ANTH-147 Midterm Terms

Culture

an ongoing individual and collective process through which participants make meaning out of ordinary activities and conditions

Disease

observable, measurable, pathological abnormalities, characterized by specific signs and symptoms, strictly biological and clinical in nature

Illness

lived experiences of not being healthy, or “normal:

Symbols

verbal or non-verbal, have no existence “out there” on their own outside of interpretive processes we give them meaning

Emic

the way things are, native perspective

Etic

the way “those” people see those things, outsider perspective

Shamanism

a spiritual practice where an intermediary party enters the spirit world to treat an ailment

Performative Efficacy

the act of doing and completing a healing ritual can itself lead to transformation, regardless of its technical effects

Medicalization

the process by which aspects of human experiences become defined and treated as medical problems requiring medical treatment

Ontology

our assumptions about reality

Epistemology

the way we construct and experience reality based on cultural and learned modes of perception and practice

Institution

a set of behaviors seen by members as organized and connected

Structural Violence

the mechanisms through which large-scale social forces crystallize into the sharp, hard surfaces of individual suffering

Symbolic Violence

the ingrained, almost unconscious modes of cultural/social domination that confirm people’s places in hierarchies of power