Shared Flashcard Set

Details

Anthropology Final Exam
final exam for anthropology
118
Anthropology
Undergraduate 2
04/22/2013

Additional Anthropology Flashcards

 


 

Cards

Term
Family of Orientation
Definition
the group in which one is born in and grows up in.
Term
Family of Procreation
Definition
forms when a person marries and has children
Term
Neolocality
Definition
married couples are expected to establish a new place of residence
Term
Extended Family
Definition
3 or more generations
Term
Collateral household
Definition
siblings (brothers & sisters) and their children
Term
Descent group
Definition
a permanent social unit in whose members say they have ancestors in common
Term
What does unilineal descent group mean?
Definition
the descent rule always uses one line only: either the male or female line. it is ascribed status
Term
What is an Apical Ancestor?
Definition
The apical ancestor stands at the top (apex) of the common genealogy (the “family tree”)
Term
What is demonstrated descent and who uses it?
Definition
A lineage uses demonstrated descent from the apical ancestor. Members can recite the names of their forebears in each generation from the apical ancestor up to the present.
Term
What is stipulated descent and who uses it?
Definition
Clans only use stipulated descent, without being able to specify the actual genealogical links
Term
Patrilocality
Definition
at the husband’s father’s community. (- Unilocal residence rules determine where newlywed couples are expected to live)
Term
Matrilocality
Definition
In the wife’s mother’s group. (- Unilocal residence rules determine where newlywed couples are expected to live)
Term
Ambilinieal Descent
Definition
People choose the descent group they become a part of. They join and live with the community of their father’s father, father’s mother, mother’s father, or mother’s mother. (Achieved status)
Term
What is Bilateral kin calculation?
Definition
Calculated via the male and female side of the family.
Term
Lineal Kinship terminology
Definition
- Lineal kinship terminology is typical of societies where the nuclear family is the most important kinship group (US, Can.)
Term
Bifurcate Merging Terminology
Definition
splits the mother’s from the father’s side. The same term is used for mother and mothers sister (1) and for father and father’s brother (2) There are also different terms for mother’s brother (3) and fathers sister (4)
Term
Generational Kinship Terminology
Definition
It has two main kinship terms:
1)Father or male member of the parental generation: father, fathers brother, and mothers brother
2)Mother or female member of the parental generation: mother, mother’s sister, and father’s sister.

Typical of ambilineal descent
Term
Bifurcate Collateral Terminology
Definition
Has separate terms for each of the six kin types of the parental generation.
IT is rare, appearing mostly in similar societies in North Africa and Middle-East.
Term
Polygamist marriage
Definition
a man weds two or more women
Term
Fraternal polyandry
Definition
a woman weds a group of brothers
Term
Alternative forms of marriage in one society
Definition
common-law union, civil marriage, religious marriage.
Term
What are some functions of marriage in nonindustrial societies
Definition
1. Marriage turns strangers (potential enemies) into kin.
2. Marriage creates and maintains personal, political, and economic relations.
Term
Exogamy
Definition
seeking marriage outside of one's own group
Term
Endogamy
Definition
Dictates that you have to marry someone within your own social group
Term
Homogamy
Definition
Dictates that you have to marry someone within your own social group
Term
Caste
Definition
A caste is a stratified group in which membership is ascribed at birth and lifelong
Term
How is marriage sometimes viewed in non western societies?
Definition
As a group alliance where people don’t just take a spouse; they assume obligations to a group of in-laws.
Term
Bridewealth (patrilineal)
Definition
- A customary gift before, at, or after the marriage from the husband and his kin to the wife and her kin group.
- Bride wealth compensates the bride’s group for the loss of her companionship and labor.
