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43 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
Tangzhuang |
An official garment of China (2001, APEC). Named after the Tang dynasty. Neither traditional or modern. |
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Basic ideas of Anthropology |
Based off of the Greek words: "anthropos" meaning human or man and "logos" meaning word or study. |
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Evolution of Anthropology |
Based off of colonialism, the postcolonial independence of societies, and indigenous movements. Glocalization: The effects and forms of global or wide-spread processes. |
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Anthropological Perspective |
The perspective of study is based off of comparative or cross-cultural links between cultures. Everyone is a minority. |
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Holism |
Must consider every part of a culture in relation to all other parts/ the whole.
2. The parts are interconnected. 3. Each part has a unique function. |
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Cultural Relativism |
Understanding a culture in terms of its own notions of what is moral, what is good, etc. |
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Cultural Relativism - 6 Misconceptions |
1. Does not mean that anything is acceptable. 2. Does not mean that anything a culture does is moral. 3. Does not mean that anything a culture believes in is true. 4. Does not mean there are no cultural universals 5. Cultural relativism is not self-contradictory 6. Does not mean cultures cannot be compared. (Requires same standards of comparison.) |
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Cultural Anthropology's Core Concepts |
1. Society 2. Custom 3. Structure 4. Function 5. Culture |
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Three approaches to defining culture |
1. Culture is primarily ideas and beliefs. Culture itself is not a physically tangible element directly present in society. 2. There are real observable social facts and their results such as: rules, groups, and institutions. 3. Material objects and houses contribute to the culture of a society. |
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Classic Qualities of Culture |
1. Learned 2. Shared 3. Symbolic 4. Integrated 5. Adaptive |
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Enculturation |
The process by which you acquire culture. |
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Clifford Geertz |
Culture is necessary to our humanity. We complete ourselves through culture. |
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Hans Freudenthal |
Guided the reinvention of culture. New humans acquire cultural skills through observation and are guided by older role models. |
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Culture is shared
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Culture is transmitted rather than directly shared. There are universal ideas, alternative ideas, specialty ideas, and individual peculiarities which are transmitted as culture. |
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Culture is Symbolic |
Culture is a set of meanings based off of then human need to assign meaning. Symbols: The meaning of a symbol is arbitrary. Symbols are not immediate or natural or necessary. i.e., words, who is the devil that created the word dog? The word dog isn't even relevant to a dog. |
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Culture is Integrated |
Functionalism: culture is organismic, it has a high degree of interrelation. Four areas of functionality: 1. Economics 2. Kinship 3. Politics 4. Religion |
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Culture is an adaptation |
Humans are non-specialized and come with little genetic pre-programming. Humans can be culturally programmed in an endless number of ways which works faster than any physical or genetic adaptation. Culture is how humans function and place themselves inside of and with the external world. CULTURE AIN'T ALWAYS ADVANTAGEOUS, AND HUMANS AREN'T ALWAYS IN HARMONY WITH THEIR ENVIRONMENT THO. |
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Culture is produced, practiced and circulated |
Individuals do not have culture inherently, but participate in culture. Tim Ingold, "people live culturally but do not live in culture." Geertz: Culture is a set of rules for governing behavior. Culture is a verb. Pierre Bourdier: Human behavior is the outcome of predisposition and skills, which are produced in the individual through enculturation and the personal experiences of the individual. |
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Culture is in places and things |
Material is important to culture for the visceral qualities. i.e., Palestine and olive trees. Arjun Appadurai: once a material is produced the have a life of their own. Catherine Allerton: Manggarai of Indonesia personified their homes and land. |
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Bioculture of Human Basis |
Humans are the only beings to learn culture, which means that we are biological and cultural in capacity. |
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MONKEYS IN ORDER FROM WEAKEST FUR BABY TO SMART SKIN MONKEY |
1. Primate 2. Australopithecus 3. Homo habilis 4. Homo erectus 5. Archaic homo sapiens 6. Modern homo sapiens |
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Studying Culture |
Means of study: 1. Fieldwork 2. Participant observation 3. Structured (prepared) and unstructured (free form) interviews. Geertz: Ultimate goal for anthropologists is to obtain a "thick description" Marcus: multi-sited research which expanded beyond traditional "village anthropology" |
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Ethics of fieldwork |
1. Do no harm 2. Ask first 3. Make a contribution 4. Consider your impact on the subjects |
