Anth 1000 -- Berk EX. 1

Anthropology

Distinctive comparative, cross-cultural perspective on human behavior, thought, and culture

Holism

Refers to the study of the whole of the human conditions:
Past
Present
Future
Biology
Society
Language
Culture

Enculturation

Process of how we learn our culture through practices or beliefs
Ex. baby girl\= pink

Four fields of anthropology

o Culture- study of human society and culture
o Archaeological- reconstructs, describes, and interprets human behavior and culture patterns through material remains
o Biological/Physical- human biological diversity in time and space
o Linguistics- studies language in its social and cultural context, across space and over time.

Applied Anthropology

Practicing anthropology

Qualitative

-anthropology is qualitative
_ quality of the amount

Quantitative

The amount

Ethnology

Based on cross cultural comparison and "examines, compares, analyzes, and interprets the results of ethnography."

Ethnography

Based on fieldwork and "provides an account of a particular community, society, or culture"

Bronislaw Malinowski

Anthropologist who spent time in Tobriand island, made long lasting conclusions about methods. He developed an ethnographic program by
Cutting yourself off from your own kind of people
Immersing yourself in the social world you're studying
Finding patterns, structures, "anatomy" of social life
Filling in details of everyday life, the "imponderabilia" through close observation
Collecting a "corpus inscriptionum" through close observation

Participant observation

Ethnographers take part in community life as they study it

Rapport

Good, friendly working relationship based on personal contact

Key cultural consultants

Individuals the ethnographer gets to know in the field, the people who teach them about their culture and provide mic perspective

Emic

Research strategy that focuses on how local people think

Etic

Research strategy that focuses on what ethnographers notice and considers important

Genealogical methods

Ethnographic technique that developed notation and symbols to deal with kinship, descent, and marriage

Life history

Reveals how specific people perceive, react to, and contribute to changes that affect their lives

Forensic anthropology

Determines cause of death and analyzes, recovers, and identifies human remains

Longitudinal research

Long term study of an area or a population usually based on repeated visits

Problem-Oriented Research

A type of anthropological research designed to solve a particular societal problem rather than to test a theory

Multi-Sited Ethnography

Studying people through time and in multiple places

Team research

Coordinated research by multiple ethnographers

Ethics

Reflects general moral principles of what is bad and what is good in terms of what one should not do and what one should do as a professional in the discipline

Informed Consent

Agreement to take part in the research -after having been informed about its nature, procedures, and possible impacts

Naïve Realism

The belief that people everywhere see the world in the same way

Definition of Culture

E.B. Tylor - "Culture, or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society

Distinctive Features of Culture

Learned- human capacity to use symbols
Shared- saying dog in different languages but it refers to the same thing
Symbolic-flags, golden chains
Shapes and channels nature- cultural traditions that have converted natural acts into cultural customs
All-encompassing- features that are sometimes regarded as trivial or unworthy of serious study
Integrated- patterned systems
Adaptive/Maladaptive-fulfill their basic biological needs for food, drink, shelter, comfort, and reproduction
Changing- its fluid
Inclusive/Exclusive- gender, race, define what you are by what you aren't

Ethnocentrism

Tendency to view ones's own culture as superior and to apply ones own cultural values in judging the behavior and beliefs of people raised in other cultures.

Cultural Relativism

View point that behavior in one culture should not be judged by the standards of another culture

Diffusion

Borrowing of traits between cultures; typically indirect

Acculturation

Ongoing exchange of cultural features that result when groups have continuous firsthand contact

Independent Invention

Process by which humans innovate,creatively finding solutions to problems

Globalization

Processes that work transnationally to promote change in a world in which nations and people are increasingly interlinked and mutually dependent

international culture

extends beyond and across national boundaries

national culture

Beliefs, learned behavior patterns, values, and institutions that are across national boundaries

subcultures

Associated with particular groups in the same complex society

Symbol

Signs that have no necessary or natural connection to the things that stand for or signify

Cultural Dimensions

Universality-Found in every culture
Generality-Common to several but not all human groups
Particularity-Unique to certain cultural traditions

primate call system

The natural communication systems of other primates (monkeys and apes)

Non-Human Primate Language (e.g. Kanzi, Koko, Washoe, and Lucy)

Other primate species rely on call systems that use a particular sound associated with a particular circumstance. They have a fixed and immediate relationship to what they signify

Distinctive features of language

Cultural transmission- passed on through learning
Productivity- combining signs to create new meanings
Displacement-ability to talk about things that are not present
Conventionality- The notion that, in human language, words are only arbitrarily or conventionally connected to the things for which they stand

