midterm 1

Question 1

What are the characteristics of culture?

Answer 1

1) Learned - enculturation and rites of passage.
2) Shared
3) Integrated
4) Adaptive
5) Symbolic - summarizing symbol
6) Cultures are organized in a way people think about the world.

Question 2

Four subfields of anthropology

Answer 2

1) Biological anthropology (discover human origins biologically)

2) Archaeology (fossilized remains are examined)

3) Cultural anthropology (culture)

4) Linguistic anthropology (language)

Question 3

What are the characteristics of anthropology?

Answer 3

1) Evolutionary
2) Comparative
3) Holistic

Question 4

Which anthropologist proposed the three “ethical stages” during the 19th century?

Answer 4

Morgan (1818-1881) proposed the typology that there are three ethical stages that all societies must go through: Savagery, barbarism, civilization.

Question 5

What is the fifth subfield of anthropology?

Answer 5

Applied Anthropology

Question 6

Name three models of cultural changes that were mentioned during class

Answer 6

1) Diffusion - the spread of culture through direct or indirect contact.

2) Assimilation - the abandonment of their own culture in exchange of adapting the dominant culture.

3) Acculturation - adapting some elements of the dominant culture, while also maintaining their own culture.

Question 7

How have anthropologists explained human cultural diversity?

Answer 7

1) Evolutionism - based on Darwin’s theories about survival of the fittest.

2) Historical Particularism

3) Functionalism

4) Culture and personality

5) Cultural materialism

6) interpretive (symbolic) anthropology

Question 8

Who is Herbert Spencer?

Answer 8

A 19th century thinker who argued that an examination of the evolution of social structures over time was central to the study of the human condition

Question 9

name three cultural changes that are considered contemporary/historical changed:

Answer 9

1) Colonialism
2) Migration
3) Globalization

Question 10

Biological (physical) anthropology:

Answer 10

the specialty of anthropology that looks at humans as biological organisms and tries to discover what characteristics make us different from and/or similar to other living things.

(This group consists of: paleoanthropology, Human and biology variation, and primatology)

Question 11

Archaeology

Answer 11

One of the four subfields of anthropology that is interested in what we can learn from material remains left behind by earlier human societies.

“the study of the human past”

(this group contains: prehistoric archaeology and historical archaeology)

Question 12

Linguistic Anthropology

Answer 12

One of the four subfields of anthropology that is concerned with the study of human languages.

(this group contains: descriptive linguistics, comparative linguistics, and historical linguistics)

Question 13

Cultural Anthropology

Answer 13

Sometimes referred to as “sociocultural anthropology”, “ethnology,” and “social anthropology.”

One of the four subfields of anthropology that studies how variation on beliefs and behaviours is shared by culture and learned by different members of human groups.

Question 14

Applied anthropology

Answer 14

The fifth subfield of anthropology.

The use of information gathered from the other anthropological specialties to solve practical problems within and between cultures.

This consists of medical anthropology, developmental anthropology, and urban anthropology. It also has forensic anthropology, applied medical anthropology, and corporate and consumer anthropology.

Question 15

Culture:

Answer 15

It is learned, adaptive, integrated, shared, symbolic, and a negotiated/contested system of meaning.

sets of learned behaviours and ideas that humans acquire as members of a society. We use culture to adapt to and transform the world in which we live.

Question 16

Critique of “Culture”

Answer 16

Lila Abu-Lughod:

1) Culture is not an airtight container
2) Cultures are not impediments to change
3) Cultures are not as coherent as we think
4) Cultures are not internally homogenous

Question 17

Evolutionism:

Answer 17

a theory that claims that societies develop according to one universal order of cultural evolution.

“Social Darwinism” - (survival of the fittest) the belief that the strongest and the fittest should survive in society, and the weak should die out.

Herbert Spencer: took Darwin’s theory of evolution and applied it to how societies change and evolve over time.

Early anthropologists:
1) Lewis Henry Morgan - “three ethical stages (savagery, barbarian, civilization)

2) Edward Burnett Tylor - proposed unilineal cultural evolutionism; a series of stages through which all societies must go (or had gone) in order to reach civilization.

Problems?
- this creates ethnocentrism.

Question 18

Historical Particularism:

Answer 18

the study of cultures in their own historical contexts.

Franz Boas: founder of historical particularism; also the father of cultural relativism.

Question 19

Ethnocentrism:

Answer 19

to judge other ways of life according to one’s own standards.

1) Superiority

2) Normality

3) Universality - the idea that the beliefs within a cultural system are superior and also ought to be shared to everyone in the world.

“the opinion that one’s own way of life (culture) is the most natural, correct, or fully human way of life.”