- It makes the children born to the woman full members of her husband’s descent group
Term
Dowry
Definition
Wife's group provides big gifts to the husbands group. This typically occurs when women are seen as low status and the husband and his family want compensation for taking on the burden
Term
Sororate
Definition
marry the deceased wife’s sister or cousin (Inuit, Swazi)
Term
Levirate
Definition
marrying the deceased husband’s brother or cousin (ancient Israel, Huns, Mongols, Tibetans)
Term
Why does the US have one of the highest divorce rates?
Definition
- The U.S. has one of the world’s highest divorce rates. Probable causes:
- Economical: high % of employed women
- Cultural stress on independence and self-actualization.
- Religious: most Americans are protestant, divorce is easier than for RC. (roman catholics)
Term
What are the two forms of polygamy? What does each mean?
Definition
- 1) Polygyny: one man is married to several women (Africa, Middle east, Asia)
- 2) Polyandry: one women is married to several men (Tibet, Nepal, india, Sri Lanka)
Term
Sexual dimorphism
Definition
refers to differences in male and female biology, besides the contrasts in breasts and genitals: weight, height, strength, endurance, lifespan, etc.
Term
Gender
Definition
refers to the cultural construction of male and female characteristics. - Many of the behavioral and attitudinal differences between the sexes emerge from culture rather than biology
Term
Gender roles
Definition
the tasks and activities a culture assigns to the sexes (“This is what women should always do”)
Term
Gender Stereotypes
Definition
over simplified but strongly held ideas about the characteristics of males and females (“this is how men should always behave and what they should do”
Term
Gender Stratification
Definition
- Describes an unequal distribution of rewards between men and women, reflecting their different positions in a social hierarchy.
- The rewards are socially valued resources like power, prestige, human rights, freedom, and autonomy (disposing over one’s own labor and its fruits)
Term
Gendered Labor Division
Definition
- The division of labor by gender across the world shows generalities not universalities
- Men generally hunt abd build boats or houses; women generally gather plants, fetch water, cook, and wash.
- However there is a huge range of swing activities that can be assigned to either or both men and women. (p 215: making fire, milking, planting and harvesting crops, etc.)
Term
Give an example of a double standard in regards to gender.
Definition
- Men mate more then women do, both inside and outside marriage
- There are usually less restrictions regarding premarital and extramarital sex for men then there are for women
Term
Domestic-Public Dichotomy
Definition
- The domestic-public dichotomy indicates a strong differentiation between the home and the outside world of work, trade, politics, and warfare.
- Public activities (typically of men) have greater prestige than domestic ones
- This private-public contrast is always less developed among foragers.
Term
Where is gender stratification high and low?
Definition
Gender stratification is low in matrilocal, matrilineal & local societies and high in patrilinieal and local societies.
Term
Matrifocal Societies
Definition
matrifocal means mother centered, often with no resident husband/father present. - The combination of male travel and a prominent female economic role reduced gender stratification and promoted high female status.
Term
Matrilineal and matrilocal societies
Definition
- Female status tends to be high among horticulturalists with matrilineal descent and Matrilocality
- Descent group membership, political succession, allocation of land, and overall social identiy come through female links.
- Women’s ritual, political, and economic power can rival that of men
Term
Patrilineal and Patrilocal societies
Definition
- Population pressure on scare resources is often linked to the spread of the so called patrilineal-patrilocal complex: the combination of patrilineality, Patrilocality, warfare, and male supremacy.
- Scarce resources stimulate warfare, which in turn makes Patrilocality relevant to keep related men together in the same village.
Term
Gender Among Agriculturalists
Definition
When the economy is based on agriculture, women lose their role as primary cultivators. - Belief systems started contrasting men’s valuable extradomestic labor with women’s domestic role, viewed as inferior.
Term
Patriarchy and Violence
Definition
- Patriarchy describes a political system ruled by men in which women have inferior social and political status, including basic human rights.
- Societies with a patrilineal-patrilocal complex also typify patriarchy.
