Anthropological Theories and Concepts

These flashcards cover key concepts from anthropological theories and notable scholars discussed in the lecture notes.

Animal Magnetism refers to invisible magnetic forces that flow between bodies and can heal or influence them.

Franz Mesmer

Casta is a Colonial Spanish racial classification system dividing people by ancestry.

No specific author attributed in the notes

Endogamy maintains social boundaries by promoting marriage within one's group or caste.

No specific author attributed in the notes

Featherbed Resistance is a subtle form of resistance appearing compliant while undermining oppressive structures.

No specific author attributed in the notes

Functionalism explains cultural traits by the social functions they serve.

Emile Durkheim, Bronisław Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown (key figures in functionalist thought)

Gender Hierarchy involves the social ranking of genders, with women's subordination in reproduction through kinship and exchange.

Gayle Rubin (for analysis of gender inequality through kinship/exchange)

Hau is the spirit of the gift that compels reciprocity in exchange.

Marcel Mauss

The Hierarchy of the Sciences is the ranking from simple to complex sciences.

Auguste Comte

Homo Hierarchicus vs Homo Aequalis is the contrast of Indian caste as hierarchy and modern West as equality ideal.

Louis Dumont

Imitation is a social process by which behaviors spread like waves between people.

Gabriel Tarde

Invention refers to the creative origin of new social acts or ideas.

No specific author attributed in the notes

Langue refers to the formal structure of language, while Parole refers to individual speech acts.

Ferdinand de Saussure

Mechanical Solidarity is societal cohesion by sameness, whereas Organic Solidarity is societal cohesion by interdependence.

Emile Durkheim

A Social Fact is ways of acting/thinking that are external to the individual and coercive over them.

Emile Durkheim

Structuralism analyzes underlying binary structures organizing myths and kinship.

Claude Lévi-Strauss

The Lie or Big Old Lies refers to social fictions sustaining inequality or power, or mythic falsehoods masking oppression.

Zora Neale Hurston

Theological, Metaphysical, and Positivist stages are the three stages of knowledge's evolution, with the last being scientific reasoning.

Auguste Comte

Warre is the natural human condition without social order.

Thomas Hobbes

The term Mwali refers to a shell arm-band exchanged in the Kula ring.

Bronisław Malinowski

Potlatch is a competitive gift-giving feast that reaffirms hierarchy.

Marcel Mauss, Franz Boas

The myth of Oedipus illustrates a universal kinship structure in ancient Greek myth.

Claude Lévi-Strauss

Caste is defined as a closed class maintained by endogamy.

B. R. Ambedkar

Caste and race are viewed as parallel systems of social stratification.

Gerald Berreman

Focus on collective function greatly influenced Functionalism theory.

Emile Durkheim

The distinction between langue and parole laid the foundation for Structuralism.

Ferdinand de Saussure

The study of how gifts create social bonds through giving, receiving, and reciprocating.

Marcel Mauss

The analysis of gender inequality by combining ideas from Lévi-Strauss and Mauss to explain women's role as exchanged between men.

Gayle Rubin

Contributions to functionalist anthropology, focusing on the functions of customs and beliefs.

Bronisław Malinowski

Structural functionalism shifted focus from individual needs to system stability.

A.R. Radcliffe-Brown

The discovery of universal structures of human thought through the analysis of myths and kinship.

Claude Lévi-Strauss