Affinal kin

in-laws, kinship by marriage

Ambilineal descent

option of affiliating with either the mother’s or the father’s descent group

Ambilocal

when newly married couples can join either that bride’s family or the groom’s depending which one’s resources look best or their presence is most needed or appreciated

Apical Ancestor

a common ancestor from whom a lineage or clan may trace its descent

Bridewealth

the money or valuable goods paid by the groom or his family to the bride’s family upon marriage; also called bride-price (good)

Caste

a closed social class in which membership is determined at birth and fixed for life

Clan

an extended unilineal kin-group, often consisting of several lineages, whose members claim common descent from a remote ancestor, usually legendary or mythological

Collateral Kin

brothers, sisters, cousins

Colonialism

practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country- played a major part in language suppression (colonial languages of English, Spanish, French expanded at the expense of indigenous languages

Cross-cousins

the child of a mother’s brother or a father’s sister (children of parent’s opposite sex sibling)

De facto discrimination

practiced but not legally sanctioned (current racism stereotyping with criminals, etc)

De jure discrimination

part of law (affirmative action)

Descent group

people claiming common ancestry, forms the most basic unit of social organization in non-industrial society ALSO any kin-group whose members share a direct line of descent from a real (historical) or fictional common ancestor

Diglossia

‘style shifts’ such as formal or high language in certain setting and slang in others

Dowry

a payment at the time of a woman’s marriage that comes from her inheritance, made either to her or her husband 

Egalitarianism

societies in which everyone has about the same rank and power and about the same access to basic resources

EGO

in kinship studies, the central person from whom the degree of each kinship relationship is traced

Endogamy

marriage within a particular group or category of individuals

Exogamy

marriage outside the group

Ethnicity

the expression of the set of cultural ideas held by an ethnic group ALSO identification with, and feeling part of, an ethnic group and exclusion from other groups due to this association

Family of Orientation

family that one is born into and grows up in

Family of Procreation

family formed when married and having children (may have multiple)

Feminization of poverty

in US more single women and women with children are below the poverty line. A significant portion of these are in transition. Also women garner poorer wages on average

Gender

the cultural elaborations and meanings assigned to the biological differentiation between the sexes

ALSO the cultural meaning assigned to biological sex

Hegemony

stratified social order where subordinates comply with domination by internalizing the ruler’s values and accepting the naturalness of the domination. Internalization of a dominant ideology allows elites to maintain power. Belief that subordinates can gain their own power feeds into hegemony

Intersex

people born with the reproductive organs, genitalia, and/or sex chromosomes that are not exclusively male or female

Kinesics

the study of nonverbal signals in body language including facial expressions and bodily postures and motions

Kinship

Kinship system

socially constructed and shows considerable variation cross-culturally (kindreds, lineages, clans) distinguishing factors include gender, generational differences, or genealogical differences

Language

a system of communication using symbolic sounds, gestures, or marks that are put together according to certain rules, resulting in meanings that are intelligible to all who share that language

Levirate marriage

Lineage

a unilineal kin-group descended from a common ancestor or founder who lived four to six generations ago and in which relationships among members can be exactly stated in genealogical terms 

a political system ruled by women or one where they play more prominent role than men in politics

Matrifocal society

mother centered, often no resident husband/father

Matrilineal

descent traced exclusively through the female line of ancestry to establish group membership

Matrilocal

a residence pattern in which a married couple lives in the wife’s mother’s place of residence

Moiety

each group, usually consisting of several clans, that results from a division of a society into two halves on the basis of descent

Neolocal

a residence pattern where a married couple established its household in a location apart from either the husband’s or the wife’s relatives

Patriarchy

political system ruled by men where women have inferior political and social status

Patrilineal

Patrilocal

Phonemes

sound contrasts that make a difference in meaning. ‘r and I’ sounds change meaning in English but not in Japanese ALSO the smallest units of sound that make a difference in the meaning in language

Polyandry

a marriage form in which a woman is married to two or more men at the same time; form of polygamy

Polygyny

a marriage form in which a man is married to two or more women at the same time; form of polygamy

Private Transcript

open public interactions between subordinates and superordinate, how you behave around people in power 

Public Transcript

open public interactions between subordinates and superordinate, how you behave around people in power 

Proxemics

the cross-cultural study of people’s perception and use of space “personal bubble”

Race

- in biology, the taxonomic category of subspecies that is not applicable to humans because the division of humans into discrete types does not represent the true nature of human biological variation; in some societies, race is an important social category

·      When ethnic groups are assumed to have a biological basis, they are called ‘race’

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Semantics

meaning system within a language, examines the relation of words and phrases and what they stand for

Sex

biological, phenotypic expression of chromosomal differences

Social Stratification

societies in which people are hierarchically divided and ranked into social strata, or layers, and do no share equally in basic resources that support income, status, power ALSO ascribed status, more common in states

Sodalitites

groups that are not based on kinship EX: secret societies, pan tribal, maasai age sets

Sororate Marriage

wife’s family friends substitutes EX: sisters or other available woman    

Third Gender

biological males or females who take on other gender roles

Unilineal Descent

descent traced exclusively through either the male or female line of ancestry to establish group membership