Method And Theory In Cultural Anthropology

Question 1

Ethnographic fieldwork

Answer 1

Includes Living with the culture for 1-1.5 years and immersing yourself in their culture while trying to be apart of their community.

Question 2

What are the 6 steps of ethnographic fieldwork?

Answer 2

Preparation
Arrival 
Euphoria
Culture shock
Participation observation
Return home, analyze data

Question 3

Culture shock

Answer 3

Psychological reaction to an unfamiliar culture.

Question 4

Ethnocentrism

Answer 4

Judging other cultures using ones own cultural values.

Question 5

Etic perspective

Answer 5

Looking at the scholars point of view.

“View of the outsider”

Question 6

Emic perspective

Answer 6

The insider’s point of view.

Triying to understand the view point of the culture being studied.

Question 7

What are the 5 steps of the scientific method?

Answer 7

1. Come up with a research question
2. Do research and collect data
3. Form a hypothesis
4. Test the hypothesis through experimentation, observation, replication.
5. Draw a conclusion based on the analysis of the data.

Question 8

What are the common two problems of science and social studies?

Answer 8

Quantifying data
Informants that are untruthful
Experimentation (limits on what you can do to people)
Prediction
Objectivity

Question 9

Cultural evolutionism

Answer 9

All societies move through a series of distinct evolutionary stages.

Question 10

Who were the two people that introduced cultural evolutionism?

Answer 10

Edward Tyler and Lewis Henry Morgan

Question 11

What are the three categories of theoretical approaches of analysis of societies?

Answer 11

Materialistic
Socio-political
Mental

Question 12

Explain the theoretical approach of studying societies known as Diffusionism.

Answer 12

Certain cultural traits were developed originally in one or a few parts of the world.

These traits then spread throughout the world via the process of diffusion into other cultures.

Question 13

Explain the theoretical approach of studying societies known as Heliocentric.

Answer 13

.

Question 14

What approach did Julian steward introduce to the study of societies?

Answer 14

Different societies are likely to have different stages that they go through.
Looks at evolution of specific societies.

Question 15

What approach did Leslie white introduce to the study of societies?

Answer 15

Interested in the general evolution of humanity in the sense of its culture and social organization.

Question 16

Cultural ecology

Answer 16

Study the interaction between the subsistence system of a culture and the physical environment and how it affects that culture.

Question 17

Functionalism

Answer 17

How societies work, operate, integrated and maintained.

They don’t care about evolution, or material approaches.

Question 18

Bronislaw Malinowski

Answer 18

Introduced functionalism by studying societies by looking at how they operated or functioned.

Question 19

French structuralism

Answer 19

Concentrates on identifying the mental structures that underlay social behavior.

Question 20

Who introduced French structuralism ?

Answer 20

Claude Levi Strauss

Question 21

What are the two research approaches within Post modernism?

Answer 21

Culture relativism (you can't generalize a culture because each is unique.)
Culture as a lens (you can't objectify because of your own cultural lens.)

Question 22

Cultural relativism

Answer 22

The consideration of behavior beliefs and customs within the context of the particular culture from which they are derived.
(Suspend your cultural lens to prevent judgement.)

Question 23

Culture theories

Answer 23

Material
Social
Mental