Essentials of Cultural Anthropology: Chapter 2 VOCAB

Culture

A system of knowledge, beliefs, patterns of behavior, artifacts, and institutions that are created, learned, shared, and contested by group of people.

Enculturation

The process of learning culture.

Norms

Ideas or rules about how people should behave in particular situations or toward certain other people.

Values

Fundamental beliefs about what is important, what makes a good life, and what is true, right, and beautiful.

Symbol

Anything that represents something else.

Mental Maps of Reality

Cultural classifications of what kinds of people and things exist, and the meaning assignment to those particular classifications.

Cultural Appropriation

The unwanted taking of cultural practices or knowledge from one group by another, more dominant group.

Unilineal Cultural Evolution

Theory of which states all cultures naturally evolve through the same sequence of stages from simple to complex.

Historical Particularism

The idea that cultures develop in specific ways as a result of their unique histories.

Structural Functionalism

A framework stating each element of society serves a particular function to keep the entire system in equilibrium.

Interpretivist Approach

An ideological framework that views cultural as the primary symbolic system of deep meaning.

Thick Description

A research strategy that combines detailed description of cultural activity paired with an analysis of the layers of deep cultural meaning in which those activities are embedded.

Stratification

The uneven distribution of resources and privileges among members of a group or culture.

Hegemony

The ability of a dominant group to create consent and agreement within a population without the use of threat or force.

Agency

The potential power of individuals and groups to contest cultural norms, values, mental maps of reality, symbols, institutions, and structures of power.

Epigenetics

The area of study in biology primarily focused on exploring how environmental factors directly affect the expression of genes during one’s lifetime.

Human Microbiome

The complete collection of microorganisms in the human body’s ecosystem.

Homogenization

The process by which diverse local cultures become more similar, losing their unique traits.

Hybridization

The process of which elements from distinct traditions combine to create new and unique cultural expressions.

Cosmopolitism

Refers to the acting as a “citizen of the world” through familiarity and ease in different countries and cultures rather than being limited to one local or national view.