Essentials of Cultural Anthropology: Chapter 1 VOCAB

Ethnocentrism

The belief that one’s own cultural or way of life is normal and natural; using one’s own culture to evaluate and judge the practices and ideals of others.

Ethnographic Fieldwork

A primary research strategy in cultural anthropology involving living and interacting with a community of people over an extended period to better understand their lives.

Cross-Cultural & Comparative Approach

Method of which anthropologists compare practices across cultural to explore human similarities, differences, and the potential for human cultural expression.

Four-Field Approach

The use of several interrelated disciplines to study humanity: biological, archaeological, linguistic, and cultural anthropology.

Holism

The anthropological commitment to look at the whole picture of human life—culture, biology, history, and language—across space and time.

Cultural Anthropology

The study of people’s communities, behaviors, beliefs, and institutions, including how people make meaning as they live, work, and play together.

Participant Observation

An anthropological research strategy involving both participation in and observation of the daily life of the community/people being studied.

Ethnology

The analysis and comparison of ethnographic data across cultures.

Globalization

The worldwide intensification of interactions and increased movement of money, people, goods, and ideas within and across national borders.

Time-Space Compression

The rapid innovation of communication and transportation technologies associated with globalization that transforms the way people think about space (distances) and time.

Flexible Accumulation

The flexible strategies that corporations use to accumulate profits in an era of globalization, enabled by innovative communication and transportation strategies.

Increasing Migration

The accelerated movement of people within and between countries.

Uneven Development

The unequal distribution of the benefits of globalization.

Anthropocene

The current historical era in which human activity is reshaping the planet in permanent ways.

Climate Change

Changes to Earth’s climate, including global warming produced primarily by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases created by the burning of fossil fuels.

Sociolinguistics

Those who study language and its social and cultural contexts.

Historic Linguists

Those who study how language changes over time within a culture and how languages travel across cultures.

Historic Archaeology

The exploration of the more recent past through an examination of physical remains and artifacts as well as written and oral records.

Linguistic Anthropology

The study of human language in the past and present.

Prehistoric Archaeology

The reconstruction of human behavior in the distant past (before written records) through the examination of artifacts.

Achaeology

The investigation of the human past by means of excavating and analyzing artifacts.

Biological Anthropology

The study of humans particularly focused on how humans have evolved over time and adapted to their environments.

Paleoanthropology

The study of the history of human evolution through the fossil record.

Primatology

The study of nonhuman primates as well as primate fossils to better understand human evolution and early human behavior.