Culture, History, and Ethnography

armchair anthropology

scholars sit at home reading reports written by travelers and missionaries rather than conducting fieldwork themselves

cultural stories

narratives and myths shared within a society that transmit cultural values and history

E.B. Tylor

proposed unilineal cultural evolution framework and one of the earliest anthropological definitions of culture

franz boas

father of american anthropology; introduced historical particularism, cultural relativism, and field methods. rejects unilineal evolution

functionalism

perspective where cultural institutions serve specific biological and social functions to satisfy individual and societal needs

gullivers travels

often referenced in discussions of critical critique, exoticism, and “the other”

james frazer

author of the golden bough, early comparative study or mythology and religion with armchair anthropology

kinship

social bonds based on blood connections, marriage, and fictive ties

napoleon chagnon

known for long ter fieldwork among yanomamo and debates surrounding ethics and sociobiology

salvage anthropology

recording and preserving cultural practices, languages and histories perceived as rapidly disappearing due to modernization

the other

conceptual category representing people viewed as fundamentally different from one’s own dominant group

ethnography

both in depth study of particular culture through fieldwork and written text that results from that research

argonauts of western pacific

bronislow malinowski ethnographic monograph detailing kula ring exchange in trobriand islands

bronislaw malinowski

revolutionized fieldwork through intensive participant observation and established functionalist school

diaspora

disperal of a population from its original homeland to multiple foreign locations; maintaining cultural and emotional ties

emic

insiders perspective

etic

outsiders perspective

key informants

people in studied community who have deep cultural knowledge and work closely with anthropologists to provide explanations and context

land tenure

legal rules and systems where land and property rights are held and managed in a society

off the veranda approach

critique of early armchair anthropologists who observed local populations from a distance; advocates for immersive on the ground fieldwork

remittance

monies or goods sent back by migrant workers to their families and communities

thick description

detailed ethnographic reporting that captures physical and complex cultural meanings