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| social status that comes through talents, actions, efforts, activities, and accomplishments rather than ascription |
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| group uniting all men or women (usually men) born during a certain time span; this group controls property and often has political and military functions. |
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| social statuses that people have little or no choice about occupying (race, gender, age, etc.) |
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| a small kin-based group found among foragers |
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| figure often found among tribal horticulturalists and pastoralists. The big man occupies no office, but creates his reputation through entrepreneurship and generosity to others. Neither his wealth nor his position passes to his heirs. |
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| Closed hereditary system of stratification, often dictated by religion; hierarchical social status is ascribed at birth so that people are locked into their parents’ social position. |
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| in between the tribe and the state; social relations based mostly on kinship, marriage, descent, age, generation and gender, but with differential access to resources. |
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| the means by which disputes are socially regulated and settled; found in all societies, but the resolution methods tend to be more formal and effective in states than in nonstates. |
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| unequal access to resources; basic attribute of chiefdoms and states. Superordinates have favored access to such resources, while the access of subordinates is limited by superordinates. |
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| pertaining to finances and taxation |
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| a legal code, including trial and enforcement; characteristic of state-organized societies |
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| permanent political position |
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| stratification system that facilitates social mobility, with individual achievement and personal merit determining social rank. |
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| the ability to exercise one’s will over others—to do what one wants; the basis of political status |
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| esteem, respect, or approval for acts, deeds, or qualities considered exemplary |
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| the most extreme, coercive, abusive, and inhumane form of legalized inequality; people who are treated as property |
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| classification scheme based on the scale and complexity of social organization and the effectiveness of political regulation; includes band, tribe, chiefdom and state. |
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| a non-kin-based group that exists throughout a tribe, spanning several villages |
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| formal government structure and socioeconomic stratification |
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| any position that determines where someone fits in society; may be ascribed or achieved |
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| characteristic of a system with socioeconomic strata |
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| the lower, or underprivileged, group in a stratified system |
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| the upper, or privileged, group in a stratified system |
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| economies based on nonintensive food production (horticulture and pastorialism) and live in villages and ore organized into kin groups based on common descent—lacking in formal government and have no reliable means of enforcing political decisions. |
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| upward or downward change in a person's social status |
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| leadership position in a village (as among the Yanomami where the head is always a man); has limited authority; leads by example and persuasion |
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| all a person’s material assets, including income, land, and other types of property; the basis of economic status |
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| A customary gift before, at, or after marriage from the husband and his kin to the wife and her kin |
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| clans use stipulated descent—clan members merely say they descent from the apical ancestor, without trying to trace the actual genealogical links; descent may be demonstrated for the most recent 8-10 generations, but is stipulated for the remote past; the apical ancestor may not be human at all, but may be an animal or a plant. |
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| a permanent social unit whose members claim common ancestry; descent group members believe they all descent from those common ancestors; determined at birth and lifelong |
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| a marital exchange in which the wife’s group provides substantial gifts to the husband’s family |
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| dictates marriage or mating within a group to which one belongs; is rather common (marriage within one’s religion, race, etc.) |
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| the practice of seeking a mate outside one’s own group; adaptive value is that it links people into a wider social network |
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| extended family household |
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| when a family household includes three or more generations; in America, more typical in the lower classes than in the upper and middle classes—allows poor families to pool their resources |
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| A group of people (e.g., parents, children, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, cousins, spouses, siblings-in-law, parents-in-law, children-in-law) who are considered to be related in some way, for example, by “blood” or marriage. |
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| family into which one is born |
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| family that forms when one marries and has children |
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| refers to sexual relations with a relative; all cultures ban incest (taboo) |
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| custom by which a widow marries the brother of her deceased husband |
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| uses demonstrated descent—members recite the names of their forebears from the apical ancestor through the present (differs from clans) |
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| people join their mother’s group automatically at birth and stay members throughout life; matrilineal descent groups only include the children of the group’s women |
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| less common then patriolocality; says that married couples live in the wife’s community and their children grow up in their mother’s village; keeps related women together |
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| postmarital residence pattern in which a couple establishes a new place of residence rather than living with or near either set of parents. |
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| people automatically have lifetime membership with their father’s descent group |
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| the rule within the family unit that says that when a couple marries, it moves to the husband’s community so that their children will grow up in their father’s village; associated with patrilineal descent. |
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| marriage of a man to two or more women (polygyny) or marriage of a woman to two or more men (polyandry)—at the same time |
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| variety of plural marriage in which a woman has more than one husband |
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| variety of plural marriage in which a man has more than one wife |
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| a gift from the husband and his kind to the wife and her kin before, at, or after marriage; legitimizes children born to the woman as members of the husband’s descent group |
