics of modernity.

Capitalism, Nation States, Industry/Technology, Colonialism

What is the academic usage of Modernity?

Society, economy, and culture since 1500

What knowledge is required in a modern world?

Territory (places), Population (people and cultures), Resources (things)

What does Holistic mean in Anthropology terminology?

Studying human societies and cultures by considering all aspects of a people's lives, including their biology, language, culture, and environment, as interconnected and influencing one another.

What are Encyclopedic Statistics?

Description images, focused on “General useful knowledge”

What are Enumerative Statistics?

Measurement, Numbers

What is Republic of Mexico?

Is the book name that Antonio Garcia Cubas wrote and a really good example of encyclopedic statistics

Who is Manuel Gamio?

An Anthropologist that criticized enumerative statistics stating that it is not enough knowledge about cultural “needs and aspirations” and called for encyclopedic statistics

What is Forjando Patria?

Manuel Gamio book, criticizing enumerative statistics

What is Historical particularism?

Particular cultures do things differently and at different times.

What is Cultural relativism?

Understanding societies in their own terms without imposing outside judgments.

What is Unilineal Social Evolution?

All human societies are marching to the same endpoint

Who is Lewis Henry Morgan?

An Armchair Anthropologist that believed that all human societies are marching to the same endpoint (Savagery> barbarism> civilization).

How did Morgan locate different people?

Technology to show how developed each society was

Who is Franz Boas?

He believed that all humans are like each other because they are humans, he studied human perception and created first US Anthropology department at Columbia U

What is Boas's Critique of Social Evolutionists?

No necessary path of development, Technologically less-complex societies were not at an “earlier” phase, against “armchair” anthropology, Fieldwork first, generalizations later

What is Boas's Critique of Museums?

Museums displays were too technology-centered, Similar artefacts did not mean same evolutionary stages, Museums displays should show peoples and cultures

Who is Francis Galton?

Well known statutision and Father of eugenics

What is Boas’ Legacy?

Cultural Anthropology, Responsive, relevant anthropology

What are the Basic Elements of Culture

Material (What We Make), Behavioral (What We Do), Beliefs (What We Think)

What is Ethnography?

Ethnography is a research method used by cultural anthropologists to study and describe cultures in detail and Involves immersive fieldwork, participant observation, and the collection of qualitative data.

What are the two different perspectives that come from ethnography?

Emic perspective and etic perspective

How did the Early english define the meaning of culture?

“cultivations”; Education; It was an activity of education or making things happen was an old understanding of the word culture

What does Nation (volk) mean?

Based in traditions and languages; Diversity of “folk” cultures

Who found many ways anthropologist used the word culture?

E.B. Tylor, Boas, Kroeber and Kluckholn, Clifford Geertz

What is Clifford Geertz’s definition of culture?

“… denotes an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols a system of inherited conceptions”

What are Problems with Geertz’s culture concept?

Cultures scene as bounded entities (people, place, culture), Culture concept not material enough, Too Unitary: shared by all?, Culture reflects and expresses difference and conflicts, Power

What does the Definition of Culture consist of?

Meaning, Patterned, Learned and Shared, Adaptive: responds to conditions, Always changing, Difference and conflict, Material

What does Livelihoods consist of?

Economic anthropology, “Social Reproduction”, How do people live?

What are the Categories of Livelihoods?

Foraging, Cultivation, Pastoralism

Which adaptive strategy is the original human?

Foraging

What are the two different types of Cultivation?

Horticulture and Agriculture

What is Horticulture?

Non-intensive form of cultivation

What is Agriculture?

Intensive cultivation: high input of labor, capital, and technology

What is Pastoralism?

Characterized by the practice of herding domesticated animals, typically involving the movement of people and their livestock in search of grazing land and water

What is Marshall Sahlins: definition of “original affluent society”?

Limited wants; well adapted

What are the key Features of agriculture?

Intensive in capital, labor, and technology, Shared infrastructure, Sedentarism, Increased yields = surplus

What's an example of Agriculture?

Tenochtitlan (1519) in Mexico, Chinampas (Floating Gardens, Canals (water pathways)

What are the different types of Mobility in Pastoralism?

Nomadism and Transhumance

What are the two perspectives on foragers?

Edge of survival: Always struggling, barely getting by. and Original affluent society: Met their needs with little effort.

What is Transhumance?

People move their animals between two set places depending on the season—for example, to highlands in the summer and lowlands in the winter.

Who are the Nuer?

People that live in flat grasslands with clay soil and whose life is centered on Cattle

What does Reciprocity consist of?

sharing, Goods are shared freely and Calculated sharing

What does Redistribution consist of?

a powerful social actor; Complex societies; Tribute, taxes

What does Markets consist of?

decentralized; Individual transactions with different people, people come together to exchange what they have to what they need; Buying and selling; Divisions of labor

What are the Basic assumptions of Neoclassical?

Self-interested rational individual, Maximization, Competition

What does Formalism mean in the Neoclassical POV?

Formalism is the theoretical perspective that the principles of neoclassical economics can be applied to our understanding of all human societies.

