IB Anthropology Terms 1-50

Acculturation

Cultural change related to contact with another culture

Agency

The capacity of human beings to act in meaningful ways that affect their own lives and those of others. May be constrained by class, gender, religion, and social and cultural factors. This term implies that individuals have the capacity to create, change, and influence events.

Agency-centered

Anthropological research that emphasizes agency focuses on humans acting to promote their interests and the interests of groups to which they belong

Alterity

“Otherness”. Used in anthropology to describe and comment on the construction and experience of cultural difference.

Analytical categories

An outsider’s view of a culture, sometimes referred to as an “etic” view: classifying and understanding traits as representing cross-culturally applicable terms and categories rather than culturally specific meanings

Authority

Power is exercised with the consent of others

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

Biomedicine

A term used in medical anthropology for conventional western medicine

Biopsychosocial model

Interactions between biological, psychological, and social factors determine the cause, manifestation, and outcome of wellness and disease

Capitalism

An economic and political system in which a society’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state

Causation

The capacity of one cultural feature to influence another

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

Class

Division of a people in a society based on social and economic status

Classification

Assigning common knowledge to describe a large number of people or things as belonging to a recognizable system

Cohesion-centered

Some anthropologists see cohesion and consensus as central to proper functioning of society and culture. Many influenced by Emile Durkheim who said society could only function if members experienced “solidarity” or a moral duty to work for maintenance of society

Colonization

The practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically, socially, and politically

Commodification/commodified body

The transformation of goods and services, as well as concepts that normally may not be considered goods, into a commodity, something of value

Communication

Language influences social life, forms social identity and groups membership, organizes large-scale cultural beliefs and ideologies, and develops a common cultural representation of natural and social worlds

Community

A group of people who share a common interest, or a common ecology and locality, or a common social system or structure. Anthropologists have traditionally studied communities through the lens of ethnographic fieldwork

Comparative

Comparison of the diverse and various ways that people make sense of their world brings anthropologists greater understanding of communities, cultures, and societies

Conflict

Disagreements between individuals, groups, or cultures or societies may result from differences in interests, values, or actions

Consensus

Cultural values and beliefs are learned and shared to a significant extent across a society and there is a level of agreement about these values and beliefs

Consumption

The use that people make of the objects associated with them. The use can be mental or material; the objects can be things, ideas, or relationships

Contextualization

Making sense of anthropological data in terms of the situation or location in which it was obtained

Cosmology

Social groups perceive the universe and describe their relationship with it in different ways

Cosmopolitanism

Communities include individuals who live together with cultural difference

Cultural boundaries

An essentialist view presumes fixed boundaries for a culture; a constructivist view assumes individuals and groups have the capacity to define and redefine their cultural identities and spheres of influence

Cultural capital

The knowledge and experience individuals acquired through socialization which enables successful interaction in their social world

Cultural relativism

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

Culture

The organized system of symbols, ideas, explanations, beliefs, and material production of humans; customs organize physical world and maintain their social structure; cultures are dynamic and fluid

Development

More economically developed societies providing assistance and resources to less economically developed societies; self directed industrial, technological, and economic improvement

Diachronic

perspective seeking to understand society and culture as the product of time and internal and external forces; historical

Dialectic

Discussion and reasoning by dialogue as a method of intellectual investigation

Diaspora

The dispersal of people from their homelands into new, migrated communities in other places

Discourse

Written or spoken intellectual communication or debate in a discipline such as anthropology

Embodiment

Process where people know, feel, and think about social world through the body

Empirical

Anthropological data is acquired through first hand participant observation rather than secondary research

Enculturation

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

Environment

Communities or societies may have a complicated relationship with the physical setting in which they live

Essentialism

Reducing description of a social group or culture to a limited set of characteristics, ignoring individual differences and agency

Ethics

The principles of conduct governing an individual or group; concerns for what is right or wrong, good or bad

Ethnicity

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

Ethnobiology

The study of how human cultures interact with and use plants and animals

Ethnobotany

The study of a people’s knowledge of plants and their agricultural customs

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

Ethnopsychology

The study of how cultural beliefs and values influence individual psychology and behavior within a specific group or society. Cultures vary in the conceptual explanation and sociocultural importance of concepts such as anger or love

Ethnozoology

The study of how human cultures interact with and use animals

Exchange

The transfer of things between social actors. The things can be human, material, or immaterial. Exchange is central to all people’s lives, but its consequences and elaborations are more marked in some cultures

Exclusion

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