ANTHROPOLOGY 114 FINAL

achieved status

A social position that is substantially based on life experiences.

ascribed status

A social position based entirely on birth.

assimilation

A process through which immigrants were expected to abandon their distinctive cultures in favor of an American identity.

caste

An endogamous, ranked, and permanent group based on ascribed status.

caste system

Social stratification based on birth or ascribed status in which social mobility between castes is not possible.

class

A category of people who all have about the same opportunity to obtain economic resources, power, and prestige and who are ranked relative to other categories.

class system

A form of social stratification in which the different strata form a continuum and social mobility is possible.

conflict theory

A perspective on social stratification that focuses on economic inequality as a source of conflict and change.

functionalism

The anthropological theory that specific cultural institutions function to support the structure of a society or serve the needs of its people.

life chances

The opportunities that people have to fulfil their potential in society.

social mobility

Movement from one social strata to another.

social stratification

A social hierarchy resulting from the relatively permanent unequal distribution of goods and services in a society.

wealth

The accumulation of material resources or access to the means of producing these resources.

affinal

Relatives by marriage; in-laws.

ambilineal descent

A form of bilateral descent in which an individual may choose to affiliate with either their father's or mother's descent group.

bifurication

A principle of classifying kin under which different kinship terms are used for the mother's side of the family and the father's side of the family.

bilateral descent

System of descent under which individuals are equally affiliated with their mother's and their father's descent group.

clan

A unilineal kinship group whose members believe themselves to be descended from a common ancestor but who cannot trace this link through known relatives.

collateral kin

Kin descended from a common ancestor but not in a direct ascendant or descendant line, such as siblings and cousins.

consanguineal

Describes relations by descent.

cross-cousins

The children of a parent's siblings of the opposite sex (mother's brothers, father's sisters).

descent

The culturally established affiliation between a child and one or both parents.

descent group

A group of kin who are descendants of a common ancestor, extending beyond two generations.

double descent

The tracing of descent through both matrilineal and patrilineal links, each of which is used for different purposes.

exogamy

A rule specifying that a person must marry outside a particular group.

inheritance

The transfer of property between generations.

kindred

A unique kin network made up of all the people related to a specific individual in a bilateral kinship system.

kinship

A culturally defined relationship established on the basis of descent ties or formed through marriage.

kinship system

The totality of kin relations, kin groups, and terms for classifying kin in a society.

kinship terminology

The words used to identify different categories of kin in a particular culture.

lineage

A group of kin whose members trace descent from a known common ancestor.

lineal kin

Kin related in a single unbroken line, such as grandfather-father-son.

matrilineage

A lineage formed by descent in the female line.

matrilineal descent

A rule that affiliates a person to kin of both sexes through females only.

nonunilineal descent

Any system of descent in which both the father's and mother's lineages have equal claim to the individual.

parallel cousins

The children of a parent's same-sex siblings (mother's sisters, father's brothers).

patrilineage

A lineage formed by descent in the male line.

patrilineal descent

A rule that affiliates a person to kin of both sexes through males only.

segmentary lineage system

A form of sociopolitical organization in which multiple descent groups (usually patrilineages) form at different levels and function in different contexts.

succession

The transfer of office or social position between generations.

transmigrant

Immigrants who maintain close relations with their home countries.

transnationalism

The pattern of close ties and frequent visits by immigrants to their home countries.

unilineal descent

Descent group membership based on links through either the maternal or the paternal line, but not both.

arranged marriage

The process by which senior family members exercise a great degree of control over the choice of their children's spouses.

avunculocal residence

System under which a married couple lives with the husband's mother's brother.

blended families

Kinship networks occasioned by divorce and remarriage in the United States that include the previously divorced spouses and their new marriage partners as well as stepsiblings and half-siblings.

bride service

The cultural rule that a man must work for his bride's family for a variable length of time either before or after the marriage.

bridewealth

Goods presented by the groom's kin to the bride's kin to legitimize a marriage (formerly called bride price).

composite (compound) family

An aggregate of nuclear families linked by a common spouse.

dowry

Presentation of goods by the bride's kin to the family of the groom or to the couple.

endogamy

A rule prescribing that a person must marry within a particular group.

exogamy

A rule specifying that a person must marry outside a particular group.

extended family

Family based on blood relations extending over three or more generations.

fraternal polyandry

A custom whereby a woman marries a man and his brothers.