- Dowry murder, female infanticide, and female mutilation are typical of patriarchy (Ex: yanomami, india, Pakistan)
Term
Sexual Orientation
Definition
Refers to a person’s habitual sexual attraction to, and sexual activities with, somebody (or nobody) else
Term
Religion
Definition
belief and ritual concerned with supernatural beings, powers and forces.
Term
supernatural
Definition
the extraordinary realm outside the observable world. It is non-empirical and inexplicable in ordinary terms. It must be accepted on faith.
Term
Functions and effects of religion
Definition
1) Explanation: animism, mana, taboo
2) Manipulation: ritual and magic
3) Solace and comfort: ritual and magic
4) Creates solidarity: rites of passage, ritual, worship, totemism
5) Social control
Term
Animisim
Definition
one of the earliest forms of religion, is a belief in spiritual beings. (thought that there is atleast two entities in a body, one during the day and one at night (a soul))
Term
Mana
Definition
sacred impersonal force existing in the universe which can reside in people, animals, plants, and objects (amulets)
- Melanesian mana is similar to good luck
- Mana explained why some people failed at hunting, war or gardening even though they worked as hard as successful people
Term
Magic
Definition
supernatural techniques intended to accomplish specific aims
Term
Solace and comfort (religion)
Definition
- Supernatural beliefs and practices can help reduce anxiety
- Religion helps people face death and endure life crises by offering emotional comfort and solace.
- When people face uncertainty and danger, creating psychological stress, they turned from technology to magic.
Term
Essential features of rituals
Definition
1. Rituals are formal: stylized, repetitive, and stereotyped.
2. People perform them in sacred places and only at set times.
3. Rituals include liturgical orders: sequences of words and actions invented prior to the current performance of the ritual in which they occur
4. Rituals convey information about the participants and their traditions
5. Rituals are always social acts. Just by taking part in a joint public act, the performers signal that they accept a common social and moral order, one that transcends their status as individuals.
Term
Rites of Passage: Solidarity
Definition
Rites of passage are customs associated with the transition from one place, social position, age, or stage of life to another.
Participation usually builds up stress, whose reduction through completion of the ritual enhances the solidarity of the participations.
Term
3 phases of a rite of passage
Definition
1) Separation from the group by geographically moving to another place
2) Liminality: The risky phase in between
3) Incorporation: people reenter society upon completion of the ritual
Term
Communitas
Definition
An intense community spirit, a feeling of great social solidarity, equality, and togetherness.
People experiencing Liminality together forms a cohesive community of equals. Normal social ranks are temporarily forgotten. All are treated alike and must act alike.
Term
Totemism
Definition
In the tribes of Native Australians, groups of people have particular totems: animals, plants, or geographic features
Term
Social control (religion)
Definition
Religion works by getting inside people, mobilizing their emotions (joy, meaning)
Religious beliefs/sanctions and witchcraft accusations are a powerful means of social control by creating a climate of danger and insecurity that affects everyone.
Religious and witchcraft beliefs can function as leveling mechanisms, reducing differences in wealth in a community.
Term
4 kinds of religion
Definition
1) Shamanic
2) Communal
3) Olympian (polytheism)
4) Monotheistic
Term
Shamanism
Definition
Shamans are part-time religious specialists who mediate between the people and supernatural beings and forces.
The shaman can be a curer, witch doctor, medium, spiritualist, or any other diviner. Gender ambiguity.
Shamanic religions are typical of foraging bands of hunter-gathers, especially in the northern latitudes (inuit, Siberia)
Term
Communal religions
Definition
Have shamans, but also community rituals like harvest ceremonies and rites of passage
They believe in several deities who all control aspects of nature (polytheism)
Communal religions are typical of farming tribes and farming societies, although they also exist among some foragers.
Term
Olympian Religions
Definition
Olympian religions all have full-time religious specialists: professional priesthoods.
They are typical of chiefdoms and states: Aztecs/Mayans, many African and Asian kingdoms, and classical Greece & Rome.
