ANT100 Winter 2025

Social Construction

we have behaviours that appear in social lives, built through interactions within human groups, result of groups working on the potential we have given by nature

The Colonel Enterprise

the domination of the rest of world by the western world

Other

spelt with a capital, is a concept describing a person or more often a group that is not part of our group

The Colonial Other

• those groups who were subjugated to the western world

• mostly white people studying conquered peoples

Primitive

somebody who didn't know how to read or write, or peasant in European countries

Oriental

the East or regions of Asia, it often carries connotations of a Western-centric view that portrays these cultures as exotic, inferior, or "other."

World Columbian Exposition

• celebrated the discovery of Colombia by Christopher Columbus

• native exhibits

  • made natives come from colonies to this exhibition to exhibit them

  • “natives” on exhibit

• at the very same event, was the first parliament of world religions

  • gathering of people from different parts of the world

Culture

• what we learn from each other vs. what was “programmed” by our genes

• nature vs nurture

  • nature is biology nurture is environment

• helps us to make sense of the world in group-specific ways

Language as a part of Culture

• a principle took of

  • social construction (and social transmission)

  • communication

  • identity formation

Anthropocene

• language and society are universal human characteristics that allow us to adapt to the environment

• but recently its the environment that has to adapt to us

Cultural Variables

• a systematic way to study differences (baseball cap/decorative headscarf]

• Indirect ethnography

• How come the caribbean women is allowed to wear the headscarf but the french-canadian women isn’t allowed to wear a headscarf- cultural + circumstantial

Race

real- reality is socially constructed
invented- doesn’t come from nature
naturalized- we THINK it comes from nature

An innovation whose material reality is genetic pools

• Not a fantasy that people who are of the same will have children who look very similar to them

• a category of imagined common descent

Signification

• making sense, making signs

• Linguistic and non linguistic

• The nature of signs

• Signifier and signified 

• Symbol, icon, index

• Denotation and connotation

• A sign doesn’t have to be what a sign is defined as in ordinary language

Semiotics

study of Language linguistics

• Studying other signs

Signifier

the physical or observable aspect of the sign. It could be a word (like "dog"), a picture (of a dog), a gesture (barking), or any other form that communicates meaning

Signified

the concept or idea that the signifier represents. For the word "dog", it is the mental image or understanding of a canine animal

Icon

a physical resemblance to the signified, the thing being represented. A photograph is a good example as it certainly resembles whatever it depicts

Index

shows evidence of what’s being represented. A good example is using an image of smoke to indicate fire

Symbol

has no resemblance between the signifier and the signified. The connection between them must be culturally learned. Numbers and alphabets are good examples. There’s nothing inherent in the number 9 to indicate what it represents. It must be culturally learned.

Cross-Cultural Comparison

A research method that compares the cultural differences between a group of people

Cultural Essentialism

The idea that people are defined by their culture.

The Real

1st stage

-       Ego not yet formed

-       No signs

The Imaginary

2nd stage

-       The ego forms

-       It corresponds to the icon

-       Images rather than words

-       The world is perceived without words

-       Ego image is supported by the authority of mother / father / society

The Symbolic

3rd Stage
-       Language appears

-       Language is learned from parents/society

-       Ego is called “I”

it involves the formation of signifiers and language and is considered to be the "determining order of the subject"

Denotation

The plain, direct, or explicit meaning of a word, as found in a dictionary

Connotation

The implied or suggested meaning, emotion, or feeling associated with a word

Ordinary Language

reality is what is real

Jargon

reality is how we understand the real

Linguistic Relativity

the idea that the language we speak influences how we think about the world

Religion

-       Belief in spiritual beings

-       “essentially a summative notion and cannot be taken uncritically to imply that one single unifying, internally coherent, carefully programmed set of rituals and beliefs characterizes the religious behavior or the society or is equally followed by all its members”

-       the parts of culture that involve ideas, and the associated actions and objects and institutions, about non-human and often “super”-human being(s)and/or force(s) that enter into “social” relationships with humans

-       the system or the discourse through which human society and culture is expanded to include the non-human

The Soul

an eternal, immaterial, indivisible, personal (that is, it preserves the person’s individuality) entity

Animism

A type of religious belief in which non-human species and phenomena have spiritual components that interact with and sanction humans.