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Pre-modern roots of anthropology |
Greeks and Romans observed the effect of environment on the development of culture and of the individual. Diversity was discouraged. Two main roadblocks in developing anthropology: 1. Certainty in the goodness of one's own culture. 2. Lack of knowledge about other cultures. |
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Other early modern experience and thought |
Encounters with other Eurasian civilizations (realization that other people were "more cultured," no longer viewed as infidels). Voyages of Discovery and Colonialism. Questioning humanity of newly discovered civilization i.e., conservative: "natives don't have souls, they aren't human." liberal: "natives have no soul so we have to teach them Christianity and all of our garbage." Renaissance, everyone was sharing information and people realized that the ancients were similar to primitive cultures studied. Martin Luther: Starting smack with the church and travelling around like a G in the 1500's, saying that the church was really anti-Christian. Hobbes: "Leviathan" published, saw savages as bad. Rousseau: "The Social Contract" published, saw the life of the "savages" as superior. |
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19th Century and the Science of Man |
Development of biocultural perspective. Immanuel Kant: "Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View." Defines anthropology as systematic knowledge of human kind. Physiological understanding + pragmatic understanding Paul Broca: reinvented the field, studied intelligence of civilizations once thought to be savage. Dual science of physical and cultural anthropology |
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Diffusionism |
culture occurred once in one spot and then spread out to other locations, the cultural centre sometimes identified as Egypt. |
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Lewis Henry Morgan |
Three stages of cultural history: 1. savagery 2. barbarism 3. civilization |
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Cultural evolutionism |
Culture started at a time and evolved from primitive beliefs into its modern form. |
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Franz Boas |
(1858 - 1942) formal training in physics + geography. Fathered the idea of higher or lower cultures all in relation to one's own judgement and therefore irrelevant. Studying each part of the context as a whole. Focused on collection of text over participant observation |
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Bronislaw Malinowski |
(1884 - 1942) Trained in math and physics. Established modern method of participant observation while studying Trobriand islands. 3 types of cultural data: 1. Description + analysis of everyday life 2. Minutiae of everyday life. 3. cultural content Believed anthropologists should study the present with all possible attention before indulging in speculation about the past, leading to creating of concept of functionalism.. Physical and psychological needs must be filled by culture. |
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Radcliffe-Brown |
social structure is more important for anthropology than culture. culture is a characteristic of a social system. 1. focus on institutions rather than individuals 2. societies are enduring, people are not 3. led to creation of structural functionalism |
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anthropological crisis of mid-twentieth century |
Beginning of new anthropology. Pioneered by Edmund Leech. announcing societies are not always discrete and traditional. 1.upset conventions of early anthropological and discrete societies 2. traditional societies not as peaceful and harmonious as previously anticipated |
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Neo-evolutionism |
revival of focus on historical development of culture and society. Pioneered by Lesley White As societies developed economic, social characteristics changed in correspondence. |
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Julian Steward |
Combated the idea that all societies were part of a grand cultural evolution. |
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Ethnoscience |
cognitive anthropology, investigates mental classification system to discover concepts, terms, categories by which they understand the world |
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Symbolic/interpretive anthropology |
Geertz & Victor Turner, main goal of field is to identify symbols that function as lenses. Partially a reaction to structuralism to gain thick description trying to penetrate deep meanings of people's realities in all their complexities. |
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Marxist/critical anthropology |
emphasizes material/economic forces that underlie society, relying on notions of power, inequality, modes of production and class relations and conflicts, culture of domination class becomes the culture of that society |
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Cultural materialism |
Marvin Harris, extended from neo-evolutionist and Marxist views, basing cultural development on practical problems of earthly existence. |
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Feminist anthropology |
gender relations, how they shape society and how they affect the science of anthropology itself |
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World anthropology |
many diverse countries in the world and thus many diverse ways to do anthropology |
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Gilbert Herdt |
a society's system of notions about what exists in their world and the characteristics and social value of all these things |
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Good enough. |
You did it buddy. |