Anthropology Book Notes

Chapter 1- What is Anthropology?

Human Diversity:

  • Anthropology explores human diversity across time and space

    • The diversity that comes through human adaptability

  • Humans are among the world’s most adaptable animals

  • USS Enterprise in Smithsonian Institution symbolizes the desire to “seek out new life and civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.”

    • The unknown, the uncontrollable, create order out of chaos and find expression among all peoples

    • Creativity, adaptability, and flexibility

  • Human diversity is the subject matter of anthropology

  • Comparative and holistic science

  • People share society with other animals

  • Culture is distinctly human

    • Traditions and customs that form and guide the beliefs and behaviors of people

    • How should we do things?

    • How do we make sense of the world and distinguish between right/wrong?

    • Consistency in thought and behavior of a society

  • Adaptation is how organisms cope with environmental forces and stresses

    • Biological and cultural for humans

    • Social and cultural adaptation has become increasingly important

      • Hunting/gathering to food production

      • Then to industrial production

  • Biocultural- using and combining both biological and cultural perspectives

    • Cultural traditions promote and discourage certain activities and abilities and set standards of physical well-being and attractiveness

General Anthropology:

  • 4 Fields: Sociocultural, Anthropological Archaeology, Biological, and Linguistic

  • Cultural is the societies of the present and recent past

  • Archaeological uses analysis of material remains to reconstruct

  • Biological looks at human biological variation 

  • Linguistic examines language in social and cultural contexts

  • Anthropology origins in the 19th century

  • Sharing across subfields

Subdisciplines:

  • Cultural describes, analyzes, interprets, and explains sims./diffs. Among societies and changes in society and culture

  • Ethnography is fieldwork

  • Ethnology is cross-cultural comparison

  • Ethnographers often observe discriminatory practices directed toward people who experience poverties and shortages

  • Humans construct their villages in interaction with each other, not isolation

  • Media, migration, and modern transportation cause exposure to external forces

  • Tourists, development agents, govt and religious officials, and political candidates invade

  • Ethnology examines, interprets, analyzes results of ethnography (data)

Anthropology and Other Academic Fields

  • Anthropologists often collaborate with botanists, zoologists, and paleontologists

  • “A systematic field of study or body of knowledge that aims, through experiment, observation, and deduction, to produce reliable explanations of phenomena, with reference to the material and physical world”

  • “The science of human similarities and differences”

  • How can peoples of different appearance, mutually unintelligible languages, and dissimilar ways of life get along peaceably together?

  • Strong links to both sciences and the humanities

  • Ethnomusicology

  • Sociology is closest to anthropology

    • Sampling and statistical techniques to collect and analyze data

  • Anthropologists take part in the events they are observing, describing, and analyzing

  • More personal and less formal than sociology

  • Psychological anthropology studies similarities and differences in psychological traits and conditions

Scientific Method

  • Hypothesis- proposed explanation

  • Explanation- shows how and why one factor causes or associates with another

  • Association- one variable changes, they both do

  • Theory- framework of logically connected ideas that helps us explain many associations

  • Generalization- something usually follows or is associated with something else

  • Law- generalization that applies to all instances of an association

  • Laws in social sciences tend to be imperfect generalizations

Chapter 2- Culture

  • What is culture and why do we study it?

  • What is the relation between culture and the individual?

  • How does culture change- especially with globalization?

What is Culture?

  • Culture- systems of human behavior and thought, obey natural laws and therefore can be studied scientifically

    • The complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society

  • Culture is learned

  • Cultural learning depends on the uniquely developed human capacity to use symbols (signs that have no necessary or natural connection to the things they signify or for which they stand)

    • People create, remember, and deal with ideas

  • During enculturation, people gradually absorb and internalize their particular culture

  • We acquire culture through observation

  • Symbolic thought is unique and crucial to humans and cultural learning

  • Language is a distinctive possession of humans

  • Culture is an attribute of individuals as members of groups

  • People are agents in the culturization of their children

  • Culture affects the ways in which we perceive nature

  • Culture is integrated

    • One part of the system changing causes other parts to change

  • Culture is instrumental, adaptive, and maladaptive

    • Main reason for human adaptability and success

Culture’s Evolutionary Basis

  • Many human traits reflect the fact that our primate ancestors lived in trees

    • Grasping ability and manual dexterity

    • Depth and color vision

    • Learning ability based on a large brain

    • High parental involvement in a limited number of offspring

    • Tendencies towards sociality and cooperation

    • Opposable thumbs

  • Big gap between primate society and developed human culture

    • One monkey washes sweet potatoes, all monkeys do

  • Likely that human ancestors were hunting by at least 3 million years ago

    • Early stone tools

  • Cooperation and sharing are more characteristics of humans than apes and monkeys

