Term
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Definition
· Societies can be compared irrespective of time
· Historical and contemporary
· Used unilineal Evolution
o Savagery, Barbarism, Civilization
· Governments:
o Societas (based on kinship)
§ Beomes tribes, bands
o Civitas (based on territory/property)
§ Becomes a chiefdom, state |
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Term
| Henry: Schools and Social Control |
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Definition
Schools as Institutions for Enculturation
“Drilling” (rote learning) replaced by less rigid forms of teaching.
Old rules replaced by new rules.
Function of education is not to foster creativity, but to instill conformity.
“American classrooms . . . express the values, preoccupations, and fears found in the culture as a whole.”
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Term
The Myth of Global Ethnic Conflict (Bowen) |
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Definition
Problematic Assumptions
Ethnic identity is ancient and unchanging (a primordialist view).
Ethnic identities motivate people to kill and persecute others.
Ethnic diversity inevitably leads to inter-ethnic violence. |
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Term
Birth of Biometric Security (Maguire) |
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Definition
Biometrics
• Recognizing humans on basis of physical or behavioral traits.
• Physical Traits (face, fingerprints, iris, hand geometry, DNA, body odor).
• Behavioral Traits (handwriting, voice pattern, gait.) |
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Term
Say “Cheese” (Shearing and Stenning) |
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Definition
Mechanisms for social control built into park.
“Private corporate policing.”
“Control strategies are embedded in both environmental features and structural relations.”
Control becomes consensual.
Inducing coercion by “depriving visitors of a resource they value.”
“People today are seduced to conform by the pleasures of consuming the goods that corporate power has to offer.” |
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Term
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Definition
- Colonial administrator turned anthropologist.
- •Scientific anthropology: search for universal laws to explain human behavior.
- •Proponent of British Functionalism: social structure key framework for comparative analysis. Goal to understand how social institutions function.
- Joking Relationships
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Term
Land of the Walking Marriage (Lu Yuan and Sam Mitchell) |
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Definition
Mosuo – example of matrilineal society.
Matrilineal descent; Female-headed households; No formal marital unions (sisi = “walking back and forth”); Informal unions based on love, no dowry; Children raised by mother and her brothers; No social or economic obligations between father and children
Advantages of “Walking Marriage”
All siblings (brothers and sisters) contribute to the welfare of the household.
No potential conflicts between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.
Advantage or Disadvantage?
Cultural Revolution: “walking marriage” banned (“living fossils” must be modernized).
Today: exotic culture as tourist attraction. |
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Term
When Brothers Share a Wife (Goldstein) |
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Definition
Means to insure family unity. Practical economic side: conserve household resources. Result = many women excluded from marriage. Unintended effect of limiting population growth. |
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Term
The Persistence of Polygamy (Egan) |
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Definition
1890s: Mormon church denounced polygamy (actually, polygyny) and Utah outlawed the practice (condition of statehood). 20,000 – 60,000 today people live in polygynous families. Polygyny survives in “clans”. |
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Term
Arranging a Marriage in India (Nanda) |
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Definition
Most marriages are arranged by parents.
• Arranged marriages are contrary to the American ideal of individualism and the notion that a successful marriage is based on romantic love.
• Dowry given by bride’s family to groom’s family.
Nanda’s Points Matrimonial Ad
Marriage = family (not individual) decision. Ad posted by family member, not the girl.
Emphasis on quality of bride’s family. Specifics about caste and occupations.
Emphasis on extended family values. “She respects elders.”
Modern aspirations; traditional values. Modern education, “believer in family values.” |
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Term
Sex and Consequences (Wood) |
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Definition
• Institutionalized homosexuality always has negative consequences.
• Males secretive and exclusive; women devalued and marginalized (Etoro as evidence).
• Sanctioning homosexuality leads to pedophilia.
• Societies where homosexuality is the norm have low birth rates. |
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Term
Focus on the Fridge (Blackman) |
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Definition
From luxury to necessity; nearly universal in US households.
• What does refrigerator usage tell us about American families and kinship? |
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Term
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Definition
· Student of Boas and Benedict
· Culture and Personality
· Political, religious, art and literature
o All those values shape your personality from these cultural institutions
· Her thoughts on gender:
o Says that gender roles are culturally constructed |
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Term
Lorber (The Social Construction of Gender) |
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Definition
· We act out out gender on a daily basis, we take it for granted
· Disruptions:
o We notice when things go against our ingrained expectations
· Gender specific names
· Once gender is recognized, that person is treated to their gender |
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Term
| Gender Roles vs Gender Stereotypes vs Gender Stratification |
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Definition
Gender Roles: The tasks and activities a culture assigns to the sexes.
Gender Stereotypes: Strongly held ideas about the characteristics of males and females.
Gender Stratification: Rights and responsibilities allocated according to gender (ordering of society).
- What men do is often valued more highly (education; economic activities; politics; etc.).
- Gender ideology legitimates stratification.
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Term
A Woman’s Curse (Meredith Small) |
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Definition
· Menstruation:
o Transition from adolescence to womanhood
o Customs take negative forms: taboos
§ No sex, no cooking, no visiting sacred places/rituals, cant touch men’s items, segregate from rest of family
§ Marking them as impure and polluting
o Menstrual Hut (Video)
§ Dogon Village, Mali
ú Go to a hut during menstrual cycle |
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Term
Female-Selective Abortions (Miller) |
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Definition
· Imbalanced sex ratios in China
· Religious? Nah
· China has a 117/100 (male/female) ratio in 2000
· Mostly in eastern China
· Unintended Consequences
o Lots of men with no hope of marriage
· India:
o Punjab and Kerala (126/100, 104/100) |
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Term
Measuring up to Barbie (Urla and Swedlund) |
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Definition
· Are American women discontent with their bodies
o Dieting
o Surgeries
o Barbie shapes people’s body image
o Feminine body is never feminine enough
o Barbie image has adapted with the times
o Average owner has 7 dolls
o One is sold every two seconds
o Gendering Kids
§ Connection between personal appearance and happiness
o Socializing into consumer culture
o Anthropometry of Barbie
§ Taller and thinner
§ Similar to runway model ideal |
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Term
Rituals of Manhood (Herdt) |
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Definition
· Warfare and Masculinity
· In Sambia
· Manliness:
o Perform masculinity on battle field
· Gender and Enculturation
o Babies nurtured by mother if female
· Becoming male:
o Maleness is not goven through birth, its given through ritual
o Separate the boy from mother
o Rid the body of female contaminants
· Mosuo in China
o Less gener stratification
· Sambia
o More gender stratification |
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Term
“Ladies” Behind Bars (Coggeshall) |
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Definition
· worked within a prison
· gender is redefined in a prison
· gender might be forced strategically, forcibly
· males creat females by subjugating the weaker males to females
· real men are defined by theyre ability to fight and protect “women”
· Ladies/Queens: come out voluntarily
o Allows them to control their sexuality
· Kids
o Kept in servitude by others
· Gumps and Punks:
o Kept in servitude by gangs
o Property: prostituted for money
· The female guards are referred to as dykes |
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