What does Inelastic demand mean?

food, water that humans needs to survive

What does Elastic demand mean?

luxury commodities that show our social position in our society, but we don’t need them to live.

What does Veblen Effect” (conspicuous consumption) mean?

Buying goods or services primarily to display wealth and status rather than for their practical utility

What are the Basic Assumptions of Political Economy?

Principal actors are social classes, Domination/power, focuses on Macroeconomics

Give an example of a Social Class.

Aztecs in mexico(Peasants, artisans, nobles, priests, warriors), Capitalist society (Workers, capitalist)

Discuss Domination and Power and give some examples.

Economy and society based on exploitation, Unsatable: classes at odds, Ideology

What is a Maale Mystery?

The Maale lives in Ethiopia, they grow foods. The dependency Ratio in between peasant families

What does Dependency Ratio mean?

Rational between consumers and workers in any given setting.

What is Dabo labor exchanges?

People are working for other people, People are helping each other out

What does Kinship consist of?

family (very small community); Humans are always social

What are the two main systems of Descent?

Matrilineal: through the mother’s side and Patrilineal: through the father’s side

What are types of Marriage?

Endogamy: marrying within your group. and Exogamy: marrying outside your group.

What is Gluckman's - “The Peace in the Feud?

Every society has conflict; what is defining is how you deal with it.

What is Community?

Opposed to “society”, Always seems to be a positive term, We each already have an idea of what community means, We always want more community

What does an Acephalous Society consist of?

There is no head, a small group that doesn’t have any formal centralized power. Groups like Foragers

What does Egalitarian Societies consist of?

Access to material resources for all, no one had power over others, and decisions are made collectively, promoting equality among members.

What is Culture?-, Ideology, “governmentality”

Culture can legitimate the existence of power and wealth amongst different groups

What are Stratified Societies?

Formal and permanent special/economic inequalities, Bureaucracies, Classes, Castes

What is Power?

The ability to influence people and/or shape social structures and processes

What is the Power distribution of Acephalous Societies?

Power is spread widely among members of a society

What is the Power distribution of Centralized Societies?

Power is concentrated in one or more socio cultural roles (president, prime minister, king, chief)

What does the informal position of “Big” Men consist of?

Help with disputes in the communities

what is a Age Set?

Grouping societies by age groups where each group fulfills specific societal roles

What can Agricultural Intensification lead to for Centralized Societies?

Accumulation of wealth and centralization of power.

What do States consists of?

Government control with economic extraction (taxes) and social control with law & policing

What are Power and Inequality?

Inequality= unequal distribution of resources and Inequity= unequal distribution of resources due to an unjust power imbalance

What is Patriarchy?

A system of social inequality based on gender in which power is assumed to be in the hands of men and characteristics associated with femininity are less valued.

In Anthropology, how is Marriage Defined?

A cultural union between two or more people that establishes rights and obligations between the people, their children, and family, including sex, labor, property, child rearing, exchange, and status

What is the difference between a Nuclear Family and an Extended family?

Nuclear Family:A household is comprised of parents + their dependent offspring and Extended family: A household is comprised of grandparents, their children, their spouses and children, etc

What does it mean that Biology is not Destiny?

You are born a certain way doesn't mean you have to act a certain way

What is Gender Stratification?

Refers to the unequal distribution of power, resources, and opportunities between people based on their gender.

What are Ethnology of Gender?

Men: Heavy work, hunting, Warfare and Women: Gathering, Child Rearing, Domestic activities

What do Foragers have little of??

Gender inequality,Public/private division,Gender roles

What is the Public - Private aspect in society?

Outside world vs the home and Outside work, like the government, has been taken over by men

What is the definition of Intersex in Biology?

People born with both male and female traits; it happens in about 1 in 2,000 births.

How do anthropologists understand inequality?

What is Scientific Racism?

Tried to justify racial hierarchies through pseudo-scientific methods (e.g., skull measurements, IQ)

what does it mean that all species originate in a single gene pool, not distinct races?

Darwin thought differently and stated Humans always assume an idea of groups and categories

What does separate “Races” consist of?

Africans, Asians and Europeans

What does race mean as Social/Cultural Construction?

People interpret biological difference as racial and Race is learned, internalized, and socially reproduced through Language

What is an opinion of skin color according to science?

A response to geography and UV exposure

What are Racial Formations

How does race get built into the world? ex: Colonial classification system which tied to rights/status

What are race as Social Construct?

A social category based on perceived physical differences, and historically used to rank and divide people.

What the main definition of Religion?

Set of beliefs, practices, and often a system of ethics and values related to the supernatural or spiritual realm

What the main functions of religion?

Search for order and meaning, Reduce anxiety, increase control, Reinforce or challenge social order

What are Revitalization Movements?

Moments where people had conflict in history like borderlands

What traits characterize Cargo Cults?

Great magical value assigned to Euroamerican goods, Syncretism, Resurrection and Big men and reciprocity

What traits characterize the Ghost Dance?

1880s: dispossession, settler colonialism; Indigenous people forced off land, killed Bison herd eradicated; Forced to practice agriculture