Question 20

Cultural relativism:

Answer 20

to judge people’s way of life relative to its own standards.

1) No universal yardstick
2) Look at it sympathetically
3) “alternate common sense”

Question 21

Language has an impact on our:

Answer 21

1) thought processes and perception

2) Worldview/culture

3) Behaviors

Question 22

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Answer 22

also known as “linguistic relativity principle.”

The assertion that language has the power to shape the way people see the world.

Question 23

What are the components of language?

Answer 23

1) Syntax - the study of sentence structure

2) Morphology - the study of how words are put together

3) Phonology - the study of sound

4) Semantics - the study of meaning

Question 24

What are the characteristics of language?

Answer 24

1) SYMBOLISM

2) DISPLACEMENT

3) PRODUCTIVITY

4) DUALITY OF PATTERNING: language is patterned in two levels - level of sound (phoneme) and level of meaning (morpheme)

Question 25

What are the steps that are required for one to do fieldwork?

Answer 25

1) CHOOSING A PROBLEM OR SITE 2) GETTING FUNDING (MONEY) - funding from SSHR or private agencies; getting approval from the Ethics Board. 3) PRELIMINARY RESEARCH - assess feasibility, make local contacts, request permissions, and practice local language. 4) ARRIVAL AND CULTURE SHOCK - the feeling of dislocation when arriving to a new environment; anthropologists may experience pain, illnesses, and discomfort upon arrival to their field. 5) DATA COLLECTION - Surveys, oral accounts (from key informants; collecting data from random samples, judgment samples, and snowball samples), Participant observation, archives & artifacts, and Diary 6) INTERPRETING AND WRITING UP DATA - ethnography as "translation", Emic vs Etic POV

Question 26

Culture Shock:

Answer 26

collection of physical and mental symptoms when realization that our dosa does not work. Lecture example: Peace Corps volunteers in Botswana

Question 27

Reflexivity:

Answer 27

critically thinking about the way one thinks' reflecting on one's own experiences.

Question 28

Polyphony:

Answer 28

anthropologists try to gather as many voices as they can to be included into their ethnographies; to obtain a common agreement.

Question 29

Anthropological perspective:

Answer 29

an approach to humanity that is holistic, comparative, and evolutionary.

Question 30

Anthropology:

Answer 30

the integrated study of human nature, human society, and human history.

Question 31

Binary Opposition:

Answer 31

a pair of opposites used as an organizing principle (e.g., body/soul; yin/yang; male/female)

Question 32

Comparative

Answer 32

a characteristic of the anthropological perspective that requires anthropologists to consider similarities and differences in a wide range of human societies before generalizing about human nature, human society, and human history

Question 33

Determinism:

Answer 33

the philosophical view that one simple force (or a few simple forces) causes (or determines) complex events.

Question 34

Dualism:

Answer 34

the philosophical view that reality consists of two equal and irreducible forces.

Question 35

Ethnography:

Answer 35

An anthropologist's recorded description of a particular culture.

Question 36

Evolutionary:

Answer 36

a characteristics of the anthropological perspective that requires anthropologists to place their observations about human nature, human society, or human history in a flexible framework that takes consideration change over time.

Question 37

Holism:

Answer 37

a perspective on the humanity that assumes that mind and body, individual and society, and individual and environment interpenetrate and even one another.

Question 38

Human agency:

Answer 38

human beings' ability to exercise at least some control over their lives.

Question 39

Idealism:

Answer 39

the philosophical view that pure, incorruptible ideas - or the mind that produces such ideas - constitute the essence of human nature.

Question 40

Informants:

Answer 40

people in a particular culture who work with anthropologists and provide them with insights about local ways of life.

Question 41

Materialism:

Answer 41

the philosophical view that activities of our physical bodies in the material world constitute the essence of human nature.

Question 42

Symbol:

Answer 42

something that stands for something else.

Question 43

Fieldwork:

Answer 43

an extended period of close involvement with the people in whose way of life anthropologists are interested, during which anthropologists ordinarily collect most of their data.

Question 44

Intersubjective meanings:

Answer 44

Meaning rooted in the symbolic systems of a culture and shared by participants in that culture.

Question 45

Multi-sited ethnography

Answer 45

Ethnographic research on cultural processes that are not contained by social, ethnic, religious, or national boundaries, in which the ethnographer follows the process from site to site, often doing fieldwork in sites and with persons that were traditionally never subject to ethnographic analysis.

Question 46

Participant-observation

Answer 46

The method anthropologists use to gather information by living and working with the people whose culture they are studying while participating in their lives as much as possible.

