Cultural Anthropology Ch 12

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theory

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a formal description of some part of the world that explains how, in terms of cause and effect, that part of the world works

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empirical

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the evidence used to support the theory is the product of hands-on experienced and can be inspected and evaluated by observers other than the original researcher

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fact

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evidence that can be inspected and evaluated by observers other than the original researcher and verified

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unilineal cultural evolutionism

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19th century; is generally regarded as the first theoretical perspective to take root in anthropology; predated Darwin's Origin of Species and was well developed by Herbert Spencer and Lewis Henry Morgan. Basic; cultures everywhere either had evolved or would evolve through the same sequence of stages: Savagery, Barbarism, and Civilization.

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biological determinism

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claims to have empirical evidence that supported both the existence of biologically distinct human populations (races), and the relative rankings of these races on a scale of superiority and inferiority

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scientific racism

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races

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biologically distinct human populations

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diffusion

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"borrowing" or the spreading of cultural items from group to group

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culture traits

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cultural items or activities

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historical particularism

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focusing on the distinct histories of change in particular human societies

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culture areas

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limits of diffusion of many cultural traits

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functionalism

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classifying the customs and beliefs one learns about int eh field in terms of the function each one performed in the satisfaction of basic human needs

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structural functionalism

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concerned with what kept societies from falling apart, it demonstrates that a variety of social practices described by ethnographers--witchcraft accusations, kinship organizations, myths, and the like--performed this function

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influenced by the writings of Durkheim, and Radcliffe-Brown was its most tireless promoter

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social determinism

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the hypothesis that social interactions and constructs alone determine individual behavior (as opposed to biological or objective factors).

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cultural determinism

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culture is a superorganic phenomenon (to be contrasted with inorganic matter and life), although culture was carried by organic human beings, it existed in an impersonal realm apart from them, evolving according to its own internal laws, unaffected by laws governing nonliving matter or the evolution of living organisms, and essentially beyond the control of human beings who m it molded o on whom, in a sense, it was parasitic

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superorganic

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to be contrasted with inorganic matter and organic life

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configurations of entire cultures

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the theoretical perspective based on a conviction that culture shapes human behavior, including the construction of particular forms of social structure

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culture-and-personality school

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emphasized the cultural moulding of the personality and focused on the development of the individual. Culture-and-personality theorists argued that personality types were created in socialization, and they placed particular emphasis on child-rearing practices such as feeding, weaning, and toilet training.

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ethnoscience

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a movement in cultural anthropology that involved borrowing the techniques perfected by descriptive linguists to elicit information about culturally relevant domains of meanings by studying how the members of a particular group classified objects and events in their environments

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emic

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culturally relevant categories of informants

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etic

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categories that are the product of anthropological theory

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structuralism/French structuralism

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seeing if the same kinds of structural patterns might be find in other domains of culture, also applied to kinship systems and myth

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bricolage

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a combined and contrasted element of people's experiences in complex constructions rooted in a universal set of human mental structures

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agency

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an individual's ability to reflect systematically on taken-for-granted cultural practices, to imagine alternatives, and to take independent action to pursue goals of their own choosing

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symbolic anthropology

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places emphasis on systems of meanings rather than on innate structures of mind or on the material dimensions of human life. Human culture is a system of symbols and meanings that human beings create themselves and then use to direct, organize, and give coherence to their lives.

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interpretive anthropology

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ecological anthropology

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analysis of particular human populations as parts of ecosystems. they are one group of living organisms that, together with other organisms, make their living within a given environmental setting.

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cultural ecology

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the study of ways in which specific human cultures interacted with their environment.

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multilineal evolutionism

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particular sequences of culture change, showing how local, evolutionary trajectories in similar societies could go in different directions, depending on the society's overall culture, its technology, and the particular environment to which each society was adapting.

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behavioral ecology

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applies to human societies the same analytic principles that have been used to study the social behavior of animals, especially the social insects (ants). Argues that we have been programmed to respond to others in stereotypical (but individually adaptive) ways that neither cultural conditioning nor individual willpower can modify. It stresses that natural selection has produced human beings programmed to automatically find ways of maximizing their own individual self-interest.

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cultural materialism

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It is based on the simple premise that human social life is a response to the practical problems of earthly existence

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a theoretical perspective rooted in Harris' idiosyncratic readings of Marx, Engels, White, and Steward

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utilitarianism

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that the useful is the good and that the determining consideration of right conduct should be the usefulness of its consequences; specifically : a theory that the aim of action should be the largest possible balance of pleasure over pain or the greatest happiness of the greatest number

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historical materialism

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is the role of material forces of history; explains cultural evolution in world-historical terms

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political ecology

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draws attention to the ways in which human groups struggle with one another for control of (usually local) material resources. Frequently provides ethnographic accounts that show why a particular local group's economic difficulties are due to to the backwardness of their cultural ecological practices but rather to the fact that political interventions by outsiders have deprived them of the resources they one could count on to help them secure their subsistence.