Like the state itself, the priesthood is organized in a hierarchy and bureaucracy.
They include powerful anthropomorphic gods with specialized functions (love, war)
Term
Monotheism
Definition
Monotheism is also characterized by full time religious specialists in a priesthood.
It is typical of states as well. But instead of polytheism, there is monotheism.
All supernatural phenomena are viewed as manifestations of, or are under the control of, a single eternal, omniscient, omnipotent supreme being.
Term
Revitalization Movements
Definition
Revitalization movements are social movements that occur in times of change, in which religious leaders emerge and undertake to alter or revitalize a society.
Term
Syncretisms
Definition
Syncretisms are cultural mixes, including religious ones, that emerge from acculturation – the exchange of cultural features when cultures come into continuous firsthand contact.
Term
Fundamentalism
Definition
Fundamentalists seek order based on strict adherence to the founding principles, beliefs, rules, and customs of their religion.
They assert an identity separate from the larger religious group and form a minority.
Term
The Modern World System
Definition
- The modern world system describes a world in which nations all over the globe are economically and politically interdependent.
Term
The Capitalist World Economy
Definition
- The increasing dominance of trade led to a capitalist world economy: a signle world system committed to production for sale or exchange, aiming for maximizing profits rather than supplying domestic needs.
Term
World System Theory
Definition
- The key claim of world system theory is that an identifiable social system, based on wealth and power differences, extends beyond individual states and nations.
- Wallerstein divided nations by 1) Core, 2) Sempiperiphery, 3) Periphery.
Term
Core (World systems theory)
Definition
consists of the world’s most powerful nations, who monopolize all the most profitable activities like world finance.
Term
Semi periphery (WST)
Definition
The semiperiphery is intermediate between the core and the periphery.
They lack the economic power of the core. Industrialized nations like Brazil export cars to Nigeria (A periphery country) and the car engines, coffee, and shrimps to the U.S.
Term
Periphery (WST)
Definition
exports raw materials, agricultural commodities, and labor
Term
The Industrial Revolution
Definition
- The Industrial Revolution is the historic transformation of traditional to modern societies through industrialization.
- The Industrial Revolution began in de cotton products, iron and pottery trades.
- Manufacturing moved from the home to the factory; machines now replaced hand work.
- The required capital for investment was supplied by transoceanic trade profits.
Term
what effect did the Middle Class effect on industrial stratification?
Definition
- With the growth of the middle class, political power shifted to the masses, which reduced the polarization between owning and working classes
Term
What did Weber propose in opposition to Marx's philosophy on industrial stratification?
Definition
- Weber argued Marx’s exclusively economic view of stratification was overly simple.
- Weber defined 3 dimensions of stratification:
1) Wealth: Economic status
2) Power: Political status
3) Prestige: Social Status
He showed that identities based on ethnicity, religion, or nationality could take priority over class identity (economic status).
Term
Closed Class Systems
Definition
- Caste systems are closed, hereditary systems of stratification dictated by religion. One’s caste is defined at birth.
- Apartheid existed in South Africa (1948-94). All ethnic groups had their own unequal schools, neighborhoods, and laws.
- In slavery, people are treated as property. Slaves have no control over their own labor and lack all legal rights.
Term
Open Class Systems
Definition
- A truly open class system would facilitate upward vertical mobility for people.
- Vertical mobility is the upward or downward change in a person’s social status
- Core industrial nations tend to have more open class systems than nonindustrial states or the contemporary peripheral and semi peripheral nations.
Term
Poverty in Core Countries
Definition
- The modern world system can create poor peripheral regions within core nations, like certain rural areas in the U.S. South.
- The U.S. class system is not as open as most people believe. The richest 20% households have half of the total U.S. national income, while the poorest 20% have only 4% of the national income.
Term
Imperialism
Definition
refers to extending the rule of a nation over foreign colonies
Term
Colonialism
Definition
political, cultural, social, economic domination over a territory and its people over an extended period of time
Term
Industrialism and Indigenous Peoples
Definition
- Industrialization destroyed the indigenous economies, ecologies, and populations.