Question 47

Positivism

Answer 47

The view that there is a single reality "out there" that can be detected through the senses and that there is a single, appropriate scientific method for investigating that reality.

Question 48

Positionality:

Answer 48

a person's uniquely situated social position, which reflects his or her gender, nationality, political views, previous experiences, and so on.

Question 49

Colonialism:

Answer 49

the cultural domination of people by larger, wealthier powers.

Question 50

neocolonialism:

Answer 50

The persistence of profound social and economic ties linking former colonial territories to their former colonial rulers despite political sovereignty "the control of less-developed countries by developed countries through indirect means.".

Question 51

Social structure

Answer 51

the enduring aspects of the social forms in a society, including its political and kinship systems.

Question 52

Structural-functional theory

Answer 52

a position that explores how particular social forms function from day-to-day in order to reproduce the traditional structure of the society.

Question 53

Unilineal cultural evolutionism

Answer 53

a 19th century theory that proposed series of stages through which all societies must go (or had gone) in order to reach civilization.

Question 54

White man's burden

Answer 54

Europeans' sense that it was their duty to colonize, rule, and "civilize" all peoples they viewed as "savage"

Question 55

Creole

Answer 55

a complex language with native speakers that has developed over one or more past generations from two or more distinct languages. Alternatively, a complex language that has developed from two or more distinct languages and that is used as main language, whether or not it has native speakers.

Question 56

Morphemes

Answer 56

the shortest meaning-bearing units in any language. The change to plural form has the morpheme for plural added.

Question 57

Morphology

Answer 57

The study of the smallest units of meaning (morphemes) in a language.

Question 58

Phonemes

Answer 58

Basic units of distinct sound that are characteristics of a language and that come together to form words. On other own, phonemes carry no referential or lexical meaning.

Question 59

Phonology

Answer 59

The study of sounds (phones and phonemes) of a language.

Question 60

Lingua Franca/ Pidgin

Answer 60

a simple language with no native speakers that develops in a single generation between members of communities that possess distinct native languages. Alternatively, a shared secondary language in a speech community in which speakers also use some other main language. "a grammatically simplified form of a language, used for communication between people not sharing a common language. Pidgins have a limited vocabulary, some elements of which are taken from local languages, and are not native languages, but arise out of language contact between speakers of other languages."

Question 61

Semantics

Answer 61

The study of meaning

Question 62

Syntax

Answer 62

The study of sentence structure.

Question 63

Economy

Answer 63

From an institutional perspective, the culturally specific processes used by members of a society to provide themselves with material resources.

Question 64

Market exchange

Answer 64

a mode of exchange in which the exchange of goods (trade) is calculated in terms of a multi-purpose medium of exchange and standard of value (money) and carried by means of a supply-deman-price mechanism (the market)

Question 65

means of production

Answer 65

the tools, skills, organization, and knowledge used to extract energy from nature. (as stated by Marx) f

Question 66

mode of production

Answer 66

"a specific, historically occurring set of social relations through which labour is deployed wrest energy from nature by means of tools, skills, organization, and knowledge" (Defined by Eric Wolf) The concept of modes of production is holistic.

Question 67

modes of exchange

Answer 67

Patterns according to which distribution takes place: reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange.

Question 68

production

Answer 68

The transformation of nature's raw materials into a form suitable for human use.

Question 69

reciprocity

Answer 69

A mode of exchange in which individuals exchange goods and/or services (1) under the assumption that the exchanges will eventually balance out, (2) with the expectation of immediate balance, or (3) in the hope that at least one party will get something for nothing.

Question 70

redistribution

Answer 70

a mode of exchange in which a centralized social organization receives contributions from all members of the group and redistributes them in a way that provides for every member.

Question 71

Design features of language

Answer 71

The characteristics of language that, when taken together, differentiation it from other known animal communication systems.

Question 72

Language:

Answer 72

the system of symbols we use to encode our experiences of the world and of one another.

Question 73

Socialization:

Answer 73

the social aspects of learning one's culture. the process by which humans learn to become members of a group, both by interacting appropriately with others and by coping with the behavioural rules established by the group.

Question 74

Enculturation:

Answer 74

the process by which humans living with one another must learn to come to terms with the ways of thinking and feeling that are considered appropriate in their respective culture.

Question 75

Rite of passage:

Answer 75

a ritual that serves to make the movement and transformation of an individual from one social position to another. (Involves three phases: SEPARATION, LIMINALITY, REINTEGRATION)

Question 76

structural violence

Answer 76

violence that results form the way that political and economic forces structure risk for various forms of suffering within a population.

Question 77

Social birth:

Answer 77

a social recognition of the transition to personhood. for example: Hmong of Laos --> "soul calling"

Question 78

Deviance:

Answer 78

behaviours that violate cultural norms and expectations.

