Chapter 5 Flashcards
(50 cards)
visual anthropology
documentation of culture in photographs or video
demographic sampling
survey of human subjects in a community (number of people, their sex and age, population density)
ecological anthropology
Rappaport’s idea that humans needed to be studies as populations of the same species interacting with other populations of living things
postmodernism
questions optimistic Enlightenment ideas and the belief in the clocklike progress of the human species and abandons positivistic endeavor to understand human culture scientifically
arrival story
common trope in anthropological literature that describes how the anthropologist first set foot in the community he studied
structure
political, economic, and social institutions of a society
superstructure
ideology, art, and religion of a society
cultural ecology
assumes a causal relationship between environment and social organization in small scale societies, such as Shoshone in Great Basin having limited and scattered resources
historical particularism
school of thought associated with Boaz in which societies are viewed as unique products of their history and environment
ethnohistory
documentary study and analysis that usually takes place in archives and libraries
multilinear evolution
idea that many different cultural adaptations are possible defending on available resources and other environmental factors
emic perspective
understanding a native’s point of view
cultural materialism
says culture is composed of 3 parts: infrastructure, structure, and superstructure
infrastructure
technology, environment, and the rate of population growth in society; according to materialists this has the biggest influence on human thinking and behavior
Anthropological tools
demographic sampling, visual anthropology, studying time use, free listing
modernism
continuation of Enlightenment ideas of human progress and rationality; assumes societies evolve linearly
moieties
a descent group in a society that only has 2 descent groups (similar to clan)
structural-functionalism
assumes constituent parts of society are interdependent
method
any research procedure employed to evaluate a hypothesis
Levi-Strauss
associated with structuralism
materialist
perspective that views culture as the product of how people make a living and interact with their environment; the material nature of their existence determines how they think, what they believe, and how they organize socially
etic description
cultural knowledge as inferred from native behavior or ethnographic observation
validity
overall believability of the information and the conclusions that come from field research
ethnographic present
moment a culture is researched in the field by an anthropologist
