IB Social/Cultural Anthropology Vocabulary - Set 1

Acculturation

Cultural change related to contact with another culture

*Belief and Knowledge*

A set of convictions, values, and viewpoints regarded as “the truth” and shared by members of a social group. These are underpinned and supported by known cultural experience

*Change*

The alteration or modification of cultural or social elements in a society. May be due to internal dynamics within a society, or the result of contact with another culture, or a consequence of globalization

Cultural relativism

Not making value judgments about cultural differences; understanding a different culture in its context

*Culture*

Refers to organized systems of symbols, ideas, explanations, beliefs, and material production that humans create and manipulate in the course of their daily lives. Includes the customs by which humans organize their physical world and maintain their social structure. More recent approaches recognize that they are not static, homogenous or bounded but dynamic and fluid. Refers to the shared social construction of meanings, but simultaneously is often a site of contested meanings. These recent formulations of the concept recognize that it may be the subject of disagreement and conflict within and among societies, and this disagreement may include the definition itself

Enculturation

The gradual acquisition of the characteristics and norms of a culture or group. The transmission of culture from one generation to the next

Ethnicity

A social group is connected by a shared understanding of cultural identity

Ethnocentrism

The tendency to view the world only from the perspective of one’s own culture; the inability to understand cultures different from one’s own

Ethnography

Writing culture; articles and books written by anthropologists following fieldwork research; the process of participant observation or fieldwork

Exclusion

The failure of society to provide certain individuals and groups with those rights and benefits normally available to its members.

Family

A term covering a range of meanings in terms of the relatedness and connection of people. It may refer to a domestic group or household, or a wider kinship network.

Fieldwork

When an anthropologist becomes immersed in the local life of a group of people for the purpose of learning about their culture

Holism

The whole of a social system is identified as being more than just the individuals who participate in it

*Identity*

Refers either to the individual’s private or personal view of self—this is sometimes referred to as the “moi"—or the view of an individual in the eyes of the social group. Also refers to the group identity, which may take the form of religious \[term\], ethnic \[term\], or national \[term\] for example

Kinship

The web or pattern of social relationships, which connects people through descent or marriage, although other forms of social connection may be included

*Materiality*

Objects, resources and belongings have cultural meaning, “the social life of things”, and are embedded with all kinds of social relations and practices. Some anthropologists think that human experience can be understood through the study of material objects

Nature/Culture

The meaning of \[term\] is continuously negotiated in relation to its supposed counterpart, human culture and society

Personhood

Culturally constructed concept of the individual human being, the “self”

*Power*

An essential part of social relations and can be considered as a person’s or group’s capacity to influence, manipulate or control others and resources. In its broadest sense, it can be understood as involving distinctions and inequalities between members of a social group. Some approaches focus on structural \[term\] and the capacity of \[term\] to produce subjectivities

Self

The product of social interaction and not the biological preconditions of that interaction

*Social relations*

Any relationship between two or more individuals in a network of relationships. Involves an element of individual agency as well as group expectations and form the basis of social organization and social structure. They pervade every aspect of human life and are extensive, complex, and diverse

*Society*

Refers to the way in which humans organize themselves in groups and networks. Created and sustained by social relationships among persons and groups. The term can also be used to refer to a human group that exhibits some internal coherence and distinguishes itself from other such groups

*Symbolism*

The study of the significance that people attach to objects, actions, and the processes creating networks of symbols through which they construct a culture’s web of meaning

The Other

Anthropologists use this term to describe the way people who are members of a particular social group perceive other people who are not members

The Self

The socially constructed understanding of individual and cultural identity that, in people’s thinking, distinguishes them from “the Other”