CA Exam 1 ( 2A )

100 vocabulary-style flashcards covering key terms, people, concepts, and readings from the notes on culture.

Culture (Tylor)

The complex whole including knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and other capabilities acquired by humans as members of society.

Unilineal evolution

The idea that cultures progress through the same stages; criticized today for oversimplified scientific progressions.

Edward Tylor

19th‑century anthropologist who defined culture and critiqued unilineal evolution.

Franz Boas

Founder of North American four-field anthropology; argued biology does not determine culture.

Kwakiutl

Indigenous Pacific Northwest group studied by Boas (Kwakwakaʼwakw).

Race, Language, and Culture (Boas)

Boas’s work arguing that biology does not determine culture.

Zora Neale Hurston

Boas’s student; author of Mules and Men and Their Eyes Were Watching God; studied African American folklore.

Mules and Men

Hurston’s 1935 collection of Negro folklore.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Hurston’s 1937 novel exploring African American life.

"spy glass of Anthropology"

Hurston’s phrase describing using anthropology to view one’s own culture and others critically.

Clifford Geertz

Anthropologist who defined culture as a semiotic concept and an interpretive enterprise.

Culture as semiotic concept

View of culture as webs of significance created and interpreted by people.

Webs of significance

Geertz’s phrase for networks of meaning in culture.

Max Weber

Sociologist associated with meaning-centered analyses and interpretable webs of significance.

The phrase "webs of significance"

Idea that culture consists of meaningful systems created by humans.

Enculturation

Process by which culture is learned and transmitted across generations.

Implicit enculturation

Unspoken, informal transmission of cultural knowledge.

Explicit enculturation

Direct teaching of cultural norms and values.

Symbol

Verbal or nonverbal thing that stands for something else.

Verbal symbol

A symbol expressed in language.

Nonverbal symbol

A symbol expressed through gesture, action, or other nonverbal means.

Symbolic

Relating to symbols and symbolic meaning.

Society

Organized life in groups.

Shared

Society is something that is shared among its members.

Humans biocultural beings

Humans are biological and cultural beings; culture organizes nature.

Organizes nature

Culture shapes how humans interpret and interact with the natural world.

All-encompassing

Culture includes all facets of human practice, even those deemed trivial.

Patterned

Cultural features are patterned and regular.

Changes in one part affect other parts

Cultural traits are interconnected; changes ripple across the system.

Instrumental

Cultural features may be adaptive, maladaptive, or neutral in function.

Adaptive

Cultural trait that improves survival or reproduction.

Maladaptive

Cultural trait that hinders survival or reproduction.

Neutral

Cultural trait with no clear beneficial or detrimental effect.

Contested

Culture is normative and conservative, yet it changes through system and agency.

System

The organized structure of culture, society, and relations.

Agency

The actions individuals take to form or transform cultural identities.

Normative

Standards of what is considered proper within a culture.

Conservative

Tendency to preserve traditional norms and values.

Culture and social power

The relationship between cultural norms and the ability to influence others.

Humanization

The production and maintenance of humans, societies, and cultures via social power.

Kinship

Systems of family relationships that structure social life.

Transmission

The process of passing culture to the next generation.

Conceptualizing cultural ideas

Creating and organizing beliefs and ideologies.

Making objects

Producing material culture as part of human life.

Verbalizing ideas and symbols

Expressing cultural meanings through language and signs.

Transmitting culture to the next generation

Socialization and education of the young in cultural norms.

Dunbar’s number

The average number of stable social relationships a person can maintain.

Social intelligence

Ability to understand others’ thoughts and feelings; social cognition.

Neocortex

Brain region linked to higher cognitive functions and social complexity.

150

Approximate maximal stable social group size for humans.

65

Approximate maximal stable social group size for chimpanzees.

Social power

The ability to influence others for personal advantage.

Ideological power

Control over what people know or what they believe.

Economic power

Ability to direct the labor of others for advantage.

Political power

Centralized regulation of social life.

Military power

Organization of concentrated and lethal violence.

Functions of Culture

Roles culture serves, including regulation, maintenance, survival, and reproduction.

Regulation

Cultural norms govern behavior and social life.

Maintenance

Cultural practices preserve social order and identity.

Survival and reproduction

Cultural patterns that support continued life and reproduction.

Fitness enhancement

Cultural practices that improve biological fitness.

Adaptive

Traits that increase fitness or reproductive success.

Maladaptive

Traits that reduce fitness or reproductive success.

Neutral (in functions)

Traits with unclear impact on fitness.

Three Cultural Worlds

A framework distinguishing worlds by how they organize power: tribal, imperial, commercial.

Tribal

World organized around kin-based social structures.

Imperial

World with centralized governance (chiefdoms/states).

Commercial

Global capitalist system organized around markets.

Ethnocentrism

Judging other cultures by the standards of one’s own.

Cultural Relativism

Judging a culture by its own standards.

Abu-Lughod

Scholar who critiques universal rescue narratives about Muslim women.

Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?

Abu-Lughod’s critique of Western feminist intervention in Muslim women’s lives.

The Nacirema

Satirical term for Americans used to critique ethnocentrism in Miner’s piece.

Miner

Author of Body Ritual among the Nacirema; anthropologist who analyzes American rituals.

Body Ritual among the Nacirema

1956 article describing elaborate American body rituals as exotic rituals.

The ritual life of the Nacirema

Descriptive overview of daily rituals framed as magical acts.

The American

Subject/people depicted in the Nacirema piece; Americans as culture under study.

The Shrines

Home ritual spaces where ritual acts and body care occur.

Charm-boxes

Containers with magical charms used in daily Nacirema rituals.

Holy-Mouth-Men

Ritual specialists who perform oral hygiene rites.

Latipso temple

Healing temple for elaborate rites; a key Nacirema ritual site.

Make the familiar strange

Anthropological strategy to view everyday practices as unusual to reveal assumptions.

Make the strange familiar

Process of interpreting unfamiliar beliefs within their own cultural framework.

Reading critically

Analytical approach to ethnographic texts to uncover biases and assumptions.

Our review of the ritual life

Phrase illustrating ethnographic examination of ritual practices.

Magic-ridden

Descriptive phrase for the Nacirema’s ritual life as highly magical.

Burdens they have imposed upon themselves

Metaphor for self-chosen ritual systems in the Nacirema text.

The American perspective on culture

Using American rituals as lenses to critique culture more broadly.

The American body care system

Elaborate routines framed as magical within American culture.

Reading as critical practice

Critical reading as a method in ethnography.

Cultural critique via satire

Using satire to reveal ethnocentrism in anthropology.

Ethnography

The systematic study of people and cultures through fieldwork.

Body rituals

Repeated, ritualized practices surrounding the body.

Ethnographic lens

The perspective used to study cultures via fieldwork and observation.

Culture as learned

Culture is acquired through learning, not innate.

Cultural transmission

Passing cultural knowledge and practices across generations.

Symbolic meaning

Meaning assigned to symbols within a culture.

Social relations

Interpersonal connections that structure society.

Cultural identity

How individuals identify with a culture through practices and beliefs.

Cultural analysis

Interpretive study of patterns, symbols, and practices in culture.