ANTHRO MIDTERM 1 CONCEPTS

Anthropology

Scientific study of human diversity across space and time, focusing on both biological and cultural differences

What makes anthropology unique?

Examines different learned and shared meanings (culture) which shape how humans understand and interact with the world

Four subfields of Anthropology

1) Sociocultural anthropology - study of cultural variation

2) Linguistic anthropology - study of language and communication

3) Archaeology - study of past societies through material remains

4) Biological Anthropology - study of human biological variation and evolution

Culture

Learned, shared meanings (symbol, signs, values, assumptions) that shape how people understand and interact with the world. Culture feels natural because it operates “common sense”

The Power to Naturalize

Cultures ability to make socially created ideas appear natural, biological, or inevitable (ex gender categories, race)

A Priori

An assumption or conclusion accepted before examining evidence. In scientific racism, racial hierarchies were assumed a priori and then “proven” with biased data

Scientific Racism

The belief that humans can be divided into discrete biological types (races)

claims that physical, social , and cultural traits are expressions of racial biology

a form of typological thinking

tries to justify white supremacy

Racism

Belief that differences are biologically inherited or

Racial type believed to be biologically transmitted & neg. attitude of people

Prejudice

Devaluing a group because of its assumed behavior, values, capabilities, or attributes

Typologizing

Universal human activity of categorizing

Categorized humans into fixed types based on selected traits

Problematic when science uses it to justify inequality

A) Humans are divided into discrete biological types (races)

B) Each race has its own appearance, social, and cultural attributes

C) Serious limits to investigation of human difference

Race and Colonialism

The historial process in which European colonial expansion relied on racial classifications to justify domination exploitation and equality

Science & Culture

The idea that scientific practices are shaped by cultural assumptions. Science is not culturally neutral; it reflects the values and biases of the society producing it

Linneaus

18th century naturalist who classified humans into four varieties based on geography and skin color. Helped establish early racial typologies

• Homosapiens Europeas Albscens (White)

• Homosapiens Asiatious Fucus (Dark)

• Homosapiens Africanus Negreus (Black)

• Homosapiens Americanus Rubescens (Red)

Blumenbach

Scientists who created the first explicit racial classification into five races. His work strongly influenced racial thinking

Caucasian (White)

Mongolian (Yellow)
Malay (Brown)
Ethiopian (Black)

American (Red)

Hooton

1926 Anthropologiest who promoted the big three racial categories

Caucasoid (Europe), Mongoloid (Eastern Asia), Negorid (Mediterranean Coast). Later disproven by modern biological research

Monogenesis

All humans share a single origin (Adam & Eve)

Polygenesis

Human races originated separately; used historically to justify racial inequality

Rank

Assigning value or superiority to those types

Race, Typologyzing, Rank

Form the basis of racial hierarchies in western science

Crainometry

The measurement of the skill based on the size and shape of the skull. Used as a way to prove how Western European individuals were superior to other races. “Big Brain means your smart and small head means you’re dumb”

Robert Bennett Bean

A) Research based around brain function, the genu (anterior) and splenium (posterior)

B) Western Men Superiority experiment based on the genus of the brain, between white, black, and women brains

C) Crainometry experiment backed his ideas since whites had more genu

Paul Brocca

• Saw that craniometry had many factors affecting it which we ignored during numerous experiment

• Leading scientist of brain study and focused on debunking the factors that were ignored.

