Anthro 2A Egan Midterm 1

Subfields of Anthropology

Sociocultural, archeological, linguistic, biological

Culture

Traditions and customs that govern behavior and beliefs; transmitted through learning.

The Power To Naturalize

relating everything to nature; breaking things down to simple level even if it cannot be evaluated in that manner.

A Priori

Knowledge prior to or independent of experience; deducted from abstract principles

Scientific Racism

Using science to justify racism by categorizing different phenotype a into discrete races

Race and Colonialism

emphasizes historical contacts , linkages , and power differentials between local people and international; the political, social , economic, and cultural domination of a territory and its people by a foreign power for an extended time

Science and Culture

scientist use qualifications to interpret things and in this case culture.

Linneaus

Developed a system of taxonomy to categorizize the different species in the animal kingdoms, including homo sapiens; created four variants of humans.

Blumenbach

Elevated the word race into a scientific category; defined 5 human races.

Hooton

Created 3 big races: Caucazoid, Monogoloid, Negriod

Monogenesis

Argued about a common ancestor for all humans

Polygenesis

Argues about an independent ancestor for every race(every individual races has its own Adam and Eve)

Typologyzing

Pigeonholing people into specific racial categories based off their looks and behaviors

Craniometry

The study of head size; scientist used this to prove superiority of certain races and ethnicities. (Falsified data and didn't take in account environment, age, nutrition, etc.)

Robbert Bennett Bean

Compared Genu(front brain, smarts) and splenium(back, labor) in blacks and whites.

Concluded he was right 100% of time.

Falsified his data.

Paul Broca

Used the location of the foranen magnum(hole in skull for soinal chord) as a divider of Genu and splenium to conclude whites were better.

Falsified his data.

Broca's Hypothesis and Research

His hypothesis was that the larger the skull, the larger the brain, the larger the brain, the more intelligent a human being is. In his research, he completely skewed his data to tailor his hypothesis of superiority.

Culture: Biological vs. Social Transmission

Culture is socially transmitted, never biologically transmitted; all human being have ability to be encultured

Facts of Human Biological Variation

1. Human biological variation exist

2. Geographically localized

3. Continuous in geographical distribution

4. Discordant in geographical distribution

Social Races

A group defined by a social context rather than their biological traits.

Hypodescent

A rule that automatically places the offspring of two mates of different races into the one less privileged.

Ex. Child of white woman and black father makes child black.

Races in Brazil and Japan

Japan: "anyone who is 'not us'" the "not us" should stay that way, assimilation is discouraged. Keep minorities in their place. Burakumin are the "outcasts." Brazil: Brazilian racial classification pays attention to phenotype. Brazil has less exclusionary categories, which permit individuals to change their racial classification.

Race and Intelligence

Race and intelligence are independent of each other. intelligence is best determined by the culture and the surroundings.

Osage Indians IQ Scores

The IQ's of different native american tribes were tested and the Osage tribe had the highest IQ out of all tribes because they invested their money on education. As a result their culture promotes education, thus proving that IQ depends on culture.

IQ Scores Black and White WWI Military Recruits

We have better ways to measure the IQ's of people as of before they were not as reliable.

Genes

Determinants of traits and characteristics, not intelligence or culture.

Clines

Graduation in a single character; gene frequency over geographical distance

Ethnicity

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

Ethnic Groups

A group distinguished by cultural similarities and differences; values, habits, customs, norms. Common language, religion, history, geography, kinship, race.

Minority Groups

Subordinate groups in a sociopolitical hierarchy, with inferior power and less secure access to resources.

Majority Groups

Superordinate, dominant, or controlling groups in sociopolitical hierarchy

Assimilation

The process of change that a minority group may experience when it move to where one culture dominate. The minority is incorporated into the majority and no longer exist as two separate cultural units

Multicultural

The view of cultural diversity in a country as something good and desirable. (A multicultural society socializes individuals into both dominant culture and into ethnic group

Discrimination

Policies and practices that harm a group and its memebers

Apartheid

Occurred in South Africa, example of jure discrimination. Blacks and whites had different rights and privileges and social interaction was legally curtailed

Nationalities

Ethnic groups that once had, wish to have or reigned. "Imagined communities"

Autonomous political status.

Social Evolution

Based on Charles Darwin theory of evolution

Social Darwinism

Many different societies are in natural competition for resources. Some are more "fit" to dominate over other societies. This is a natural process.

Herbert Spencer

First made the term, "survival of the fittest". Also created the idea of social Darwinism

Unilinear Evolution

Alternative to scientific racism; developed by the American anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan

Lewis Henry Morgan

Savagery (simple hunters)

Barbarism (village farmers and herders)

Civilization (cities and states)

Evolutionary stages

Savagery, Barbarism, Civilization

Diversity and Evolutionary Stages

Idea that societies change at different rates and the less advanced ones move at a slower rate.

Franz Boas

Founding father of anthropology; critiqued unilinear evolution. Was a diffusionist.

Franz Boas's Critique

Boas critiqued unilinear evolution by saying that they were based off of little empirical data and that the data was terrible quality. He argued that societies were not independent of others.

Empirical Problems with Social Evolution

The data was based on sketchy secondhand accounts; data was falsified, overlooked, misplaces and misinterpreted.