Question 79

Gender Identity:

Answer 79

cultural construction of beliefs and behaviors considered appropriate for each sex.

Question 80

Naive Realism:

Answer 80

the belief that people everywhere see the world in the same way

Question 81

(passive) Infanticide:

Answer 81

the deliberate killing of a child below one year of age.

Question 82

Dominant personality type:

Answer 82

set of psychological characteristics with the high incidence in the population.

Question 83

Name three types of reciprocity:

Answer 83

1) Generalized - doing an exchange without expecting an immediate return and without specifying the value of the return. 2) Balance - an exchange that is expected return of equal value and has a specified time limit. 3) Negative - an exchange of goods and services in which at least one party attempts to get something for nothing without suffering any penalties. These attempts can range from haggling over prices to outright seizure (i.e., stealing things/objects from people)

Question 84

relations of productions

Answer 84

the social relations linking the people who use a given means of production within a particular mode of production.

Question 85

Biocultural organisms

Answer 85

organisms whose defining features are co-determined by biological and cultural factors. Anthropologists use this term to describe human beings.

Question 86

biological evolution

Answer 86

change (through mutation) in genetic makeup (the DNA/RNA) of a population that is passed on through the generations. Mutations can be beneficial, non-beneficial (lethal), or neutral; thus, they can be overtly noticeable or not noticeable.

Question 87

co-evolution

Answer 87

the relationship between biological processes and symbolic cultural processes in which each makes up an important part of the environment to which the other must adapt

Question 88

cultural evolution

Answer 88

evolution of the beliefs and behaviours we incorporate into human development through the experiences of teaching and learning.

Question 89

cultural pattern

Answer 89

a behaviour or idea that members of a specific society repeatedly pass on to one another, across generations, and that is thus recognizable to all members of that society.

Question 90

essence

Answer 90

an unchanging core of features that is unique to things of the same (whether they are chairs, cows, ideas or people) and makes them what they are

Question 91

ethnology

Answer 91

the comparative study of two or more cultures

Question 92

habitus

Answer 92

everyday, routine social activity rooted in habitual behaviour

Question 93

metanarrative

Answer 93

a grande-scale story or theme that members of a given culture recognize and that often drives ideas and actions within that culture.

Question 94

paleoanthropology

Answer 94

the study of the fossilized remains of human beings' earliest ancestors.

Question 95

primatology

Answer 95

the study of non-human primates, the closest living relatives of human beings.

Question 96

dialectic of fieldwork

Answer 96

the process of building a bridge of understanding between anthropologist and informant so that each can begin to understand each other.

Question 97

fact

Answer 97

a widely accepted observation, a taken-for-granted item of common knowledge, that becomes intelligible only when it is interpreted and placed in a context of meaning.

Question 98

objective knowledge

Answer 98

knowledge about reality that is absolute and true for all people, in all times and places.

Question 99

situated knowledge

Answer 99

knowledge that is set within or specific to a precise context or situation. For the ethnographer, situating knowledge based on field observations means explicitly stating his or her personal details such as gender, nationality, political views, class/ethnic/educational backgrounds, and so on.

Question 100

structured interviews

Answer 100

a method for gathering information whereby an anthropologist (or another researcher) asks a set of predetermined questions and record participants' responses. Structured interviews can be used as an opening to move into intersubjective discussions and then into participant observation.

Question 101

subjective meaning

Answer 101

meaning that seems true to a particular person, based on his or her personal values, beliefs, opinions, and assumptions.

Question 102

band

Answer 102

a form of social organization that consists of a small group of foragers (usually fewer than fifty people), in which labour is divided according to age and sex, and social relations are highly egalitarian.

Question 103

capitalism

Answer 103

an economic system dominated by a supply and demand market designed to create capital and profit.

Question 104

chiefdom

Answer 104

a form of social organization in which the leader (a chief) and the leader's close relatives are set apart from the rest of society and allowed privileged access to wealth, power, and prestige.

Question 105

culture area

Answer 105

a geographical region in which cultural traditions share similar culture traits

Question 106

culture traits

Answer 106

particular features or parts of a cultural tradition such as dance, ritual, or style of pottery.

Question 107

decolonization

Answer 107

the withdrawal of a colonial power from a territory that had been under its control

Question 108

imperialism

Answer 108

a system in which one country controls other, less powerful territories through colonization, often augmented by military force.

Question 109

politcal economy

Answer 109

a social structure that is organized around material (economic) interests, in which these interests are protected and enhanced through the use of power (politics)

Question 110

small-scale societies

Answer 110

a community of several dozen to several hundred people usually held together by family (kinship) ties and often engaged in traditional subsistence activities.

