ANTHC101 EXAM #1

2025

What are the attributes of culture?

It is learned and shared.

Enculturation

The human period of intense cultural learning that begins at birth and continues through adolescence into early adulthood.

What aspects of culture are anthropologists most interested in?

Those that are taken for granted.

Identity

A conglomerate of repeated cultural practices shared by communities used to identify people of shared cultures.

What are the components/elements of culture?

Patterns of behavior, cultural knowledge, and materials/artifacts.

Patterns of Behavior

Observable, repeated behaviors that people do, often related to their status/role.

What instills cultural expectations?

Communally accepted patterns of behavior.

Cultural Knowledge

Knowledge you do not always have to think about or that you don’t even realized you implement (norms/values/symbols/classification of reality/world view)

Why are archaeologists interested in materials/artifacts?

They can be used to understand and make sense of culture, hold symbolic meaning, and relate to the values people hold.

What are the characteristics of anthropology?

Broad in scope, holistic, and comparative.

How is anthropology broad in scope?

It pays attention to all people, all times, and all places.

How is anthropology holistic?

Anthropologists look at all dimensions of their of the people they’re studying’s lives and connections that are drawn from that.

How is anthropology comparitive?

It is always thinking about similarities and differences with other groups/times/places.

What are the subfields of anthropology?

Physical/Biological, Archeology, Linguistic and Cultural Anthropology.

Physical/Biological Anthropology

The study of the physical and biological aspects of humans.

What are the subgroups of physical/biological anthropology?

Paleoanthropology, Human Variation, Primatology, and Forensic Anthropology.

Paleoanthropology

The interest in understanding human evolution through excavation of fossils.

Human Variation

The interest in contemporary, living populations, and how they vary physically.

Primatology

Physical anthropologists who study non-human primates to figure out what is distinctly human.

Forensic Anthropology

Looking at physical human remains in order to see what can be understood and interpreted, usually used to solve crime or mysteries.

What are archeologists interested in?

Life ways, behaviors, and customs of groups of people who are no longer living;

Trying to reconstruct past ways of life excavated artifacts.

What are the subgroups of Archeology?

Prehistoric and Historical.

Prehistoric Archeology

Studying humans before written records of history; time period dependent on anthropologist’s location.

Historical Archeology

Using what can be found of material remains to work in tandem with a society’s existing written records to see their accuracy, and discover more about the people being studied.

Linguistic Anthropology

The interest in language, and its connection to the social/cultural aspect of life; studying how humans talk.

Cultural Anthropology

The interest in the life ways of living and recent populations.

What are the subgroups of Cultural Anthropology?

Ethnography and Ethnohistory.

Ethnography

Extended descriptions of the way of life of living peoples gained through direct interaction with those peoples.

Ethnohistory

Using recent written records to understand a more recently existing, but not contemporary, population.

What do some anthropologists identify as the fifth subfield?

Applied/Practicing Anthropology.

What are examples of Applied/Practicing Anthropology?

Forensic Anthropology, Medical Anthropology, Development Anthropology, Educational Anthropology, Corporate Anthropology, CRM.

Applied/Practicing Anthropology

An interest in all anthropological subfields, applied to a specific setting or task.

Franz Boas

The father of American anthropology; defined cultural relativism.

Margaret Mead

The most famous anthropologist; an ethnographer. A student of Boas who did fieldwork focusing on adolescent girls in Samoa.

Ruth Benedict

An ethnographer; a student of Mead and Boas; established post-psychological anthropology.

Jane Goodall

Primatologist; worked with chimpanzees and proved they could use tools.

Ann Dunham

An ethnographer; Barack Obama’s mom.

Dian Fossey

A primatologist who worked with gorillas and was killed in the field.

Who were the Leakeys?

Louis, Mary, and Richard; a family of paleoanthropologists who excavated in Africa.

Katherine Dunham

An ethnographer and dancer who led to the discovery of ethnochoreology (dance anthropology).

Zora Neale Hurston

Famous African-American writer of the Harlem renaissance and an ethnographer; field assistant of Boas’ studies on racial sterotyping.

Temperance Brennan

Forensic anthropologist.

Indiana Jones

Prehistoric archaeologist.

Culture

A system of knowledge, beliefs, patterns of behavior, artifacts, and institutions created, learned, shared, and contested by a group of people.

Norms

Expectations/ideas about how people in a society should behave and what they should do in certain contexts, often expressed through patterns of behavior.

Values

Things that a society or group emphasizes and holds significance.

Symbols

Anything that stands for something else that a cultural group has agreed upon.

Classification of Reality

How we divide up the world and make sense of it.

World View

How you understand the world you live in, and how we understand our individual place in it; includes religion.