Totemism

A religious conception that human individuals or groups have a symbolic or spiritual connection with particular natural species, objects, or phenomena

Deism

creator god that does not take an active role or moral interest in human affair

Pantheism

everything Is God

Animatism

A type of religious belief where impersonal spiritual forces exist in the world and affect human life and behavior.

Contagious Magic

The belief and practice that objects that come into contact with each other have some supernatural connection with each other.

Sympathetic Magic

The belief and practice that objects which have something in common with each other (e.g., same shape or texture) have some supernatural connection with each other

Diviner

A religious specialist who uses one of many techniques to “read” information from the supernatural world

Ritual

Any type of formal, repetitive behavior that is felt to have significance beyond the actions themselves

Technical Rituals

intended to achieve certain specific ends, like divination or rites of intensification

Therapeutic Rituals

intended to cure illness and misfortune, such as shamanic healing, or to cause it, such as sorcery and witchcraft.

Ideological Rituals

intended to express or achieve social goal

Salvation Rituals

intended to work changes in individuals

Revitalization Rituals

intended to work changes in society

Sacrifice

A ritual behavior in which something is destroyed or killed

Rite of Passage

A form of ritual intended to accompany or accomplish a change of status or role of the participants

Liminality

The condition of being “in between” or “on the margins” of social roles, in particular of being in transition (as during ritual) between one social role and another – powerful, possibly dangerous state “at the threshold”

Myth

A narrative, usually of the activities of supernatural beings, often telling of how some or all the natural or social world was established

Prayer

A form of linguistic religious ritual in which humans are believed to speak to and interact with supernatural beings

Etymology

the origin of words, and what the meaning is

Imagined Community

A group who feels and act like a community, but don’t know each other face to face

Unmarked Religious Identity

-       default, often unmentioned

-       In Christian countries: Christianity

-       Christmas is not considered as a religious holiday for many people

Ethnonationalism

based on imagined common descent

Civic Nationalism

based on residence, citizenship

Jus Soli

Citizenship is acquired by virtue of being born on the territory of a specific country. 

Jus Sanguinis

Citizenship is granted based on the citizenship of one's parents or ancestors

Internal Bordering

providing different opportunities and support to different groups (ex. not everyone is equally included, like citizenship)

Identity Politics

The organization and mobilization of groups and parties based on shared cultural characteristics, such that these groups and parties are seen to share something in common

Communal Representation

The political procedure of guaranteeing that groups (ethnic groups, language groups, races, religions) will have representation in governments by setting aside offices in the government specifically for those groups

Diaspora

The dispersion of a social group from its historical homeland (often applied specifically to the Jewish community)

Corporate Group

a collection of humans who act and to an extent think as a single “body” in terms of such practical activities as production, distribution, consumption, ownership, decision-making, residence, inheritance, and ultimately “identity” or “destiny

Kinship

a virtually universal way of organizing people into corporate groups, although it is by no means the only way. Similar to “family”

Patrilineage

everyone descended from the same male line

Matrilineage

reckoned on the female side only

Avunculate

the most powerful male relative is Mother’s Brother (not the biological father)

Hawaiian Kinship System

the simplest classificatory system of kinship. Relatives are distinguished only by generation and by gender

Sudanese Kinship System

the most complicated of all kinship systems. It maintains a separate designation for almost every one of Ego's (the individual's) kin, based on their distance from Ego, their relation, and their gender

Eskimo Kinship System

has both classificatory and descriptive terms; in addition to sex and generation, it also distinguishes between lineal relatives (those related directly by a line of descent) and collateral relatives (those related by blood, but not directly in the line of descent).

Marriage

brings together individuals from different kin and corporate groups and binds them into one, or the other, or a new group.

-       A reproductive alliance between families

-       Does not involve just the people married

Exogamy

The marriage principle in which an individual marries someone who is not in the same cultural category as himself or herself

Endogamy

The marriage principle in which an individual marries someone who is in the same cultural category as himself or herself

Kindred

roughly all the people to whom a person considers him or herself “related” by blood or marriage

The Universal Levels of Language

-       Texts

-       Sentences

-       Words

-       Phonemes: distinctive distribution of sound units

-       Phones (actual sounds)

-       Language

Cultural Relativism

You shouldn’t judge other people’s cultures. Assumptions and behaviours mean different things in different cultures

Moral Relativism

There are no absolute values. What is good and evil depends on the culture

Political Economy

the raising and distribution of wealth including production and trade, in relation to government, the law, and other forms of social organization