incest taboos

Prohibitions on sexual relations between relatives.

levirate

The custom whereby a man marries the widow of a deceased brother.

marriage

The customs, rules, and obligations that establish a socially endorsed relationship between adults and children as well as between the kin groups of the married partners.

matrilocal residence

System under which a husband lives with his wife's family after marriage.

monogamy

A rule that limits a person to be married to only one spouse at a time.

neolocal residence

System under which a couple establishes an independent household after marriage.

nuclear family

A family organized around the conjugal tie (the relationship between husband and wife) and consisting of a husband, a wife, and their children.

patrilocal residence

System under which a bride lives with her husband's family after marriage.

polyandry

A rule permitting a woman to have more than one husband at a time.

polygamy

A rule allowing more than one spouse.

polygyny

A rule permitting a man to have more than one wife at a time.

sororal polygyny

A form of polygyny in which a man marries sisters.

sororate

The custom whereby when a man's wife dies, her sister is given to him as a wife.

Tiwi marriage systems

polygynous society; a Tiwi father betroths his infant daughter to a friend or potential ally who he thinks will bring him the most economic and social advantage, or to a man who has given a daughter as a wife to him or one of his sons

Gender

A cultural construction that makes biological and physical differences between male and female into socially meaningful categories.

gender hierarchy

The ways in which gendered activities and attributes are differentially valued and related to the distribution of resources, prestige, and power to society.

gender ideology

The totality of ideas about sex, gender, and the natures of men and women within a culture.

gender role

Behaviors that societies consider appropriate for people of different sexes.

Hijra

An alternative gender role in India conceptualized as neither a man nor a woman.

Intersectionality

The overlapping nature of social categories such as race, education, wealth, age, and gender.

private/public dichotomy

A gender system in which women's status is lowered by their almost exclusive cultural identification with the home and children, whereas men are identified with public, prestigious, economic, and political roles.

Sex

The biological difference between male and female

two-spirit

An alternative gender role in native North America (formerly called (berdache).

Know Margaret Mead's work and impact on cultural anthropology.

Margaret Mead was one of the first anthropologists to question the relationship between biology and behavior considered to be masculine or feminine. She organized her research around the question of whether characteristics that Americans in her era thought of as masculine and feminine were universal. She was a pioneer researcher on gender and sexuality.

Know what two-spirit is known for

The two-spirit was most often a man dressed in females clothing, engaged in women's work, and was often considered to have special supernatural powers and privileges in society.

Know the anthropological analysis of sexuality

The book refers to sexuality as sexual desire.

Know who is believed to be sexually repressed.

- People who don't conform to a specific gender or people that have been born without being identifiable with a certain sex have been the most repressed.

Understand the practice "boy insemination."

Boys in Sambia become men through the oral and anal receipt of semen from other men.

Know what women's role are in horticultural societies

- Women usually have less autonomy and power in horticultural societies than in foraging ones.

Animatism

Belief in an impersonal spiritual force that infuses the universe.

Animism

The notion that all objects, living and nonliving, are imbued with spirits.

Antistructure

The socially sanctioned use of behavior that radically violates social norms. Antistructure is frequently found in religious ritual.

Communitas

A state of perceived solidarity, equality, and unity among people sharing a religious ritual, often characterized by intense emotions.

messianic

Focusing on the coming of an individual who will usher in a utopian world.

Millenarian

Focusing on coming catastrophe that will signal the beginning of a new age and the eventual establishment of paradise.

contagious magic

The belief that things once in contact with a person or object retain an invisible connection with that person or object.

Cosmologies

A system of beliefs that deals with the fundamental questions in the religious and social order.

Divination

A religious ritual performed to find hidden objects or information.

Ghost Dance

A Native American religious movement of the late 19th century.

God

A named spirit who is believed to have created or to control some aspect of the world.

imitative magic

The belief that imitating an action in a religious ritual will cause the action to happen in the material world.

Monotheism

Characterized by belief in a single god.

Myths

Sacred stories or narratives.

Nativism

Focusing on the return of society to an earlier time that believers understand as better and more holy than the current era.

Liminal

Objects, places, people, and statuses that are understood as existing in an indeterminate state between clear-cut categories.

Magic

An attempt to mechanistically control supernatural forces. The belief that certain words, actions, and states of mind compel the supernatural to behave in predictable ways.