Ch. 1 Flashcards
anthropology
study of the full scope of human diversity, past and present, and the application of that knowledge to help people of different backgrounds better understand one another.
Franz Boas
founder of American anthropology who challenged popular ideas of racist immigration practices in early 20th c. (1858-1942)
Audrey Richards
Bemba people in 1930’s Zambia and studying maternal health and nutrition (1899-1956)
ethnocentrism
the belief that one’s own culture or way of life is normal and natural; using one’s own culture to evaluate and judge the practices and ideals of others
ethnographic fieldwork
a primary research strategy in cultural anthropology involving living with a community of people over an extended period to better understand their lives.
four-field approach
the use of four interrelated disciplines to study humanity; physical anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and cultural anthropology.
holism
the anthropological commitment to consider the full scope of human life including culture, biology, history, and language across space and time.
physical anthropology
the study of humans from a biological perspective, particularly focused on human evolution
paleoanthropology
the study of the history of human evolution through the fossil record
primatology
the study of living nonhuman primates as well as primate fossils to better understand human evolution and early human behavior
archaeology
the investigation of the human past by means of excavating and analyzing artifacts.
prehistoric archaeology
the reconstruction of human behavior in the distant past (before written records) through the examination of artifacts.
historic archaeology
the exploration of the more recent past through an examination of physical remains and artifacts as well as written or oral records.
linguistic anthropology
the study of human language in the past and present
descriptive linguists
those who analyze languages and their component parts
historic linguists
those who study how language changes over time within a culture and how languages travel across cultures.
sociolinguistics
those who study language in its social and cultural contexts
cultural anthropology
the study of people’s communities, behaviors, beliefs, and institutions, including how people make meaning as they live, work, and play together.
participant observation
a key anthropological research strategy involving both participation in an observation of the daily life of the people being studied.
ethnology
the analysis and comparison of ethnographic data across cultures.
globalization
the worldwide intensification of interactions and increased movement of money, people, goods, and ideas within and across national borders.
time-space compression
the rapid innovation of communication and transportation technologies associated with globalization that transforms the way people think about space and time.
flexible accumulation
the increasingly flexible strategies that corporations use to accumulate profits in an era of globalization, enabled by innovative communication and transportation technologies.
increasing migration
the accelerated movement of people within and between countries
