Social and Cultural Anthropology Terminology

Acculturation

• Cultural change due to contact with another culture.

Agency

• Capacity to act meaningfully and affect one's own and others' lives.
• Constrained by various factors, but implies the ability to create change.

Alterity

• "Otherness," describing the construction and experience of cultural difference.

Analytical categories

• Outsider's view of a culture (etic), using cross-culturally applicable terms.

Authority

• Power exercised with consent.

Belief and knowledge

• Shared convictions, values, and viewpoints regarded as "the truth".

Biomedicine

• Conventional western medicine.

Biopsychosocial model

• Interactions of biological, psychological, and social factors in health and disease.

Capitalism

• Economic system controlled by private owners for profit.

Causation

• Ability of a cultural feature to influence another.

Change

• Alteration of cultural or social elements, internally or through contact/globalization.

Class

• Division of society based on socioeconomic status.

Classification

• Assigning common knowledge to a recognizable system.

Cohesion

• Acquiring political control over another country.

Cohesion-centred

• Focus on cohesion and consensus as central to society and culture, influenced by Durkheim's concept of "solidarity".

Commodification/ Commodified body

• Transformation of goods, services, and concepts into commodities of value.

Communication

• Language influences social life, identity, beliefs, and ideologies.

Community

• Group sharing common interest, ecology, locality, or social structure, studied via ethnography.

Comparative

• Comparing diverse ways people make sense of the world for greater understanding.

Conflict

• Disagreements resulting from differences in interests, values, or actions, analyzed through conflict theory.

Consensus

• Assumption that cultural values and beliefs are learned and shared across a society.

Consumption

• Meaningful use people make of objects, ideas, or relationships.

Contextualization

• Making sense of anthropological data based on its situation or location.

Cosmology

• Social groups' varying perceptions of the universe and their relationship to it.

Cosmopolitanism

• Communities including individuals living together with cultural difference.

Cultural boundaries

• Essentialist view (fixed boundaries) vs. constructivist view (capacity to redefine identities).

Cultural capital

• Knowledge and experience enabling successful social interaction.

Cultural relativism

• Understanding cultures in their own context without value judgments.

Culture

• Organized systems of symbols, ideas, beliefs, and material production, constantly evolving and subject to conflict.

Development

• Assistance from more to less economically developed societies; also, self-directed improvement.

Diachronic

• Understanding society as a product of development over time, shaped by internal and external forces.

Dialectic

• Discussion and reasoning by dialogue for intellectual investigation.

Diaspora

• Dispersal of peoples from homelands to new communities.

Discourse

• Written or spoken intellectual communication in a discipline.

Embodiment

• Incorporation of the social and material world biologically; experiencing the social world through the body.

Empirical

• Data acquired through first-hand participant observation.

Enculturation

• Gradual acquisition of cultural norms, transmission of culture across generations.

Environment

• Complex relationship between communities and their physical setting.

Essentialism

• Reducing a group to limited characteristics, ignoring individual differences.

Ethics

• Principles governing conduct; concerns for right and wrong.

Ethnicity

• Social group connected by shared cultural identity.

Ethnobiology

• Study of how cultures interact with and use plants and animals.

Ethnobotany

• Study of a people’s knowledge of plants and agricultural customs.

Ethnocentrism

• Viewing the world solely from one's own cultural perspective.

Ethnography

• Writing culture; participant observation and fieldwork.

Ethnopsychology

• Cultural models of subjectivity, interpreting social action.

Ethnozoology

• Study of how cultures interact with and use animals.

Exchange

• Transfer of things between social actors.

Exclusion

• Failure to provide societal rights and benefits.

Family

• Relatedness and connection of people.

Fieldwork

• Immersion in local life to learn about culture.

Gender

• Culturally constructed male/female distinctions.

Globalization

• Increasing global interconnections, transmission of ideas and values.

Governmentality

• State control over the population (Foucault).

Habitus

• Socialized norms guiding behavior and thinking (Bourdieu).

Healing practices

• Culturally specific ways of treating illnesses.

Health

• Impact of cultural processes on securing health and treating illness.

Hegemony

• Cultural/political dominance of one group over others.

Holism

• The whole social system is more than its individual parts.

Hybridity

• Mixing of multiple cultures.

Idealist

• Focus on activities and categories of the human mind.