Multilinear Evolution

Julie Steward argued that all societies change at different rates and that cultures change in different ways that can not be predicted. Calling a civilization primitive is robbing them of their history .

Cultural Difussion

Borrowing between cultures either directly or through intermediaries

Ethnocentrism

The tendency to view ones own culture as best to judge the behavior and beliefs of culturally different people

Nature vs. Nurture

the debate over which factor plays a bigger role in behavior, genes vs. culture.

Thomas Hobbes

Believed the human nature is evil, vile, greedy and nasty; society and culture restrains it by forcing us to cooperate

Rousseau

Believed the human nature of man is good but society corrupts us and teaches us to be evil, selfish.

He admired primitive people because he thought they were closest to natural self (noble savage)

Field study of chimpanzees

they demonstrate culture in their ability to learn language and ability to use tools

Fossil records in evolutionary perspective

suggest that our ancestors had culture in the form of pre-modern humans with stone tools

Culture and society

They are not interchangeable

Culture and biology

is socially transmitted, not biologically

Supra-organism

Operates above the level of the of the individual

Culture and world views

Shapes the world view of those who have it

Culture constructions

the meaning of culture; product of social interaction and and human history

Cultural Relativism

The position that values and standards of cultures differ and deserve respect.

Language (verbal and non-verbal communication)

The use of words and body language to communicate with people.

Phoneme

A sound contrast that makes a difference; differentiates meaning

Morpheme

Words and their significant parts

Lexicon

Dictionary containing all its morpheme and their meanings

Language and thought

language spoken and written is our primary means of communication; our thought process allows us to be able to use language to discuss with other human beings.

Syntax

Arrangement and order of words in phrases and sentences

Sociolinguistics

Investigates the relationships between social and linguistic variation

BEV (Black English Vernacular)

A rule-governed dialect of American English with roots in southern English; spoken by African American youth and by many adults in their casual, intimate speech

Gender speech contrast

women typically use language and the body movements that accompany it to build rapport, social connections with others. Mean tend ti make reports, reciting information that serves to establish a place for themselves in a hierarchy, as they also attempt to determine the relative ranks of their conversation mates.

Stratification

the creation of separate social strata; its emergence signified the transition from chiefdom to state; the presence of stratification is the key distinguishing features of a state. (boarder lines)

Symbolic domination

the way in which those languages regarded as prestige would take on the power they symbolize.

Social organization and social structure

All human labor is socially organized; they have a way of delegating task of a society; society and social groups cannot be judged based on the technique of production.

Mode of production

A way of organizing production; a set of social relations though which labor is deployed to wrest energy from nature by mean of tools, skills, and knowledge

Means of production

Land, labor, technology and capital; major productive resources

Subsistence strategies/ techniques of production

Foraging, Pre-industrial agriculture, Pastoralism, Indistrialism

Foragers

people who practice hunting and gathering usually live in band organized societies. Men hunt/fish. Women gather/collect.

San Foragers of the Kalahari Desert

modern foraging groups in South Africa's Kalahari Desert; they still practice hunting and gathering.

Life span

The amount of years one has lived

Mean Life Expectancy

A measure of the health status of a group. More people living to be older; if make it through childhood, live longer than average.

Domestication

The use of animals as a means of production for transport , as cultivating machines, and for their manure.

Extensive agriculture (horticulture)

Non-industrial system of plant cultivation in which plots lie fallow for varying lengths of time (slash and burn/Swidden)

Intercopping

Planting a variety of crops in a field at the same time to mimic the natural environment and increasing productivity; must have lots of land

Fallow

Leaving land to rest and revitalize

Intensive agriculture

Needs to expend a lot of energy in order to maintain the land; regrow on same plot of land; plant only one crop

Terracing, irrigation

terracing is when farmers cut into hillsides to create level planes to plant crops without them getting washed away in rain. Irrigation is the construction of canals and waterways to control water durring the dry season. because of this the hunters and gathers were forced to stay.

Wet rice agriculture

the cultivation of rice by planting on dry land, transferring the seedlings to a flooded field and draining the field before harvesting.

Intensification

increasing the yield of harvested material per hectare of land used

Energy: production and efficiency of different techniques of production

industrialism allowed for massive production but large harvest energy; in comparison to agriculture it was way less energy efficient, but it was productively efficient.

Pastoralism and ecology

take animals around to different areas to feed them off the land; when the herder was hungry they killed their livestock.

Transhumance

One of two variants of Pastoralism; part of the population moves seasonally with the herds while the other part remains in home villages

Market principal

A profit oriented principal of exchange that dominates in industrial states; goods and services are bought and sold and values are determined by supply and demand

Redistribution

Major exchange mode of chiefdoms, many archaic states and some states with managed economies; goods, services, or their equivalent move from the local level to a center

Law of supply and demand

Things cost more the scarcer they are and the more people want them

Reciprocity

Exchange between social equals who normally are related by kinship, marriage, or another close personal tie

Generalized reciprocity

Someone gives to another person and expects nothing immediate in return.

Balanced reciprocity

Exchanges between people who are more distantly related than are members of the same band or household

Negative reciprocity

Dealing with people on the fringes of or outside their social systems

Potlach

a gift giving feast; property is destroyed in order to show the wealth and later guest try to surpass.