Cultural Anthropology Midterm

Prof Cushman- Rowan University

The study of humans, their societies, and cultures across time and space

Cultural Anthropology

Cultural anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and biological/physical anthropology

Four Fields of Anthropology

Studies human culture, beliefs, and behaviors

Cultural Anthropology

Studies past cultures through material remains

Archaeology

Studies language and its role in culture

Linguistic Anthropology

Studies human evolution and biological variation

Biological/Physical Anthropology

The outdated belief that all societies progress along one single path toward civilization

Unilineal Evolution

The idea that cultures evolve along many different paths, adapting to local conditions

Multilineal Evolution

Early scholars who studied cultures from secondhand accounts without doing fieldwork

Armchair Anthropologists

Father of American anthropology; promoted fieldwork and cultural relativism, rejecting racist evolutionist theories

Franz Boas

A system of learned, shared, and symbolic ideas and behaviors that people use to interpret experience and generate behavior

Culture

On-site research to collect data about cultures

Fieldwork

A detailed written description of a culture based on fieldwork

Ethnography

Comparative study of cultures using ethnographic data

Ethnology

People in a community who share detailed cultural knowledge with anthropologists

Key Informants

Living and participating in a community while studying it

Participant Observation

Asking questions to gather cultural information

Interviews

Studying the same group over a long period

Longitudinal Research

Belief that people everywhere see the world in the same way

Naive Realism

Judging another culture by the standards of one’s own

Ethnocentrism

Understanding a culture on its own terms without judgment

Cultural Relativism

Understanding culture from an insider’s view

Emic Perspective

Understanding culture from an outsider’s analytical view

Etic Perspective

What people actually do in practice

Real Culture

What people say they should do

Ideal Culture

Unspoken cultural knowledge, learned implicitly

Tacit Culture

Cultural knowledge people can talk about

Explicit Culture

High art or refinement

Culture (Capital C)

Everyday customs, practices, and beliefs

culture (lowercase c)

Lee’s “Christmas in the Kalahari,” Gmelch’s “Nice Girls Don’t Talk to Rastas,” and Bohannan’s “Shakespeare in the Bush” show cultural misunderstandings caused by assuming universal meanings

Naive Realism in Articles

The study of language and communication

Linguistics

Descriptive, historical, and sociolinguistics

Subfields of Linguistics

The smallest unit of meaning in a language

Morpheme

The smallest unit of sound that can change meaning

Phoneme

Rules for combining words into sentences

Syntax

The full structure and rules of a language

Grammar

A regional or social variation of a language

Dialect

The idea that language influences how people think and perceive the world

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Ability to talk about things not present in time or space

Displacement

Objects or sounds with meaning given by culture

Symbols

Nonverbal forms of communication such as gestures and tone

Gesture-Call System

Automatic responses like laughter or crying

Signals

Communication through body language, facial expressions, and gestures

Non-Linguistic Communication

Idea that women often take a “one-down” position in conversation to maintain connection, while men compete for status

Tannen’s One-Down Hypothesis

The natural world in which humans live and adapt

Environment

How humans adjust to environments through culture, technology, and organization

Cultural Adaptation

Ways societies get food and resources

Subsistence Practices

Mobile lifestyle depending on wild plants and animals (False: not sedentary)

Hunting and Gathering

Intensive farming with permanent fields (False: work more than hunter-gatherers)

Agriculture

Raising animals for food and trade, found worldwide (True)

Pastoralism

Small-scale gardening with some reliance on wild foods (False: not only what they plant)

Horticulture

Showed the !Kung were well-nourished and peaceful, challenging stereotypes about hunter-gatherers using calorie and workload data

Lee’s Second Article

Showed how destroying their rainforest subsistence system disrupted their economy, religion, and community balance

Guarani Indians Article

How societies organize leadership, power, and authority

Socio-Political Organization

Small, kin-based group; least complex, egalitarian

Band

Larger groups with informal leadership and shared culture

Tribe

Ranked society with hereditary leadership and redistribution of goods

Chiefdom

Large, centralized political system with government and laws

State

The way a society produces, distributes, and consumes goods and services

Economic System

Giving and receiving goods without money

Reciprocal Exchange

Goods collected by a leader or institution and redistributed

Redistributive Exchange

Buying and selling using money and set prices

Market Exchange

Giving without expecting an immediate return (family, friends)

Generalized Reciprocity

Exchange with expectation of equal return in time

Balanced Reciprocity

Attempt to get something for as little as possible or by cheating

Negative Reciprocity

Explains how gift-giving can manipulate or control others socially or politically

“Power of Giving” Article

Differences in wealth, power, and prestige among groups

Inequality

Little difference in wealth or power

Egalitarian Society

Some prestige differences, limited wealth inequality

Ranked Society

Large inequality; people divided into social classes or castes

Stratified Society

No mobility; status inherited at birth

Caste System

Some mobility; based on achieved status

Class System

Rules and institutions that regulate behavior in societies

Law and Social Control

A man’s actions were judged based on cultural norms; anthropologist explained his behavior as following cultural values, not intent to commit crime

“Gypsy Offender” Article