What are the characteristics/dynamics of culture?

It is somewhat integrated, usually adaptive, morally/qualitatively evaluated, undergirded by power, and always changing.

How is culture somewhat integrated?

Specific components of culture(s) make sense and work in relation to each other.

How is culture adaptive rather than maladaptive?

It encourages growth and reproduction of the culture.

Can a maladaptive culture survive?

No.

When are maladaptive practices usually revised?

During moments of social change.

How is culture morally/qualitatively evaluated?

We don’t just learn our culture, we learn it as the “good” or “right” way to conduct life; opposing opinions and cultures are seen as less than.

Ethnocentrism

The belief that one’s own culture or way of life is normal or right, and using their cultural values or practices to evaluate and judge the practices and ideas of others.

Cultural Hierarchies

Valuations/hierarchies within accepted cultural practices or behaviors.

How is culture undergirded by power?

It keeps cultural hierarchies in check through exercising power and instilling negative consequences for noncomformity.

Hegemony

The ability of a dominant group to create consent and agreement within a population without the use of threat or force.

Naturalization

The process by which learned cultural practices came to be thought of as natural or innate (i.e. human nature).

Can cultural aspects be innate?

No, it directly contradicts the anthropological definition of culture.

How is culture always changing?

It is given, reproduced overtime, and maintained throughout generations; it’s spearheaded by identity markers, but so many aspects are changed as it passes on.

What is the pace of cultural change?

It varies from imperceptibly slow to rapid; imperceptive change is more common.

What are examples of societal cultural shifts?

The walkman to music streaming; the privacy of phones; COVID pandemic.

Why is culture essential to human life?

For adaptation, organization, and interpretation.

Is culture real?

No! It is a concept anthropologists claimed to characterize their findings.

What are the dangers/hesitations when understanding culture?

Cultural determinism, essentializing, and exoticizing/radical alterity.

Cultural Determinism

Everything is determined by your culture; culture replicates itself.

Essentializing

Specific behaviors or practices getting essentialized reduces them down to a few aspects of their culture, often aspects that separate the group from another.

Exoticizing/Radical Alterity

Over-emphasizing difference.

Cultural Relativism

Understanding a group’s beliefs and practices within their own cultural context, recognizing their own constraints and possibilities, without making judgements.

What type of societies do anthropologists usually study, and why?

Marginalized peoples because it is easier to gain access and approval to study them.

What is the anthropological counter to ethnocentrism?

Cultural relativism.

How do anthropologists study culture?

Fieldwork.

What are the hallmarks of anthropological fieldwork?

Live with/among the people being studied and stay for a long time (at least a year).

Who set the hallmarks of anthropological fieldwork?

Bronisław Malinowski.

Why does fieldwork have to be at least a year?

The annual round reveals new cultural practices; appreciate complexity/integration; minimize the impact of presence in in findings; develop relationships; gain an inside perspective; impact the anthropologist.

Where is fieldwork done?

Everywhere and anywhere.

What do anthropologists do in the field?

Ask a lot of damn questions; use written materials; participant observation.

Why aren’t interviews enough when doing fieldwork?

Language limitations; ideal norms differing to reality; lack of knowledge, or misinformation; people lie; inappropriate subjects that can’t be spoken of.

Participant Observation

To participate and observe the lives of the people being studied.

Colonialism

The establishment of foreign rule over a distant territory and control of its people.

When was the beginning of colonial expansion?

1492; when Columbus arrived in America thinking it was India.

What led to the industrial revolution?

Exploitation of local labor (people) and resources.

Settler Colonialism

Places with lower population densities being sent settlers to populate them.

How long did colonialism last?

From the late 15th century to the mid 20th century (World War 2).

What happened related to colonialism in the 18th century?

The Enlightenment Period.

What happened related to colonialism in the 19th century?

The intensification of colonial relations/interactions.

Globalization

Increasing integration and interactions of peoples/institutions/corporations worldwide.

ALL peoples are connected and integrated into a global network.

What is globalization moving/connecting?

Money/resources/goods, people, and ideas/knowledge.

What are the differences between colonialism and globalization?

Amount/degree/intensity; places or people affected/involved; speed of interaction.

What factors promote and/or facilitate the intensification of globalization?

Capitalist accumulation, technology, political/policy changes, uneven development, and climate change.

What give context for anthropological work?

Colonialism and Globalization.

What are two examples of Capitalist Accumulation?

Offshoring and Outsourcing.

Offshoring

A company moving/setting up operations in another country.

Outsourcing

One company contracting with another to provide some part of its production/services.

Time-Space Compression

The changing conception and experience of distance and connection making the world seem smaller.