- As industrial states have conquered and annexed non-states, there have been genocides on a grand scale.
Term
Consumption and Environment
Definition
- Modern industrial mass production gave rise to a culture of overconsumption, which values acquistivesness and conspicuous consumption
- Energy from fossil fuels is being depleted rapidly. The U.S. alone represents 22% of the world’s annual energy consumption.
- The average American uses >6x the energy used by the average Chinese (23x Indian)
Term
Neoliberalism
Definition
- The idea (Smith 1776) that governments should not regulate markets, private enterprise, or international trade.
- It favors low taxes and privatization of former state enterprises. It also wants less government spending on education, health care, and other social services.
Term
Development Anthropology
Definition
- Is the branch of applied anthropology that focuses on social issues in, and the cultural dimension of, economic development worldwide.
- Studying people at the local level, ethnographers have a unique view of the impact of national and international development planning on the intended “beneficiaries.”
Term
The Green Revolution
Definition
- The concept of green revolution is used to describe agricultural development projects based on chemical fertilizers, pesticides, modern cultivation techniques, and new crop varieties such as IR-8 “miracle rice”.
- Thanks to this, world food prices declined by more than 20 percent in the 1980’s
- But the social effects on farmers were not what its advocated had intended
Term
Development projects: Unintended effects
Definition
- Development programs that ignore traditional social, political, and economic divisions often produce unintended and undesirable effects.
- New technology does not always help the intended beneficiaries. It may very well hurt them if vested interests interfere. Development is about power as much as it is about technology and opportunities.
Term
Development projects: Increased Equity
Definition
- Most recent development projects aim for increased equity: reduced poverty and a more even distribution of wealth.
- However, doing this requires the support of reform-minded governments, who are willing to go against the bested interests of wealthy and powerful people.
- Giving loans to current fishing boat owners increases stratification and negative equity.
Term
What five things are needed to maximize the social and economic benefits of development projects?
Definition
1) Be culturally compatible
2) Respond to locally perceived needs.
3) Involve men and women in planning and carrying out the changes affecting them
4) Harness traditional organizations.
5) Be flexible.
Term
Underdifferentiation
Definition
- The fallacy of underdifferentiation is the tendency to see the developing countries as more alike than they really are.
- Development agencies often ignored cultural differences and adopted a uniform approach to deal with very different people and cultures. Many projects aim to generate individual cash wealth in collective societies of bands and tribes.
Term
Alternative Development Project approaches
Definition
- Instead of using Euro-American models of society (nuclear family, cooperative), projects should aim to incorporate local level community institutions: kinship groups like clans and lineages, churches….
- Making much more use of Third World social models in Third World economic development could make a big difference in achieving greater effectiveness.
Term
Acculturation
Definition
cultural changes that result when groups come into continuous firsthand contact—in either one single group or in both groups.
Term
Westernization
Definition
- Westernization is the influence of Western expansion on indigenous peoples and their cultures: languages, clothes, or customs.
Term
Diffusion
Definition
refers to cultural borrowing which can also occur without firsthand contact.
Term
What does the term "shock phase" refer to?
Definition
- First contact between indigenous societies and powerful colonial outsiders is often followed by a “shock phase:
- These outsiders attack or exploit the native people. Many die, also from new diseases.
- Exploitation damages the social support system, disrupts subsistence, and often inspires new religious movements (like for example the cargo cults)
Term
Ethnocide
Definition
- refers to the destruction of the local group’s culture
Term
Genocide
Definition
refers to the physical extermination of the indigenous people.
Term
Evolutionism
Definition
Unilinear evolutionism: all societies evolve through the same fixed stages.
Savagery Barbarism Civilization
Problems: Societies followed different paths!
