Week 3 Flashcards
(34 cards)
What is the participant observation?
It is a systematic approach involving long-term participation, observing, taking field notes, and interviewing of people experiencing a particular society
Why is participant observation a central part of the ethnographic process?
It is a central part of the ethnographic process because it gives the ethnographer to truly immerse themselves in the culture, allowing them to gain a more profound understanding of the peoples they are observing
What does the emic perspective refer to?
It refers to the descriptions of behaviours and beliefs in terms that are meaningful to people who belong to a specific culture
What does the etic perspective refer to?
It refers to explanations for behaviour made by an outside observer in ways that are meaningful to the obeserver
What is kin relation?
It is the set of social relations, gendered norms, etc that shape how members of society interact
What factors shape how our social lives are organized?
Historical
Political
Social
Environmental
What is social organization?
Social organization refers to the patterning of human interdependence in a given society through the actions and decisions of its members
What is politics?
It is the relationship between power, social organization, individual and group action
What is the goal of political anthropology?
It is to understand, interpret and transmit the ideologies and circumstances of political structures, political organization and political action
What does the formative phase describe?
It describes the assumption that the state was the prototype of civilized power and organization and that the absence of the state must represent anarchy and disorder
Force, exploitation, and injustice was justified for social order
Rigid state/stateless dichotomy
What did classical political anthropology study?
It studied the difference between egalitarian and stratified societies where wealth, prestige and power are accessed by only a portion of the population in stratified societies and egalitarian societies shared similar social status and decisions based on consensus
What does the post-colonial/political economic perspective offer?
It offers the recognition of the past and ongoing impact of capitalism and colonialism in much of the world
What are norms?
They are shared ideas about the way things ought to be done
What are values?
They are shared ideas about what is true, right, and beautiful
What is the dominant culture?
It is the culture that reinforces certain values and norms that shape how society functions
What do beliefs refer to?
They refer not just to what we “believe” to be right or wrong, true or false. Belief also refers to all the mental aspects of cultures including values, norms, philosophies, worldview, knowledge, and so forth
What do practices refer to?
They refer to behaviours and actions that may be motivated by belief or performed without reflection as part of everyday routines
What is colonialism?
It is the pattern of exploration and ‘discovery’, of settlement, of dominance over geographically separate ‘others’, which resulted in the uneven development of forms of capitalism across the world and the destruction and/or transformation of other forms of social organization and life
What did Eurocentric knowledge change?
It shifted the conceptions of body and non-body (subject, spirit or reason) which then established hierarchical forms of knowledge around primitive/civilized, etc. This then justified processes of modernization or Europeanization
What is nationalized society?
It is based on a political organization through modern institutions of citizenship and political democracy, and processes of democratization of control of productive resources
What is social power?
It is the ability to transform a situation that affects an entire social group through norms, customs, laws, etc.
What is political power?
It is social power held by a group who are in a position to affect the lives of many people
What is interpersonal power?
It is the ability to hold someone’s will over another
What is organization power?
It is when individuals place limits on the actions of others in particular social settings
