ANTH1101 Midterm

Anthropology

study of human diversity (humanities + natural/social sciences)

Biological or Physical Anthropology

study of humans as organisms (primate relations, human evolution, physical diversity)

Archaeology

study of past cultures by interpreting material culture

Linguistic Anthropology

study of human language structure (universal features and differences)

Cultural Anthropology

study of living human cultures

Human Ecology

study of interactions between humans and environment

Applied Anthropology

applying Anthropology to solving practical (real-word) problems

Armchair Anthropology

shallow form of ethnology that oversimplifies and lacks context (ex: Jared Diamond)

difference between anthropology and sociology

Anthropology historically focused on non-Western; Sociology is quantitiative (vs qualitative)

FILM CLIP: The Office -"Diversity Day"

Manager Michael Scott, as MLK, encourages stereotypes and conflict (ex: slavery vs holocaust)

Franz Boas

founder of modern-day American anthropology

salvage ethnography

save culture before it gets destroyed (controversial)

FILM: The Shackles of Tradition: Franz Boas

Boas studied Inuit, Kwakiutl (George Hunt, potlatch), immigrant bodies; everyone has a culture

fieldwork

first-hand observation/research (leaving the university)

participant-observation

take on a role (participate) in the group being observed

ethnology

study comparing multiple cultures

ethnography

studying a specific culture with fieldwork

history of cultural anthropology

Europeans making sense of the world; cultural/religious/political domination (colonization)

Frank Cushing

spent 5 years with American Southwest Zuni; early like Boaz, but died young

Bureau of American Ethnology

research branch of Smithsonian to study Native Americans (founded 1879)

anti-racism in anthropology

all cultures are equal (Boas); race is not biological; contrast with social Darwinism (ladder)

British "social anthropology"

Evans-Pritchard studied the African Nuer (1930s) with British funding (to control/manipulate)

interviewing

formal/informal/group; key part of ethnography

subjects/informants/consultants

people being studied;consultants (professional) > informants (rat) > subjects (dehumanize)

power and ethics in research

understanding a culture (especially politically) can be used to dominate it (ex: Nuer)

READING: "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?"

veil has non-oppressive cultural purpose/meaning (portable household/privacy)

READING: "Shakespeare in the Bush"

Nigerian Tiv tribe elders reinterpret Hamlet based on their own values; the story is not universal

culture versus "Culture"

big C is high-status arts/etiquette, little c is all behaviors/beliefs

characteristics of culture

necessary,integrated,conservative yet changing,learned,normative,shared,multiple,ideational,embodied/material

acculturation

process of learning a culture other than one's own

enculturation

process whereby culture is transmitted from one generation to the next

social sanctions

how a culture enforces its rules (for what is acceptable)

subculture

small group in a culture that shares specialized knowledge/languages/identities

artifacts

intentional or unintentional material objects that reflect cultural ideas

ethnocentrism

the belief that one's own culture's way of doing something is the right, natural or universal way

cultural relativism

the belief that we must understand others' cultural practices on its own terms (natives know what they're doing)

cultural analysis

using qualitative research to gain knowledge and understanding of cultures

particularist approach

extensive study of all aspects of one particular cultural group

comparative approach

comparing parallel cultural features between two or more cultures

"Time, Culture, and Lateness"

Pace of Life in Six Countries (bank clock accuracy, walking speed, time to buy stamp at post office)

READING: "Eating Christmas in the Kalahari"

fat ox jokingly called thin to contain ego;insider/outsider;dependence/reciprocity

READING: "Tricking and Tripping"

journeys into prostitution, types of prostitute, role of pimps, impact of AIDS, violence, escape

FILM CLIP: Bowling for Columbine

US has high gun violence due to a culture of fear (in contrast, Canadians leave doors unlocked)

culture of fear

propogated by media; see Bowling for Columbine

emic perspective

held by members of that cultural group

etic perspective

held by outsiders, through their own ideas and concerns

magic

explaination for that which we do not or cannot understand; see Nacirema

FILM CLIP: That '70s Show - "The Water Tower"

seeings parents having sex; changed to etic perspective (like animal documentary)

exoticization of other cultures

portrayal of "others" based on our own values; charm of unfamiliar; National Geographic

ethnoelimination

study of bathroom behavior (privacy: recreate home in public, masculinity: sexual/homophobic, coolness: no acknowledgement)