Term
Neo Evolutionism
Definition
Neo-Evolutionism
- Around 1950, White and Steward developed a general evolution approach. They rejected Unilinear evolution: fixed stages.
- Human economies generally developed from foraging through farming and herding to intensive agriculture and industrialism.
- Socio-Politically, societies developed from bands and tribes to chiefdoms and states.
Term
Boasian Anthropology
Definition
- Biology (race) did not determine culture.
- Cultural traits are always transmitted culturally, through learning. Never through blood (Morgan) Critical of evolutionism.
Term
Functionalism
Definition
Another challenge to evolutionism came from UK functionalism. It focused on the functions of culture traits and practices in maintaining a stable order in society.
Mailowski was functionalist in 2 senses:
1. Customs and institutions were integrated and interrelated: change affects all aspects.
2. Customs developed to fulfill basic human needs (food, sex, shelter, etc.)
Term
Structural-functionalism
Definition
customs, practices, institutions, roles and behavior function to keep the social system running smoothly.
Term
Configurationalism
Definition
stressed that culture traits are uniquely patterned or configured. Culture treated as more important than economy.
Term
Cultural Materialism
Definition
Harris saw three levels in all societies:
1) Infastructure of technology, economics and demography: production systems.
2) Structure: social relations, kinship, etc.
3) Superstructure of religion, ideology, play.
Like the neo-evolutionists and marx/Marxists, Harris argued that the infrastructure always dominated and determined both the structure and the superstructure
Term
Symbolic Anthropology
Definition
the study of symbols in their social and cultural context.
Victor turner studied how symbols and rituals regulated, anticipated, and avoided conflict
Interpretive anthropology sees cultures as texts whose symbols and meanings can be deciphered in specific cultural and historical contexts.
Term
Actor-Oriented Antrhopology
Definition
- Individual was not important in anthropology.
- Emile Durkheim: individuals commit suicide for many reasons, but variations in suicide rates must be explained socially (anomie, alienation).
- Functionalism saw culture as social glue of society, without conceptualizing individual.
- Anthropologists now see culture as something continually recreated in the present
Term
Methods in Anthropology
Definition
A) Networking and reciprocation

B) The ethnographic method techniques
C) The Survey Method
Term
Networking and Reciprocation
Definition
- When first starting new fieldwork abroad, the anthropologist engages in culturally appropriate networking: building up contacts with local scholars, officials, and key people in the group under study.
- Anthropologists reciprocate their debts to people by including local researchers in their research plans and publications, and by establishing collaborative relationships with local universities and institutes.
Term
Ethnography
Definition
The main method of anthropology is ethnography: firsthand personal study of local settings and communities.
Term
Participant Observation
Definition
means that the anthropologist takes part in community life as s/he observes it. By participating, we aim to learn how and why local people find certain events meaningful and we observe how they are organized and conducted.
Term
Genealogical method
Definition
ethnographers discover and record connections of kinship, descent, and marriage, using diagrams and symbols.
We’ve Seen these symbols and diagrams in chapter 9 on kinship (examples: triangle and circle)
Term
Key informants
Definition
People who can provide the most complete and useful information about particular areas of life the ethnographer is studying.
In most cases, the anthropologist has good rapport with them. Some become friends.
Term
Emic Approach
Definition
approach investigates how local people think, which categories they use
Term
The Etic
Definition
approach shifts the focus from local categories and bbeliefs to those of the anthropologist (science).
Term
Longitudinal and Team Research
Definition
Longitudinal research is the long-term study of a community, region, society, or culture, usually based on repeated visits.
Team Research usually covers multiple subjects in the same general region. It often involves local and foreign researchers, coordinating their studies.
Term
Survey research
Definition
Consists of random sampling, impersonal data collection, and statistical analysis
It usually draws a sample from a larger population.
With a representative sample, scholars draw accurate conclusions on the larger society.
In large societies, survey research is very important, combined with ethnography.
Supporting users have an ad free experience!