  • Humans mate year-round, not according to a cycle

  • Marriage is another major contrast

  • Humans typically maintain lifelong ties with kids; chimps don’t

Universality, Generality, and Particularity

  • Biologically based universals:

    • Long period of infant dependency

    • Year-round (not seasonal) sexuality

    • Complex brain that lets us use languages, symbols, tools

  • Social universals (family)

    • Nuclear family (not universally present but widely so)

  • Different societies can share the same beliefs and customs because of borrowing or through (cultural) inheritance from a common cultural ancestor

  • Particularity- a trait or feature of culture that is not generalized or widespread; confined to a single place, culture, or society

    • Less obvious at the level of individual, more obvious at a higher level

  • Cultures vary tremendously in their beliefs, practices, integration, and patterning

Mechanisms of Cultural Change

  • Diffusion- the borrowing of traits between culture

    • Direct when two cultures trade, intermarry, or wage war on one another

    • Forced when one culture subjugates another and imposes its customs on the dominated group

  • Acculturation- occurs when two groups have continuous firsthand contact

    • Cultures may exchange and blend foods, recipes, music, dances, clothing, tools, technologies, and languages

    • Example: Pidgin English blends languages

  • Independent invention- innovation, creatively finding solutions to problems

Globalization: Its Meaning and Its Nature

  • Globalization- a series of processes that work transnationally to promote change in a world in which nations and people are increasingly interlinked and mutually dependent

    • International commerce and finance, travel and tourism, transnational migration and media (Internet and other high-tech information flows)

    • New economic unions created through the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, and the European Union

    • Primary meaning: worldwide connectedness

    • Second meaning is political and has to do with ideology, policy, and free trade

    • Neutral term for the fact of global connectedness and linkages here

  • Media plays a key role

    • Long-distance communication is easier and faster than ever

    • Transnational culture of consumption

    • Spreading information about products, events, lifestyles, perceived benefits and costs of globalization

  • Internet and cell phones  made very rapid global transmission, resources, and money possible

  • Also emerging diseases

  • Outsiders can wield influence even w/o direct face-to-face contact

  • Hackers can influence banking, voting, or electrical grids in other countries


Chapter 3: Ethnographic Fieldwork and Research Methods

  • Ethnography: The primary research method in cultural anthropology, involving immersive, long-term study of people in their natural environment.

  • Participant Observation: A key method where anthropologists live among and actively participate in the daily life of the community they are studying.

  • Key Elements of Fieldwork:

    • Informants: Local people who share knowledge with the anthropologist, often referred to as "key informants."

    • Interviews: Structured or unstructured conversations with community members.

    • Surveys: Questionnaires designed to gather data on a larger scale.

  • Rapport: Building trust and mutual respect with the people being studied to ensure an ethical and productive research environment.

  • Ethical Considerations:

    • Informed Consent: Ensuring that participants understand the purpose of the research and agree to participate voluntarily.

    • Confidentiality: Protecting the identities of those being studied, especially in sensitive situations.

  • Fieldwork Challenges:

    • Cultural Relativism: Understanding a culture from its own perspective rather than imposing outside values.

    • Ethnographer's Bias: Researchers must be aware of their own biases and how these may influence their interpretation of cultural practices.

    • Reflexivity: The process of reflecting on how the anthropologist's presence, background, and perspectives affect the research.

  • Data Collection:

    • Direct Observation: Immersive, non-intrusive observation of daily life and activities.

    • Life Histories: Detailed stories from individuals about their experiences and cultural background.

  • Analyzing Field Data: Combining qualitative and quantitative methods to interpret and make sense of the collected data.

  • Writing Ethnographies: The process of presenting findings in a coherent and accessible way for both academic and general audiences.

  • Globalization and Fieldwork: The impact of globalization on ethnographic research, including challenges related to studying communities in the context of global flows of people, ideas, and capital.