Paul Brocca’s Hypotheses & Research

A) Followed the same formula of many other white scientists as ignored a priori and continued to believe that brain size determined how smart people are

B) Changed his view of brain size b/c Eskimos had bigger brains

C) Usage of the foramen magnum, and experiment led to no results forcing brocca to find new ways ot prove white superiority

Biological vs Social Transmission

Culture is learned not inherited through genes; belief that language and IQ can all be acquired and is not due to race that people are born to

“Facts” of Human Biological Variation

A) Populations have more variation within their genetic makeup within populations then between populations

B) Race is not built on a biological basis, but gradual change through genetics

Implications for Racial Typologies

A) Race is created socially through historical bias, not through biological means

B) Most diversity within a population and separate differences between populations is a result of biological adaptation

C) Typologies is based around historical bais

Social Races

a classification of people into racial categories based on how they are perceived and treated within a specific society rather than on strict biological differences

Hypodescent

A) Interracial mating

EX: Susie Phillips who was still considered black because her great grand parents were black (1/32 black)

Race in Brazil and Japan

Japan - Race is based around ethnicity and cultural exclusion instead of simply color; revolved around cultural ideology and social hierarchy

Brazil - Race is based on phenotypes rather than strict ancestry focusing on skin color, hair texture and facial features

Race and Intelligence

A) Races were placed into certain categories because of their race; failing to account for other economic, environmental, or educational factors

B) No biological link between to race and intelligence

C) Intelligence is based around culture

IQ Scores, Educational Achievement & RaceSteele and Aronson

A) Performance in IQ scores was based around stereotype threat and not actual ability

B) Showed how black students scored higher than white on IQ tests when told about it, while it differed

Race, stereotypes, and standardied test scores

• Steele & Aronson show that performance is sensitive to social context and identity pressure

• Standardized test scores reflect both ability and unequal environments

• Genetic influences exist at the individual level, but do not map cleanly onto racial categories

Ethnicity and Ethnic Groups

• Ethnic groups are assumed to have a biological basis

• Identification with and feeling part of cultural differences are also associated with class, region, religion, and other social variables

Minority and Majority Groups

Groups within society that are constructed through society and power struggles. Minority groups often lack power and face systemic oppresion , while majority groups hold more privilege and systemic power

Assimilation vs Multiculuralism (Assimilation)

Minority groups lose their cultural identity from dominant groups and uniformity is encouraged;

minority groups adopts behavior of dominant cultures

Assimilation vs Multiculturalism (Multiculturalism)

coexistence of diverse cultures, ethnicities, and races within a single society

De Jure

• Part of the law

• Legally sanctioned discrimination, ex Jim Crow Laws

De facto

Practiced but not legally sanctioned

Apartheid (South Africa)

System of racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa from the 1948 to early 1990s, maintained white minority dominance over non-white majority

Social Evolution

How societies and cultures change and develop over time

Herbet Spencer

Social Darwinism (Survival of the fittest)

Unilinear Evolution

All human society evolve through the same way (Savagery, Barbarism, Civilization), but evolution is multilinear

3 Evolutionary Stages

Savagery - Bow and arrow, fishing, fire. Marriage - promiscuous Hordes, group marriage

Barbarism - Metallurgy, Agriculture, Pottery, Marriage - Polygamy

Civilization - Phonetic Alphabet. Marraige - Monogomy

Franz Boas & Critique of Unilinear Evolution

Critiqued that unilinear evolution has insufficient evidence and that the ordering is simply based on assumption

Empirical Problems with Social Evolution

The theory was based on speculation rather than evidence, and faces theoretical challenges unsupported by biological evidence as well. Believe that there was more than one path in evolution than just one

Multlinear Evolution

All people change, but don’t change in the same ways. All people have equally long histories. Problems with the “primitive” - stuck in early evolutionary

Cultural Diffusion

The spread of culture through the interactions with other cultures

Progress is a problematic term

Culturally specific criteria

Problems of perspective - makes people think there is one path for evolution

Ethnocentrism

View one’ s own culture as the standard to judge other cultures

Nature v. Nurture

Whether personality, intelligence, etc. is determined by genetics or by environmental factors

Thomas Hobbes

Humans are evil in nature, society can help them fix that nature

Jean-Jacques Rosseau

Human nature is good, society corrupts

Field studies of chimpanzees

Skills are acquired socially (learned how to certain things from other chimpanzees like termite fishing)

Cutlure in Evolutionary Perspective (Fossil Record)

Bipedialism

Culture & Society

Culture is distinguished from society

• Society provides the structure in which culture exists

• Culture gives meaning and legitimacy to social structures

Culture & Biology

Culture is distinguished from biology

• physical traits, genetics, brain structures, etc.