READING: "Chinese Table Manners: You Are How You Eat"

potential for culture shock; importance of rice, sharing, deference

READING: "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema"

America (dentist, bathroom, medicine cabinet) from the outide; making the emic etic

READING: "Our Babies, Ourselves"

cultures successfully raise children differently (sleeping, carrying, feeding, crying, independence)

school as a site for enculturation

"School is an institution for drilling children in cultural orientations"

"American Schoolrooms"

"nightmare that drives people away from something (in our case, failure) and toward something (success)"; competition

"Child Care in China"

Encourage cooperation, sharing, and altruism (helping more important than winning)

educational space

school; segregated by age; "[not] to free the mind [...] but to bind [it]"

cultural reproduction

creating the next generation, in terms of culture

explicit versus implicit rules

rules specially told to us versus those we must pick up due to social cues (the vast majority)

Culture and Personality Approach

psychology; child-rearing practice causes particular personalities (national character)

continuous care and contact model of parenting

"high level of contact, frequent feeding, and constant supervision" all by mother

FILM: Bathing Babies in Three Cultures

New Guinea (one hand river dip), US (bathtub, pseudo-independent), Bali (playful splashing)

Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson

anthropologists responsible for "Bathing Babies in Three Cultures"

Film: American Tongues

example accents (Cajun in Bayou of New Orleans; Tangiers Island off Virginia); class can be portrayed by speech

language

a system for the communication, in symbols, of any kind of information

sign

like symbol, but not arbitrary; has some kind of natural association with whatever it denotes

symbol

a sound, gesture, or object which a particular culture has arbitrarily associated with a particular meaning

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

language is not simply a code for ideas and things, but shapes our understanding of the world

dialect

variant of a language spoken by a certain geographic area (of any size); distinction with language largely political

pidgin

simplified language, usually a hybrid of two languages, to communicate between two linguistic groups

creole

a pidgin language which has been learned as a first language by the children of pidgin-speaker and therefore fully developed

The Ebonics Debate

is Ebonics informal slang or a "legitimate" dialect of English? (answer: linguists say dialect)

READING: "Suite for Ebony and Phonics"

Oakland school board recognized Ebonics as a language so as to more effectively teach English

READING: "To Give Up Words"

silence is itself communication; Western Apache are silent in response to social uncertainty/unpredictability

Film clip: Airplane! "Jive clip"

comedically exaggerated slang to the point of being an unrecognizable language (that must be translated)

Language and Power

language is tied to culture and identity (and therefore independence); languages can be lost when a group is overpowered

linguistic nationalism

attempts by countries to proclaim independence from outisde influence by purging language of foreign terms

kinship

a way of naming and recognizing a sense of organic continuity; some sense of mutual obligation/solidarity

nuclear family

mother, father, and their children in one household

consanguinal kinship

based on shared blood--that is, biological relatedness (usually)

affinal kinship

based on marriage (like in-laws)

fictive kinship

kinships with unrelated individuals (ex: godparents)

unilineal descent

traced through parents and ancestors of only one sex

bilateral descent

descent is traced through either/both parents

latent kinship

ties to kin outside the network (that can be contacted/activated if needed)

patrilineal

both males and females belong to their father's kin group but not their mothers

matrilineal

follows a female line; only daughters can pass on the family line to their daughters

"personal kindred" pattern

American kin pattern (up to grandparents; out to aunt/uncle); only full siblings share the same set of kin

Hawaiian system

all relatives of the same generation and sex are called by the same term; not a strongly lineage-oriented system

Iroquois system

father and father's brother are called by the same term, as are mother and mother's sisters

parallel cousins

children of parent's same-sex sibling; same name as sibling in Iroquois system

cross cousins

children of parent's opposite-sex sibling; good marriage partners in Iroquois system

Eskimo system

nuclear family special/differentiated; bilateral; others differented by generation, sometimes sex, not maternal/paternal

marriage

relationship between (multiple) men/women recognized as having a continuing claim to mutual sexual access

polygamy

any marriage system involving more than one partner of one gender

polygyny

one man having multiple wives

polyandry

one woman having multiple husbands

incest

sex with an individual who is culturally defined as related to you and therefore inappropriate

endogamy

marrying within some culturally-defined group

exogamy

marrying outside some culturally -defined group