Anthropology: Human Practice, Power, and Identity

A set of practice flashcards covering introductory anthropology concepts including socio-cultural theories, power structures, gender, race, economy, and medical anthropology based on the transcript.

Anthropology

Derived from the Greek roots 'Anthropos' (human) and 'Logia' (to study), it is the study of humans.

Socio-cultural anthropology

A subfield of anthropology that examines human beings through their capacity to make culture and live in social relations with others.

Participant observation

A research method involving participating in people's everyday lives and observing their interactions to learn about different societies and cultures.

National Reorganization Process

A full political, economic, social, and cultural plan used by the Argentine civic-military dictatorship ($1976-1983$) that resulted in an estimated $30,000$ people killed or disappeared.

Dehumanization

The process of making groups of humans into 'others' or non-humans, often used by states to justify control over life and death.

Franz Boas

A central figure in US anthropology who established the 4 Fields Approach and defined culture as a dynamic, changing system of interrelated behaviors, habits, traditions, and values.

Cultural Relativism

An anthropological concept used to avoid evaluating a sociocultural group by one's own morals and practices, recognizing that knowledge matters in relation to its specific context.

Reflexivity

The ability to reflect critically and question one’s own past experiences and cultural understandings.

Ethnocentrism

Centering one's own cultural meanings as absolute or superior while ignoring, denying, or destroying the knowledge and experiences of others.

Necropolitics

A state policy that uses threats to life and definitions of 'legality' for political purposes, exemplified by the US 'Prevention Through Deterrence' border policy.

Ethnography

Both a research method featuring 'deep hanging out' and the final product, which provides grounded accounts of lived realities and sociocultural contexts.

Remittances

Money sent back by migrant workers to their home countries, which makes up a significant part of economies (e.g., $19\%$ of GDP in Guatemala to $27\%$ in Nicaragua in $2024$).

Agency

The capacity for people to act meaningfully upon the world based on their own intentionality and understanding, even as they are acted upon by power.

Max Weber’s State Theory

The theory that 'the state' is an institution with a monopoly over the 'legitimate' use of violence within a society defined by territorial boundaries and sovereignty.

Rational-legal Authority

A form of authority defined by legal systems, constitutions, and laws, which Weber considered a complex and developed structure.

Governmentality

A concept by Michel Foucault describing the ideas and desires institutions form to govern and create social discipline through regulations and social standards.

Biopower

The influence over people's bodies and behaviors through social standards, expectations of sexuality, and technology-driven surveillance.

Hegemony

A theory by Antonio Gramsci consisting of two parts: Coercion (violence/threat of violence) and Consent (ideology).

Cultural Hegemony

The use of cultural ideas and 'common sense' ideologies to promote consent to a status quo within society.

El Aguante

An Argentinian football concept meaning 'to withstand' or 'stand up to,' representing the moral and symbolic value of withstanding physical pain and demonstrating allegiance.

Performing Gender

Judith Butler’s theory that the gender binary is socially constructed through a person's repeated actions that follow a socially expected 'script.'

Intersex

Biological bodies that do not fit the traditional male/female binary in terms of genetics, hormones, or genitalia.

NiUnaMenos

A feminist protest movement that emerged in Argentina in $2015$ focused on gender-based violence and femicides.

Nome Sujo

A Brazilian expression meaning 'dirty name' used to describe a person in financial default; it serves as a technology of racialization by linking indebtedness to Blackness.

Imagined Community

A concept of the nation as limited, sovereign, and a community because members feel social bonds and communion without ever knowing every fellow member.

Racialization

The historical social process by which markers, such as skin color, come to denote complex social ideas about difference, capabilities, and value.

Settler-colonialism

A unique form of colonialism characterized by colonists 'coming to stay' and targeting Indigenous peoples for elimination through physical death or assimilation.

Nakba

Meaning 'The Catastrophe,' it refers to the $1948$ ethnic cleansing and displacement of $700,000$ Palestinians.

Apartheid

Inhumane acts committed within an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another.

Capitalism

A method of organizing the economy based on private ownership of the means of production with the primary goal of profit for the owners.

Kula Ring

A circular exchange pattern of necklaces and arm shell bracelets across $18$ Trobriand islands where social status is gained through the act of giving.

Extractive Industry

Economic activity involving the exploration and extraction of natural resources from the earth, which often permanently reshapes ecological relations.

Apus

Andean spirit beings associated with mountains that have agency and require reciprocal feeding through offerings to maintain agricultural and mining safety.

The Disappeared

A violently created social absence where a person's location is unknown and they are presumed dead, commonly used as a tactic by dictatorships and organized crime.

History (Michel-Rolph Trouillot)

The relationship between 'what happened' (recorded events) and 'what is said to have happened' (interpretive narratives).

Visual Anthropology

A subfield using visual tools like 'photo-voice' ethnography to understand people's perceptions based on their positionality and what they frame as important.

Medical Anthropology

The study of human health, illness, healing, and well-being, often challenging the western medicine assumption of mind-body duality.

Body Politics

The social and political influence and control over bodies, determining what is permitted, enabled, or disabled based on how bodies are defined and valued.