ANTH 203 Keyterms MT1

Holistic

Culture is not a collection of parts. Trying to see the larger picture. A type of Anthropological perspective to consider.

Participant Observation

"The researcher becomes actively involved in the community or group being studied". It means to live and interact with a group of people for an extended period of time. Depending on your research this could be anywhere from a few months to multiple decades.

Structural Functionalism

This is associated with Radcliffe-Brown, rules and structures that govern the social body, bringing Durkheim into the discipline, and the message that "Social Structures are just as real as individuals"

Interpretive Anthropology

Defined by Geertz's saying in 1973 as "[M]an is an animal suspended in webs of significance that he has spun himself".

The study of a culture as a system of meaning. This is an example of Subjectivity.

Unstructured Data Collection

Any collection method that does not use predetermined and uniform questions? Ex. Talking to people everywhere (Reddit, Discord, Pub, community events, community meetings, etc.)

Objective Data

Examples of objective data are either kinship structures or census data.

Census taking

The collection of demographic data about the culture being studied

Life Histories

A qualitative research method that looks into the individual and collective experiences of people.

Data Mining

Looking at the statistics for a website (Ex. What time does the website receive the most activity? What is the demographic of those who use the site?)

Naturalistically

A type of Anthropological perspective to consider. It looks at people and culture within the context of their environment. (Ex. Boas and his study of the Inuit people of Baffin Island)

Globally

A type of Anthropological perspective to consider. Looks at how global forces affect culture.

Bio-culturally

A type of Anthropological perspective to consider. Looks at the relationship between biology and culture.

Thick Descriptions

Allows researchers to differentiate the meanings between identical actions, moving beyond "surface-level" understanding. It helps to build contextual understanding, interpretation and meaning, detail and depth, symbolic analysis. (Ex. The difference between using the middle finger while driving and using it among your friends, same gesture, but it is used to express different things in most cases)

Durkheim

The theory proposed by Emilie Durkheim that "society is a complex system of interrelated and interdependent parts that work together to maintain stability (Durkheim 1893), and that society is held together by shared values, languages, and symbols."

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Ethnocentrism

The view that one society or group is better than another. Ex. World
maps can look entirely different based on the country they're produced in, some maps will recognize different countries/states (Winichakul 1994)

Emic bias

Accounts of people who are within the studied group. These accounts can be subjective or insider accounts. A type of Ethnocentrism.

Etic Bias

Refers to objective or outsider accounts. A type of Ethnocentrism. Ex. We can read someone's accounts of a society, but we have not experienced it ourselves.

Cultural Relativism

Withholding your judgment of other people's practices to understand them in their own cultural terms. It looks at behavior within the context of its social and cultural structures. A type of Anthropological perspective to consider. (My) Ex. Not saying that some cultures' traditional coming-of-age rituals are barbaric, but instead looking into what the purpose/meaning of certain aspects of the ceremonies are. (Examining the human experience of the culture)

Comparative Approach

We do not look at societies in isolation, and instead see how behavior varies or differs. A type of Anthropological perspective to consider. Ex. Looking into how the cultural practices of one group of people can differentiate itself from another group while existing within the same region.

Degenerationism

The belief that once humans fell from God's grace they degenerated from a more civilized state. This is a theory that proceeded E.B. Tylor

Diffusionism

Ideas of culture are borrowed from one culture to another.

Ex.
a)Graham Hancock believes that there was once a super-advanced society that the ancient civilizations all based themselves on even after they died off.
b) The most impressive of ancient human creations were created by aliens.

Historical Particularism

The concept that culture is context-dependent. Cultures will change and adapt based on their specific environmental and historical context. Ex. The people in the Amazon Rainforest will have different developmental milestones than those who live in Siberia.

Functionalism

The key question in anthropology is the function of institutions in a society. This is associated with Malinowski, Ethnography, living through your research as opposed to it being strictly mentalized, and it looks at the "intimate details of family life... usually trivial...but always significant"

Structuralism

The Structures of the social institutions were the key to understanding. Meaning in social action as opposed to just their function. (Thick Descriptions)

Cultural Materialism

Material conditions determine human thoughts and behaviors.

Symbolic Anthropology

"Culture is a symbolic system". This looks at what people are doing and attaches meaning to it. This is an example of Objectivity.

Structured Data Collection

Any collection method that uses predetermined and uniform questions for all participants. Ex. surveys, questionnaires, polls, formal interviews, etc.

Subjective Data

Society is made up of people and how they imagine it. It's hard to quantify imagination. For example, people's perspectives on their feelings about natural disasters/if they like to have hot chocolate made with water or milk.

Ethnographic Mapping

A data-gathering tool that locates where the people being studied live, where they keep their livestock, where public buildings are located, and so on, in order to determine how that culture interacts with its environment.

Document Analysis

A qualitative research technique used by researchers. The process involves evaluating electronic and physical documents to interpret them, gain an understanding of their meaning, and develop upon the information they provide.

Autoethnography

Research method where writers examine their own life experiences to discover broader cultural insights

Anthropological Perspective

The way anthropologists look at and understand people and culture.

Reflexively

A type of Anthropological perspective to consider. It means to be aware of the impact of our own social and cultural structures.