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| custom by which a widower marries the sister of the deceased wife |
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| matrilineal or patrilineal descent |
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| domestic-public dichotomy |
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| contrast between women’s role in the home and men’s role in public life, with a corresponding social devaluation of women’s work and worth |
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| outside the home; within or pertaining to the public domain |
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| the tasks and activities that a culture assigns to each sex |
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| oversimplified but strongly held ideas about the characteristics of males and females |
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| unequal distribution of rewards (socially valued resources, power, prestige, and personal freedom) between men and women, reflecting their different positions in a social hierarchy |
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| political system ruled by men in which women have inferior social and political status, including basic human rights |
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| patrilineal-patrilocal complex |
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| an interrelated constellation of patrilineality, patrilocality, warfare, and male supremacy |
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| marked differences in male and female biology besides the contrasts in breasts and genitals |
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| a person’s habitual sexual attraction to, and activities with persons of the opposite sex, the same sex, or both sexes |
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| belief in souls or doubles |
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| postcolonial, accuturative, religious movements common in Melanesia that attempt to explain European domination and wealth and to achieve similar success magically by mimicking European behavior. |
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| In Wallace’s typology, these religions have—in addition to shamanic cults—communal cults in which people organize community rituals such as harvest ceremonies and rites of passage. |
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| intense community spirit, a feeling of great social solidarity, equality, and togetherness; characteristic of people experiencing liminality together |
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| customs and social actions that operate to reduce differences in wealth and thus to bring standouts in line with community norms. |
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| the critically important marginal or in-between phase of a rite of passage |
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| use of supernatural techniques to accomplish specific aims |
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| sacred impersonal force in Melanesian and Polynesian religions |
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| worship of an eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent supreme being |
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| In Wallace’s typology, develop with state organization; have full-time religion specialists—professional priesthoods |
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| belief in several deities who control aspects of nature |
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| beliefs and rituals concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and forces |
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| movements that occur in times of change, in which religious leaders emerge and undertake to alter or revitalize society |
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| culturally define activities associated with the transition from one place or stage of life to another |
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| behavior that is formal, stylized, repetitive, and stereotyped, performed earnestly as a social act; rituals are held at set times and places and have liturgical orders |
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| a part-time religious practitioner who mediates between ordinary people and supernatural beings and forces |
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| prohibition backed by supernatural sanctions |
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| the process of change that a minority group may experience when it moves to a country where another culture dominates; the minority is incorporated into the dominant culture to the point that it no longer exists as a separate cultural unit. |
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| within a nation or empire, domination by one ethnic group or nationality and its culture/ ideology over others—e.g., the dominance of Russian people, language, and culture in the former Soviet Union |
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| rule assigning social identity on the basis of some aspects of one's ancestry |
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| policies and practices that harm a group and its members |
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| group distinguished by cultural similarities (shared among members of that group) and differences (between that group and others); ethnic group members share beliefs, values, habits, customs and norms, and a common language, religion, history, geography, kinship, and/or race. |
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| identification with, and feeling part of, an ethnic group, and exclusion from certain other groups because of this affiliation |
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| destruction by a dominant group of the culture of an ethnic group |
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| policies aimed at, and/or resulting in, the physical extinction (through mass murder) of a people perceived as a racial group, that is, as sharing defining physical, genetic, or other biological characteristics |
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| a rule that automatically places the children of a union or mating between members of different socioeconomic groups in the less privileged group |
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| superordinate, dominant, or controlling groups in a socio-political hierarchy |
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| subordinate groups in a social-political hierarchy, with inferior power and less secure access to resources than majority groups have |
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| the view of cultural diversity in a country as something good and desirable; a multicultural society socializes individuals not only into the dominant (national) culture, but also into an ethnic culture |
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| once a synonym for “ethnic group,” designating a single culture sharing a language, religion, history, territory, ancestry, and kinship; now usually a synonym for “state” or “nation-state” |
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| an autonomous political entity, a country like the US or Canada |
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| ethnic groups that once had, or wish to have or regain, autonomous political status (their own country) |
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| an organism's evident traits, its manifest biology-- anatomy and physiology |
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| a society that combines ethnic contrasts, ecological specialization, and the economic interdependence of those groups |
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| devaluing a group because of its assumed behavior, values, capabilities, or attributes |
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| an ethnic group assumed to have a biological basis |
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| discrimination against an ethnic group assumed to have a biological basis |
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| people who have been forced or who have chosen to flee a country to escape persecution or war |
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| a group assumed to have a biological basis but actually perceived and defined in a social context- by a particular culture rather than by scientific criteria |
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| fixed ideas-- often unfavorable-- about what members of a group are like |
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