Question 111

social forms

Answer 111

social forms

Question 112

state

Answer 112

a stratified society that possess a territory that is defended from outside enemies with an army and from internal disorder with police. A state, which has a separate set of governmental institutions designed to enforce laws and collect taxes and tribute, is run by an elite that possesses a monopoly on the use of force

Question 113

tribe

Answer 113

a form of social organization generally larger than a band, in which members usually farm or herd for a living; social relations are relatively egalitarian, although there may be a chief who speaks for the group

Question 114

typology

Answer 114

a classification system based on systematic organization into types on the basis of shared qualities.

Question 115

communicative competence

Answer 115

a term coined by anthropological linguist Dell Hymes to refer to the mastery of adult rules for socially and culturally appropriate speech

Question 116

connotative meaning

Answer 116

additional meaning of a word that derive from the typical concerns in which they are used and rely on personal and cultural associations.

Question 117

denotative meaning

Answer 117

the formal meaning(s) of a word, as given in the dictionary

Question 118

discourse

Answer 118

in speech, a meaningful utterance or series of utterances united by a common theme

Question 119

ethnopragmatics

Answer 119

the study of language use in a specific culture, grounded in an ethnographic approach, with close attention to the relationships among language, communication, and social interaction.

Question 120

grammar

Answer 120

a set of rules that describes the patterns of linguistic usage observed by members of a particular speech community.

Question 121

heteroglossia

Answer 121

the co-existence of multiple varieties of a specific language

Question 122

language ideology

Answer 122

a system of beliefs about how language features relate to social features and what they reveal about the people who use them

Question 123

linguistic competence

Answer 123

a term coined by linguist Noam Chomsky to refer to the mastery of adult grammar

Question 124

linguistics

Answer 124

the scientific study of language

Question 125

metalanguage

Answer 125

language used to talk about language. It often shapes discourse, either directly (e.g., by making language the topic of discussion) or indirectly (e.g., by revealing our awareness of language as a term of symbols that is open to interpretation)

Question 126

native speaker

Answer 126

a person who has spoken a particular language since early childhood

Question 127

pragmatics

Answer 127

the study of language in the context of its use

Question 128

vocabulary

Answer 128

the words used in a particular language or by members of a particular speech community.

Question 129

affluence

Answer 129

the condition of having more than enough of whatever is required to satisfy consumption needs.

Question 130

consumption

Answer 130

using up material goods necessary for human survival

Question 131

cultural ecology

Answer 131

the study of the ways in which human beings relate to one another and to their natural environment

Question 132

distribution

Answer 132

the allocation of goods and services.

Question 133

econiche

Answer 133

the sum total of relations between a species and the plants and animals on which it relies for survival; these relations define those places where a species is "at home"

Question 134

economic anthropology

Answer 134

"the part of the discipline [of anthropology] that debates issues of human nature that relate directly to the decisions of daily life and making a living" (Wilk)

Question 135

ecotones

Answer 135

a transition area between two different eco zones that displays characteristics of both ecozones.

Question 136

ecozones

Answer 136

the particular mixture of plant and animal species occupying any particular region of the earth.

Question 137

food collectors

Answer 137

people who gather wild plant materials, fish, and/or hunt for food

Question 138

food producers

Answer 138

people who depend on domesticated plants and/or animals for food.

Question 139

ideology

Answer 139

according to Marx, those products of consciousness - such as morality, religion, and metaphysics - that purport to explain to people who they are and to justify the kinds of lives they lead

Question 140

institutions

Answer 140

stable and enduring cultural practices that organize social life

Question 141

intensive agriculture

Answer 141

a form of cultivation that employs plows, draft animals, irrigation, and fertilizer to bring a large amount of land under cultivation at one time.

Question 142

labour

Answer 142

the activity of linking human social groups to the material world around them. Human labour is always social labour.

Question 143

mechanized industrial agriculture

Answer 143

large-scale farming that is highly dependent on industrial methods of technology and production. This type of agriculture is often found in conjunction with factory farming of animals.

Question 144

neoclassical economic theory

Answer 144

a formal attempt to explain the workings of capitalistic enterprise, with particular attention to distribution.

Question 145

relations of production

Answer 145

the social relations linking the people who use a given means of production within a particular mode of production

Question 146

scarcity

Answer 146

a condition under which it is assumed that resources (e.g., money) will never be plentiful enough for people to obtain all the goods or services they desire.

Question 147

subsistence strategies

Answer 147

the patterns of production, distribution, and consumption that members of a society use to meet their basic material survival needs