Identity

• Individual's view of self or view in the eyes of a group; also group identity (religious, ethnic, national).

Ideology

• System of social and moral ideas.

Imagined community

• Community constructed in the minds of its members.

Inclusion

• Welcoming and providing for a person or group.

Insider/outsider

• Viewpoints from within vs. outside a social group.

Interpretation

• Decoding and analyzing cultural symbols.

Kinship

• Social relationships through descent/marriage.

Knowledge system

• Culture providing knowledge for appropriate action; cognitive anthropology explains this.

Labour

• Individual efforts as workers, ascribed a value.

Liminality

• Temporary marginalization during rituals or cultural change.

Lived body

• Body as an aesthetic object with accumulated experiences.

Local categories

• Insider's (emic) view of a culture.

Localization

• Social group’s adaptation of globalization.

Marginalization

• Relegating groups to the edge of society.

Marginality

• Human dimensions causing social exclusion.

Materialist

• Explaining human existence in terms of tangible features.

Materiality

• Cultural meaning of objects and resources.

Mechanized body

• Body perceived as a machine.

Medical anthropology

• Study of social/cultural dimensions of health, illness, and medicine.

Medical system

• Culturally specific medical practices.

Modernization

• Adoption of developed societies' characteristics.

Modified body

• Deliberate alteration for cultural/aesthetic reasons.

Monograph

• Full-length ethnography on a single culture.

Morality

• Adherence to social norms.

Movement

• Sustained campaign for social change.

Nation state

• Politically legitimate, bounded area.

Nature/culture

• Meaning negotiated in relation to human culture.

Neo-colonialism

• Domination perpetuated after colonialism.

Ngoization

• Professionalization via NGOs.

Ontology

• Study of “being,” exploring realities outside social constructs.

Participant observation

• Immersion in a group's life, actively observing and interviewing.

Particularistic

• Understanding society in its specific context.

Personhood

• Culturally constructed concept of "self".

Politicized body

• Body as a topic of political debate.

Positionality

• Anthropologist's subjectivity affecting interpretation.

Post-colonialism

• Study of colonial legacy effects.

Power

• Capacity to influence or control.

Power relations

• Exercise of power between groups/individuals.

Qualitative research

• Interpretive skills used to understand data.

Quantitative research

• Collection of numerical data.

Race

• Socially constructed category based on physical traits.

Real-world issues/examples

• Contemporary issues in news.

Reciprocity

• Mutual exchange: generalized, balanced, negative.

Reflexivity

• Acknowledging influence on research.

Religion

• System of symbols establishing understandings of existence.

Representation

• Problematic nature of describing living people.

Reproduction

• Transmission of cultural values.

Resistance

• Refusal or modified accommodation of change.

Revitalization

• Reclaiming historical roots.

Ritual

• Formalized event with symbolic rules.

Ritualized body

• Body as a focus of ritual.

Role

• Dynamic aspect of status; behavior within a status.

Sacred/profane

• Symbols set apart vs. mundane concerns (Durkheim).

Self

• Product of social interaction.

Sexuality

• Individualized feelings, thoughts, attractions.

Social control

• Means to maintain norms.

Social inequality

• Unequal opportunities and rewards.

Social relations

• Relationships between individuals.

Social stratification

• Hierarchical structures of inequality.

Socialization

• Learning to be a member of society.

Society

• Organization in groups and networks.

Space

• Socially constructed.

State

• Organized political community.

Status

• Position in a social system.

Structure

• Resilient aspects of society constraining members.

Structure-centred

• Social action determined by context.

Subaltern

• Groups outside the hegemonic power structure.

Subjectivity

• Anthropologist's perspective.

Suffering

• Consequences of political/economic power.

Sustainability

• Meeting present needs without compromising future.

Symbolism

• Significance attached to objects.

Synchronic

• Events at the same time.

Syncretism

• Hybridization of cultural traditions.

Technology

• Tools assisting interactions.

The body

• Anthropological investigation of use, value, and limits.

The Other

• Perception of non-members.

The Self

• Socially constructed identity.

Theories

• Frameworks for examining social phenomena.

Time

• Situated in a particular period.

Transnationalism

• Fluid concept of global politics.

Universalistic

• Discovering common laws.

Urban anthropology

• Study of cultural systems of cities.

Virtual community

• Social group interacting online.