Key terms Flashcards
(14 cards)
Age
- a chronological measure, a way of tracking physical development in people
- changing status
Agency
- capacity of human beings to act in meaningful ways that affect their own lives and those of others.
constrained by class, gender religion and social and cultural factors
Class
Division of people in a society based on social and economic status
Community
A group of people who share a common interest, or a common ecology and locality, or a common social system or structure.
Comparitive
Comparison of the diverse and various ways that people make sense of their world brings anthropologists greater understanding of communities, cultures and societies.
Cultural Relativism
Not making value judgements about cultural differences
Ethnicity
A social group is connected by a shared understanding of cultural identity
Ethnocentrism
The tendency to view the world only from the perspective of one’s own culture; the inability to understand cultures different from one’s own.
Gender
The culturally constructed distinctions between males and females.
Role/Status
Status is the position a person has within a social system—this may be ascribed or achieved. Persons’ statuses are usually multiple and come with sets of rights, obligations, behaviours and duties that individuals are expected to perform (their role).
Personhood
A social status granted in various ways to those who meet certain criteria on who can become a person
Self/Other
The socially constructed understanding of individual and cultural identity that, in people’s thinking, distinguishes them from “the Other”.
Sexuality
One’s self-expression as a sexual being
Structure
resilient, regulating aspects of society that constrain the actions of its members.
