Introduction to Anthropology: Nature, Nurture, Social Darwinism, and Colonialism

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms and concepts from Chapter 1 through Chapter 7 of the lecture transcript, including nature vs. nurture, social Darwinism, boundary maintenance, and colonialism.

Argument from Nature

The belief that human behavior is largely determined by fixed genetics and unchangeable traits, and that society should reflect these natural laws.

Argument from Nurture

The perspective that human behavior is primarily driven by culture, values, and choices, allowing humans to flexibly adapt to various conditions.

Special Biological Endowment

Clifford Geertz's concept describing the human biological capacity to make choices, enabling humans to write and rewrite their cultural instructions.

Social Darwinism

The dominant 19th-century Western social and political philosophy that applied natural biological laws to human societies, falsely asserting that superior races should dominate inferior ones.

Discrete Populations

Separate biological groups—referred to as races under Social Darwinism—into which humanity was falsely divided and ranked as more or less human.

First Critical Phase

The foundational era of anthropology at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries that was deeply tied to colonialism, ethnocentrism, and social Darwinism.

Sociology (18th-Century Origins)

A field created by 18th-century French academics to conduct a systematic study of human history and society, strictly focusing on Western Europeans.

The Other

A social construction in 19th-century anthropology used to categorize non-Western populations as being distinct from and inferior to fully civilized humans.

Social Construction

An identity, origin, or nature assigned to a group by outside observers—such as 19th-century Western anthropologists—rather than defined by the group itself.

Boundary Maintenance

The recognition and handling of physical, cultural, or behavioral differences among distinct human populations.

Neutral Boundary Maintenance

The simple, non-judgmental observation and acknowledgment of human diversity and differences.

Positive Boundary Maintenance

The view that human diversity is beneficial because it increases species survival through adaptability and enriches human life.

Negative Boundary Maintenance

An ethnocentric approach to human difference that treats non-conforming individuals or groups as inferior, abnormal, or less than fully human.

Us/Other Dichotomy

A mindset contrasting rational, scientific, historical 'real humans' ('Us') against irrational, superstitious, legend-bound, and child-like populations ('The Other').

Atlantic Slave Trade

The forced transport of millions of unpaid African laborers across the Atlantic Ocean, generating vast global wealth and establishing early colonial economies.

Middle Passage

The route across the Atlantic Ocean used during the slave trade to transport enslaved Africans to work in the Western Hemisphere.

Colonialism

The conquest, occupation, and exploitation of foreign territories and populations to control raw resources and generate wealth for an empire.

Berlin Conference of 1884

An 1884 meeting in Berlin, Germany, where European colonial powers carved up the African continent into artificial borders to prevent conflict among themselves.

Taming (Colonial Strategy)

The colonial method of subjugating indigenous populations to accept imperial authority without launching rebellions.

Training (Colonial Strategy)

The colonial process of conditioning indigenous groups into exploitable labor for mines, plantations, and urban construction.

Elimination (Colonial Strategy)

The colonial policy of physically killing or exterminating indigenous populations that could not be easily tamed or turned into exploitable labor.