Lexicon

The total stock of words in a language

FoxP2

A mutated gene that lets humans speak / chimps have a variant of this gene that hinders their ability to talk

nonverbal communication

Expressions, gestures, stances, and movements we use to communicate

focal vocabulary

specialized sets of terms and distinctions that are particularly important to certain groups
Ex. soda/pop

syntax

a. Part of grammar that has to do with the arrangement of words to form phrases and sentences

semantics

Subsystem of a language that relates words to meaning

phoneme

A sound contrast that makes a difference, that differentiates meaning

minimal pairs

Words that resemble each other in all but one sound
Ex: pit vs. bit

morpheme

Smallest unit of language that has meaning

phonology

the sound system of language

morphology

System for creating words from sounds

Noam Chomsky and universal grammer

Argued that the human brain contains a limited set of rules for organizing language, so that all languages have a common structural basis. Ex. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously (makes no sense but it's a sentence)

deep structure

your thought (objects)

surface structure

the representation of your thought (sentence formed)

sapir-whorf hypothesis

a. Argued that the grammatical categories of particular languages lead their speakers to think about things in different ways

style shifts

vary speech in different context

historical linguistics

Study relationships among languages to better understand the histories and migrations of those who speak them

sociolinguistics

investigates relationships between social and linguistic variation

diglossia

high and low variants of the same language
-ex: german and flemish both speak belgium but in different dialects

symbolic capital

Having a certain dialect can help you in life

black english vernacular (BEV)

Relatively uniform dialect spoken by the majority of black youth in most parts of the U.S.

American Tongues

Shows the different accents and vocab of people all around the U.S. and peoples' judgments of other accents / the guy from Boston, girls from New Orleans, guy from Texas, people from Chicago, people from Mid-West

Human Biological diversity

Race as a biological concept has been discredited

Ethnic Group

Members that share certain beliefs, values, habits, customs and norms because of their common background

Ethnicity

Identification with, and feeling apart of, an ethnic group and exclusion from certain other groups because of this affiliation

race

When an ethnic group is assumed to have a biological basis

racism

discrimination against a group

prejudice

Devaluing a group because of its assumed behavior, values, capabilities, or attributes

stereotypes

fixed ideas about what the members of a group are like

discrimination

policies and practices that harm a group and its members

thomas theorem

if men define situations as real they are real in their consequences

race and ethnicity as social constructions

Ideologies of difference, racial or ethnic or both, have led to conflict and violence fueled by prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination

genocide

Most extreme form of ethnic discrimination, where you eliminate an entire group
Ex. Jews in Nazi Germany

ethnocide

Dominant group tries to destroy the cultures of certain ethnic group or force them to adopt the dominant culture

Assimilation

The process of change that a minority ethnic group may experience when it moves to a country where another culture dominates

minority groups

subordinate group having inferior power and less secure access to resources

Majority Groups

superordinate, dominant, controlling

Social Stratification

Sharp social divisions based on unequal access to wealth and power

Hypodescent

Divides American society into groups that have been unequal in their access to wealth, power, and prestige

Burakumin in Japan

A group of people that look the same as other Japanese but are isolated because of their ancestry

race in brazil

Brazilians have more specific classifications / can change how you're classified (achieved)

benedict anderson

Came up with the term "Imagined Communities"

Nation-States as Imagined Communities

Most of their members will never meet.

Characteristics of a Nation

Imagined, limited, sovereign, and a community

plural society

Where groups maintain their ecological/economic specializations so that competition and antagonism between them is minimized

Metaphors for Assimilation / Multiculturalism

"melting pot"
"tossed salad"

Multiculturalism

View of cultural diversity as something good and desirable

Race: The Power of an Illusion

About how certain races have been classified and how they don't get the same privileges and rights of the Caucasian or white race

creationism

biblical worldview,god created universe and all living things

Catastrophism

Developed as an alternative attempt to make sense of the fossil record

evolutionism

Assumes that existing animal species evolved gradually out of common ancestors

uniformitarianism

Long term change in geological form

darwin/ Wallace and natural selection

These people presented a joint paper to London's Linnaean society that unveiled their theory of natural selection.

Lamarckianism vs. Darwinism

Lamarckianism: wrong, through continuous stretching trunks get longer

Darwinism: right, long trunks survive and reproduce

mendelian gentetics

a. Studies the ways in which chromosomes transmit genes across the generations

population genetics

Investigates natural selection and other causes of genetic variation, stability, and change in breeding populations
Ex: sickle cell anemia

gene

Basic hereditary unit that is made up of DNA molecules

allele

biochemically different alleys of same gene

recessive

Genetic trait that is typically masked