Cultural Anthropology Test 4

Front 1

age grade

Back 1

An organized category of people based on age; every individual passes through a series of such categories over his or her lifetime.

Front 2

age set

Back 2

A formally established group of people born during a certain time span who move through the series of age–grade categories together.

Front 3

caste

Back 3

A closed social class in a stratified society in which membership is determined by birth and fixed for life.

Front 4

common–interest association

Back 4

An association that results from an act of joining based on sharing particular activities, objectives, values, or beliefs, sometimes rooted in common ethnic, religious, or regional background.

Front 5

egalitarian society

Back 5

A society in which everyone has about equal rank, access to, and power over the basic resources that support survival, influence, and prestige.

Front 6

social class

Back 6

A category of individuals in a stratified society who enjoy equal or nearly equal prestige according to the system of evaluation.

Front 7

social mobility

Back 7

Upward or downward change in one’s social class position in a stratified society.

Front 8

stratified society

Back 8

A society in which people are hierarchically divided and ranked into social strata, or layers, and do not share equally in the basic resources that support survival, influence, and prestige.

Front 9

acculturation

Back 9

Massive culture change that occurs in a society when it experiences intensive firsthand contact with a more powerful society.

Front 10

cultural loss

Back 10

The abandonment of an existing practice or trait.

Front 11

diffusion

Back 11

The spread of certain ideas, customs, or practices from one culture to another.

Front 12

ethnocide

Back 12

The violent eradication of an ethnic group’s collective cultural identity as a distinctive people; occurs when a dominant society deliberately sets out to destroy another society’s cultural heritage.

Front 13

modernization

Back 13

The process of political and socioeconomic change, whereby developing societies acquire some of the cultural characteristics of Western industrial societies.

Front 14

primary innovation

Back 14

The creation, invention, or chance discovery of a completely new idea, method, or device.

Front 15

rebellion

Back 15

Organized armed resistance to an established government or authority in power.

Front 16

revolution

Back 16

Radical change in a society or culture. In the political arena, it involves the forced overthrow of an old government and establishment of a completely new one.

Front 17

secondary innovation

Back 17

The deliberate application or modification of an existing idea, method, or device.

Front 18

syncretism

Back 18

In acculturation, the creative blending of indigenous and foreign beliefs and practices into new cultural forms.

Front 19

tradition

Back 19

Customary ideas and practices passed on from generation to generation, which in a modernizing society may form an obstacle to new ways of doing things.

Front 20

adjudication

Back 20

Mediation with an unbiased third party making the ultimate decision.

Front 21

chiefdom

Back 21

A regional polity in which two or more local groups are organized under a single chief

Front 22

cultural control

Back 22

Control through beliefs and values deeply internalized in the minds of individuals.

Front 23

legitimacy

Back 23

The right of political leaders to govern–to hold, use, and allocate power–on the socially accepted customs, rules, or laws that bind and hold a people together as a collective whole.

Front 24

negotiation

Back 24

The use of direct argument and compromise by the parties to a dispute to arrive voluntarily at a mutually satisfactory agreement.

Front 25

political organization

Back 25

The way power is accumulated, arranged, executed, and structurally distributed and embedded in society; the means through which a society creates and maintains social order.

Front 26

power

Back 26

The ability of individuals or groups to impose their will upon others and make them do things even against their own wants or wishes.

Front 27

sanction

Back 27

An externalized social control designed to encourage conformity to social norms.

Front 28

social control

Back 28

External control through open coercion.

Front 29

state

Back 29

a political institution established to manage and defend a complex

Front 30

tribe

Back 30

refers to a range of kin–ordered groups that are politically integrated by some unifying factor and whose members share acommon ancestry, identity, culture, language, and territory.

Front 31

art

Back 31

The creative use of the human imagination to aesthetically interpret, express, and engage life, modifying experienced reality in the process.

Front 32

epic

Back 32

A long, dramatic narrative recounting the celebrated deeds of a historic or legendary hero–often sung or recited in poetic language.

Front 33

ethnomusicology

Back 33

The study of a society’s music in terms of its cultural setting.

Front 34

iconic images

Back 34

Culturally specific people, animals, and monsters seen in deepest stage of trance.

Front 35

motif

Back 35

A story situation in a tale.

Front 36

tonality

Back 36

In music, scale systems and their modifications.