Cultural Anthropology Vocabulary

Flashcards for Cultural Anthropology Lecture Notes

Cultural Anthropology

The study of humanity, encompassing everything that makes us human, studied through culture, linguistics, biology, and archeology.

Biological Anthropology

The study of human origins, evolution, and variation, including extinct human species.

Archaeology

The study of the material past through excavation.

Linguistic Anthropology

The study of human language.

Applied Anthropology

The application of anthropological theories, methods, and findings to solve practical problems.

Culture

A set of beliefs, practices, and symbols that are learned and shared within a group.

Cultural Relativism

Understanding others from the perspective of their own culture.

Ethnocentrism

The belief that one’s own culture is superior to others.

The Other

People whose customs, beliefs, or behaviors are different from one’s own.

Exoticism

Attributing stereotypes to a person based on their appearance, as out of the ‘norm’.

Armchair Anthropology

Measuring another culture from one’s own vantage point.

Cultural Evolutionism

Incorrect belief that human groups go through stages of savagery, to barbarism, to civilization.

Participant-Observation

Traveling to a location, living among people, observing their day-to-day lives.

Functionalism

Cultural traditions developed as a response to basic human needs.

Structural-Functionalism

Social structures serve to create social stability over time.

Enculturation

The process of learning culture as it is transmitted by others.

Holism

Considering the entire context of a society, including its history.

Ethnography

Based on participant-observation; generating descriptive accounts of culture, with theory.

Thick Description

The in-depth study of the meanings of everyday practices in context.

Emic Perspective

An insider's perspective.

Etic Perspective

An outsider's perspective.

Sociolinguistics

Study of language variation and its social context.

Registers

Formality of speech.

Code Switching

Use of several varieties of language in interactions.

Economic Anthropology

How humans work to obtain the material necessities such as food, clothing, and shelter.

Modes of Production

Ways of organizing production, including domestic, tributary, and capitalist modes.

Political Economy

Context of economic relations within states and social structures, political processes, and cultural values.

Structural Violence

How a social structure or institution harms people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs.

Consumption

The process of buying, eating, or using a resource, food, commodity or service.

Commodity

A good/object that is produced for sale or exchange for other goods/objects.

Power

The ability to induce behavior of others specified in ways by means of coercion or physical force.

Authority

The ability to induce behaviors of others by persuasion.

Legitimacy

The perception that an individual has a valid right to leadership.

Socio-cultural Integration

Study of social structures, cultural beliefs and practices to understand how these function as a whole, mesh together, interconnected.

Bands

Small groups of people (under 100) with few differences between members of wealth, status, power.

Tribe

Defined groups linked together, typically 100-5000 people, without a centralized government.

Chiefdom

Greater differentiation between individuals and their kin groups, hierarchy of prestige.

State

Political power is centralized in a government that has a monopoly over the legitimate use of force.

Nation

A group connected by language, territorial base, history, political organization.

Status

A culturally designated position a person occupies in a particular setting.

Role

The set of behaviors expected of a person who occupies a particular status.

Kinship

Culturally recognized ties between members of a family, including blood, marriage, and chosen ties.

Descent/Lineage

How cultures recognize kinship through matrilineal, patrilineal, or bilateral lines.

Nuclear Family

Two generations.

Extended Family

At least three generations.

Serial Monogamy

Marriage to a succession of spouses, one at a time.

Polygamy

Plural marriages of either multiple wives or multiple husbands.

Polygyny

Men w/ more than 1 wife.

Polyandry

Women w/ more than 1 husband.

Sex

Biological category based on physiology assigned at birth.

Gender

Social and cultural status, roles, expectations, and identities associated with being male, female, non-binary, or another gender.

Sexuality

Emotional, romantic, sexual attraction to others.

Gender Ideology

Set of ideas about the categories of gender, and the beliefs, behaviors, and meanings associated with each gender.

Heteronormativity

Often-unnoticed system of rights and privileges that accompany normative sexual choices and family formation.

Transgender People

Experience their gender identity as different from their assigned sex at birth.

Race

A socially constructed concept with important effects on people’ lives.

Ethnicity

Identification with, an attachment to, a particular ethnic group.

Symbolic Ethnicity

Expressive limited displays of ethnic pride for public display.

Ethnogenesis

Gradual emergence of new ethnicities in response to changing social circumstances.

Globalization

The intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.

Neoliberalism

Political philosophy, free market capitalism.

Neocolonialism

Economic, political, cultural, or other pressures to control or influence other countries.

Ethnoscapes

Movements of people.

Ideoscapes

Movements of belief systems.

Mediascapes

Movements of representational & communicative practices.

Technoscapes

Movements of technologies.

Financescapes

Movements of capital.

Anthropocene

Geological period defined by the footprint/effects of human activities.

Ethnoecology

Use knowledge of plants, animals, and ecosystems by traditional societies.

Ethnobotany

Study of traditional uses of plants for food, construction, dyes, crafts, medicine.

Cultural Performance

Framed as a performance (being someone else) within a limited time span.

Performing Culture

Everyday expressions of culture.

Presentation of Self

Managing the impressions of others.

Gender Performativity

People do patented things over time to signify the social construct of gender, male or female.