Supra-Organic

Culture is at a level above the individual (culture transcends individuals)

Subjectivity and Agency

Individual point of view and individual’s capacity for innovative action

Culture & World View

Symbols, signs, rules, values, etc.

Cultural Constructions

Food (Turkey for Thanksgiving, cake on birthdays, etc.)

Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism

A methodical issue - how you study or interpret the culture

Ethical issues - judgement, responsibility, values

Right and wrong should be provisional - moral judgements are temporary

Verbal communication

Spoken/written words

Non-verbal communication

Facial expressions, body language, gestures

Phoneme

Smallest unit of sound, sound contrast that makes a difference

Morpheme

Smallest unit of meaning

Lexicon

Dictionary containing all of its morphemes and their meanings

Syntax

How words are arranged in a sentence

Language & Thought

Languages expresses thought, but does not fully reproduce everything happening in the mind

Dialects

Systematic variations of a language associated with different groups

AAVE & BEV

African American Vernacular Englsh/Black English Vernacular

Uniform dialect spoken by the majority of black youth in U.S

Stratification & Symbolic Domination

How languages reinforce social hierarchies

ex:

• Wealthier neighborhoods have better-funded schools

• Students in those schools get more resources, smaller class sizes, experienced teachers

Biopolitics

Modern poltiics power manages, regulates, and optimizes the biological life of populations through health policies, demographics, and surveillance

Assemblage

set of meanings assembled for a particular reason. EX: Ad agencies reach out to other ethnicities by placing important cultural markers in their commercials

Asian American

Ancestry from continent of Asia

Normal and Not Normal

Not normal - marked category, includes terms like diversity and culture.

Normal - racially white

General Market-Advertising (Characteristics)

Executives are overwhelmingly ethnoracially white Americans. Commercials, ads, billboards, advertisements on-line, etc.

View of normal

Racially white and middle class American accented English

Approach to Diversity

Large established corporations with big budgets. Target a broad base of potential consumers and are aware of diversity in the market

20-30%

Average diversity ratio in a casting of a commercial, refers to non-white chracters, not the 70-80% of the white cast

Multicultural Advertising (Creative affect)

Ads are creative products, assembling different markers of culture, identify, and migrant experience that appeal to and also define the groups they represent

Multicultural Advertising (Use of signs)

A form to which is attached meaning (signified). Qualisigns (sensory qualities) to index diversity, a sign that refers to a quality of a greater social and cultural whole, a quality of a broader set of values and meanings.

Multicultural Advertising (In-language & in-culture)

Language - using the audience’s primary language (Spanish, Mandarin, etc.), dialect, slang, code-switching

In-culture - reflecting values, humor, norms, and lived experiences of that audience

Transcreation

Adapts a message so it works emotionally and culturally in antoher context (between translation and original creation)

Multicultural Ad Agencies (Who they hire & why)

Hire:

Billingual/bicultural creatives

cultural strategies and anthropologists

community insiders (people embedded in specifci ethnic or diasporic communities)

diverse directors, writers, and casting professionals

Why:

Lived experience avoids stereotypes

Teams can identify subtle cues (humors, gestures, tensions) outsiders can miss

Builds credibility with both audiences and clients

Multicultural Ad Agencies and Client Relations (Intercultural affect & implications)

Intercultural affect can produce empathy, curiosity, discomfort, or division

Positive - builds cross-cultural understanding and visibility

Negative - can reinfore stereotypes or exoticize difference

Realization of Space

How ads structure social imagination beyond the screen

Certain spaces become coded as belonging to particular racial/ethnic groups

Ideas like

Suburbs = White, middle-class

Urban neighborhoods = Black or Latino

Small businesses = Immigrant

Race

Social construct that categorize people into groups based on physical appearance, shared ancestry, and cultural traits