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Cultural Anthropology ANT 302
N/A
58
Anthropology
Undergraduate 1
03/09/2010

Additional Anthropology Flashcards

 


 

Cards

Term
Adaptive Strategies
Definition
Foraging, Pastoralism, Horticulture, Agriculture, Industrialism.
Term
Agriculture
Definition
More surplus. Tends to only focus on one type of food. Sedentary.
Term
Anthropology
Definition
The comprehensive and holistic study of human kind’s present and past biological, linguistic, social and cultural variations.
Term
Attributes of Culture
Definition
Learned, Shared, Symbolic, Naturalized, Integrated, Dynamic
Term
Authority
Definition
The socially approved use of power.
Term
Bands
Definition
Egalitarian in terms of power and authority. No political offices. Don't need leaders because small group, subsistence economy (little surplus), and no notion of private ownership/territory.
Term
Chiefdom
Definition
kin-based structure with permanent political institutions.
Term
Clifford Geertz
Definition
Defined the task and work as producing thick description.
Term
Cultural Anthropology
Definition
The comparative, cross-cultural study of present-day human societies and cultures.
Term
Cultural Relativism
Definition
Understanding and interpreting a particular social practice only within its cultural context. (You try to see how it fits into their lives, worldview, beliefs, but it doesn't mean that you find it harmonious with your own life)
Term
Culture
Definition
The system of meanings about the nature of experience that are shared by a people and passed on from one generation to another.
Term
Culture Shock
Definition
The anxiety & uncertainty of operating within a different and unknown cultural environment
Term
Detached observer
Definition
Observing from a distance.
Term
Division of labor
Definition
The specialization of labor to become more productive.
Term
Egalitarian
Definition
Having equal chance at economic resource and prestige for men, women, adults and children.
Term
Emic Perspective
Definition
Insider's point of view
Term
Enculturation
Definition
the process by which a person learns the requirements of the culture by which he or she is surrounded, and acquires values and behaviours that are appropriate or necessary in that culture
Term
Ethnocentrism
Definition
Thinking that there is only one proper wayt o do things- one's own culture's way of doing things.

That this way of doing things is superior to all others.
Term
Ethnography
Definition
The task of discovering and describing a particular culture
Term
Etic Perspective
Definition
Outsider's perspective
Term
Explicit Culture
Definition
The cultural knowledge you can talk about.
Term
Horticulturalism (Slash and burn)
Definition
No private property of land, high yield, move every 20-30 years to let soil become fertile, population may be sedentary.
Term
Hunting and Gathering
Definition
Gathering food and hunting for meat. There's a balance between hunting and gathering. Less work per week.
Term
Industrialism
Definition
Production based on manufacturing.
Term
Key Metaphor
Definition
A term coined by Sherry Ortner to identify metaphors that dominate the meanings that people in a specific culture attribute to their experience.
Term
Language
Definition
A symbolic system of cultural knowledge that humans use to generate and understand speech.
Term
Lewis Henry Morgan
Definition
Postulated a theory of human development in which human societies evolved through savagery, barbarism and civilization.
Term
Linnaeus
Definition
A biologist that put animals into groups.
Term
Market Principle
Definition
The exchange between strangers. No connection
Term
Metaphor
Definition
Take language from one domain of experience and apply it to another domain. It extends language from one domain to the other, but it also extends meaning.
Term
Morpheme
Definition
The smallest unit of meaning.
Term
Morphology
Definition
The study of word formation and structure.
Term
Naive Realism
Definition
Thinking that human nature is pretty much the same for the entire world.
Term
Noble Savage
Definition
more worthy and authentically noble than the civilized man. Tarzan. uncorrupted and unencumbered by social morals of civilization.
Term
Participant Observation
Definition
Observing by participating in their informants' everyday lives.
Term
Pastoralism
Definition
Type of agriculture that includes the domestication of animals and raising them.
Term
Phoneme
Definition
Smallest unit of speech sound. "b" in bat.
Term
Phonology
Definition
Study of sounds and their ordering.
Term
Population Density
Definition
major force behind changes in subsistence strategies. Made cultures progress.
Term
Power
Definition
The ability to exercise one's will over another.
Term
Primitivism
Definition
The idea that life was better or more moral during the early stages of mankind or among primitive peoples and has deteriorated with civilization.
Term
Production
Definition
the act of making products (goods and services)
Term
Progress
Definition
forward or onward movement toward a destination.
Term
Racial taxonomy
Definition
Putting different races into different groups and stereotyping them.
Term
Reading Culture
Definition
Aims at deciphering the meanings embedded in and conveyed through language, objects, gestures and activities that are shared by members of a society
Term
Reciprocity
Definition
The transfer of goods and services based on role obligations.
Term
Redistribution
Definition
The transfer of goods and services between a central collection source and a social group.
Term
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Definition
The experiences and understandings of a culture are constrained because they can only be expressed in ways which its language allows.
Term
Sedentary
Definition
Not mobile.
Term
Semantics
Definition
The study of the categories and rules for relating vocal symbols to their referents.
Term
State
Definition
More territorial, has a bureaucracy, and has an army/police force backing up ruling class. Organized with formal political institutions
Term
Subsistence Strategy
Definition
Kinds of labor and techniques employed by people to meet their material needs.
Term
Symbol
Definition
something, such as an object, gesture, picture, or word that stands for something else.
Term
Symbol
Definition
Anything that we can perceive with our senses that stand for something else. A kind of sign which denotes its object solely by the virtue of the fact that it will be interpreted to do so.
Term
Syntax
Definition
The study of sentence structure.
Term
Tacit culture
Definition
Cultural knowledge that people lack words for. You learn it mostly by practice, imitation and observation.
Term
Thick Description
Definition
Describing the richness of meanings around cultural acts. This involves the careful interpretation of observed events in a larger socio-cultural context.
Term
Tribe
Definition
Village that lacks means to enforce political decisions
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