Universals

practices or beliefs that are found in nearly every culture

Particulars

the unique aspects of a culture that set it apart from others

Economic Anthropology

a field that studies how human societies produce, distribute, exchange, and consume goods and services

The Base

the foundation of society, encompassing the means of production (like factories, land, and raw materials) and the relations of production (the social relationships involved in production, such as capitalist-worker relationships)

The Superstructure

includes everything else in society that is not directly related to the economic base, such as culture, ideology, religion, the state, legal systems, and educational institutions

Means of Production

-       Natural Resources

-       Tools, mines, factories, offices

-       Infrastructure

Mode of Production

The activities and tools a society employs to satisfy its material needs. The form of “work” or “labor” that is performed in a society

Relations of Production

In Marxist theory, the social roles and relationships that are generated by the mode of production, including such things as class, ownership, “management,” and in some lines of thinking “family.”

Production

the phase of operation on the environment in which “raw” materials are transformed into human (and therefore “social” or “cultural”) goods

Distribution

the phase of moving goods and services from the people who produce them to the people who use them

Consumption

the phase of using (eating, wearing, burning) products

Foraging

hunting and gathering

-       Minimal manipulation of the environment

-       Appeared 50-40kya

-       Herd hunting in groups

-       Buffalo hunt before contact with Europeans

-       Modern Examples: Inuit

-       Traditional Substructures: Egalitarian, rudimentary (mainly gender based) division of labour, relatively flexible gender roles, relatively free sexual behaviour, informal authority, little surplus to save and distribute

-       Religion: focuses on nature

-       Natural objects may be imagined as living

Pastoralism

Domestic animals is the main source of food

-       12-10kya

-       Nomads – moving over large territory

-       Depends on domesticated animals

-       Expands size of settlements, society

-       Produces surplus

-       Traditional Superstructures: unequal social status, more gendered division of labour, stronger patriarchy, conflicts with neighbours, powerful God(s) often imagined in the sky

-       Abraham/Ibrahim: a pastoralist

Horticulture

A production system based on low-technology farming or gardening, without the use of plows, draft animals, irrigation, or fertilizer

-       Began only 10kya

-       Somewhat greater manipulation of the environment

-       “Slash and burn” form of agriculture

-       Wendat of Southern Ontario, Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), tribal Indians (northeastern India)

-       Central and South American rain forests, Appalachian Mountains, Indonesian Forests

-       Traditional Superstructures: Chiefs and hierarchy, focus on natural cycles and seasons, harvest rituals, solstices

Intensive Agriculture

The production of food by use of complex and high-yield methods like irrigation, fertilizer, draft animals, and permanent fields

-       5-6kya

-       Relies on tools

-       Unlike in horticulturalism, the environment is radically altered in order to produce arable land and better harvests

-       Most rigid inequality traditionally

-       Towns and Cities: may have the court, and noble residences, artisans, traders, priests, art workshops, theatre, musicians, schools

-       Country: may have land-owner lords and peasants

-       Relations of productions: market towns, feudalism, vassalage (someone who owns allegiance to another lord), involuntary labour, different forms of peasant ownership, craft specialization, little upward of downward mobility

-       Traditional Superstructures: ideologies may justify rigid social inequalities, writing, large public buildings, sciences, official art styles, full-time religious specialists, marriage focused on family property and inheritance

Reciprocity

A form of exchange that involves giving and receiving between relative equals and as part of a larger ongoing social relationship

Generalized Reciprocity

goods are given without any calculation of the value of the goods or any expectation for a “return” of equal value in any time frame

Balanced Reciprocity

goods are given with some calculation of their value and some expectation of an equal return within some reasonable time

Negative Reciprocity

goods are given with calculation of their value but also with an expectation or intention of receiving more value than one gives

Redistribution

A form of exchange that involves collection of surplus or wealth by a “central” individual, group, or institution that control how the wealth is redistributed and used

Market Exchange

A form of distribution based on the use of a specialized location and relatively impersonal principles of supply and demand and the pursuit of profit

Industrial Revolution

-       Began in 1760 (England)

-       Continues in some emerging markets today

-       Means of production include machines and factories

-       Unprecedented surpluses

-       Wage labor

-       Social Classes

-       Large cities (megalopoles)

Capitalism

a system where capital organizes the political economy