The Development Of Anthropological Thought

Question 0

Historical particular ism (historicism)

Answer 0

Theoretical orientation emphasizing that each culture is the unique product of all the influences to which it was subjected in its past, making cross-cultural generalizations questionable.

Question 1

Unilineal evolution

Answer 1

Nineteenth-century theoretical orientation that held that all human ways of life pass through a similar sequence of stages in their development

Question 2

Configurationalism

Answer 2

Theoretical idea that each culture historically develops it’s own unique thematic patterns around which belief, values, and behaviors are oriented

Question 3

Functionalism

Answer 3

Theoretical orientation that analyzes cultural elements in terms of their useful effects to individuals or to the persistence of the whole society.

Question 4

Neoevolutionism

Answer 4

“Be evolutionism” or the mid-twentieth-century rebirth of evolutionary approaches to studying and explaining culture.

Question 5

Scientific approaches

Answer 5

General approaches suggesting that human cultural differences and similarities can be explained in the same sence as biologists explain life and it’s evolution

Question 6

Evolutionary psychology (sociobiology)

Answer 6

Scientific approach emphasizing that humans are subject to similar evolutionary forces as other animals; associated with the hypothesis that human behavior patterns enhance genetic fitness

Question 7

Materialism (cultural materialism)

Answer 7

Scientific theoretical orientation claiming that the main influences on cultural differences and similarities are technology, environment, and how people produce and distribute resources

Question 8

Humanistic approach

Answer 8

Orientation that mistrusts attempts to explain cultural differences and similarities and cultural changes in favor of achieving an empathetic understanding of particular cultures.

Question 9

Interpretive anthropologists

Answer 9

Contemporary theorists who analyze cultural elements by explicating their meanings to people and understanding them in their local context; generally emphasize cultural diversity and the unique qualities of particular cultures.

Question 10

Postmodernists

Answer 10

Followers of the philosophical viewpoint emphasizing the relativity of all knowledge of a particular time and place is constructed, especially on how power relations affect the creation and spread of ideas and beliefs