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111 Cards in this Set
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habitus
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"being in the world," the relationship of culture and the individual (Pierre Bourdieu); (1) any form of bodily disposition or comportment that encodes a certain cultural understanding; (2) unconscious internalization of objective social structures which appear spontaneous and natural, but which are in fact socially conditioned
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Extremely naturalized way of “being in the world” or existence; decisions and actions are “orchestrated” without the conscious knowledge of the players or often the conductors
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common male activities cross-culturally
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Hunting, warfare, building houses, clearing land, “physical” labor
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common female activities cross-culturally
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Child care, gathering food, carrying water, “domestic” activities
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sexual division of labor
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Theory based on biological differences in males and females:
(1) Men’s physical strength (2) Female childbirth and infant care |
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gender stratification
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Status of men/women varies from one society to another.
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Indicators of women’s status:
- The role played by women in society. - The value society places on their contributions, - Their legal rights, - Whether and to what extent they are expected to be deferential to men, - Economic independence, and - The degree to which they decide on major events in their lives. |
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gender ideology
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A system of thoughts and values that legitimizes gender roles, statuses and customary behavior.
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Some possible consequences of inflexible gender ideologies:
• Female infanticide • Honor killings • Female genital mutilation • Gender-based violence (such as domestic violence) |
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Primordialist Model
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people maintain their ethnic affiliations because it is fundamental to their identity; Focuses on the more intrinsic, taken for granted aspects of culture, like kinship and religion
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Ethnicity is a phenomenon of relatedness, that kinship is the
basis of one’s felt bond to a group; ex: the Old Order Amish |
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Circumstantialist Model
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Suggests that ethnic groups mark their boundaries not on the cultural content distinctiveness, but in relation to, or in opposition to other groups in their surroundings. Its political.
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How/why groups mobilize for political action
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Anthropologist Fredrick Barth
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(circumstantialist model) doesn’t consider ethnic identity to be universal, but rather a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions.
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group conciousness
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(circumstantialist model) the belief by the members that there is something different that unites them and sets them apart (e.g. a past of genocide, enslavement, exploitation)
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Contemporary thought
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- Anthropologists draw from both models to explain or interpret ethnicity
- How societal conditions affect how people define themselves ethnically |
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ethnicity
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- Ethnicity is not biologically determined
- Ethnicity is altered, modified, and asserted in differing historical, social, political, and cultural contexts. - ethnic identity depends upon ascription and self- ascription; only as individuals embrace it, are constrained by it, act on it, and experience it will ethnicity make an organizational difference |
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race
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- Race is culturally defined, not biologically defined
- Racial categories are ascribed by the dominant group and vary by culture - Reasons for the ascriptions are usually supported by prejudices and are created in response to political competition and competition over economic resources |
- Racial ascriptions can have social, economic, and emotional consequences
- It is more sensitive and less ethnocentric to use terms like “people groups” to describe human variation |
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religion
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The organized system of ideas and practices about the supernatural, along with associated beliefs, ceremonial practices and all phenomena that are seen as having a sacred or supra-empirical* quality.
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anthropology of religion
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For anthropologists, religion is a multifaceted phenomenon with overlapping spheres, rather than a single entity that can be identified and studied in isolation.
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Religions may differ from one another on their emphasis of these domains of society and culture:
- Ritual(practical)dimension - Philosophical(theology/theodicy) - Mythic(narrative,stories) -Experiential(emotional,psychological) - Ethical(legal,doctrinal) - Organizational(social,hierarchical) - Material(artistic,symbolic) - Political and economic |
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Religious Example: Aja Rite of Passage
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In Vodoun religious practice in Benin, West Africa, Sakpata is the deity of the earth, and of smallpox and skin disease.
Community members are chosen to become initiates (called kponkpon) into this spirit possession troupe; membership gives immunity to skin disease, and the new members use their status and power as members of the troupe to provide protection from illness for community members. The rite takes up to three years for initiates. Upon completion of the rite, initiates become Sakpatashi, or, spouses of the deity. |
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cultural conceptions of the “self”
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o culture teaches us how to think about ourselves and the social/natural world around us
o culture teaches a version of being human, or how to be human in society o in some societies, the individual self is important • self-help • self-esteem • self development o in others, the self is defined by the group, or in relation to the group |
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what is ethnicity?
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• Ethnicity = is based on a conception of a shared cultural heritage
• An ethnic group is a collectivity of people who believe they share a common history, culture, or ancestry. |
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Franz Boas
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• Franz Boas found that physical characteristics, or phenotypes, were not associated with any particular behavior, culture, or language
• Culture isn’t biologically transmitted, its passed through the process of enculturation |
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the objective
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the observable culture and shared symbols of a group
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the subjective
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the internal beliefs regarding a shared ancestry, a “we-feeling,” their emotional attachment to a group
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Patterns of ethnic relations
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- pluralism
- assimilation - integration - segregation - genocide |
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Pluralism
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o More than 1 ethnic group occupies a single nation
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Assimilation
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o The process of ethnic boundary decay
o Cultural assimilation o Ethnocide = eliminate a culture o Biological assimilation o Segmented assimilation |
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Integration
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o An ethnic group becomes full participants in the institutions of a society while still maintaining their distinct cultural traits
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Segregation
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o Physical and social separation
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Genocide
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o Systematic elimination of a particular ethnic group
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nationalism
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a set of symbols and beliefs proving the sense of belonging to a single political community
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ethnic communities are older than, or have existed before the formation of, nation-states
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How do people divide their social worlds into different groups?
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Biology and geographic location has less to do with the way people separate themselves then prejudices and economic competition.
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Older Classifications of Race
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• Europeans = Caucasoids
• Africans = Negroids • Asians = Mongoloids • Polar = Esquimaux • American = American |
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Scientific racism
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• Was the use of pseudo-science to investigate and support differences or superiority between races
• Often to support or validate racist attitudes • The measuring of skeletons was put to racist ends |
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Race in Contemporary Anthropology
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• We recognize physical differences, but culture decides which features are more important than others
• Phenotype • Features and genetics found across all people groups • <0.1% of genetic material determines phenotypes in humans (skin color, hair type, etc.) |
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How is race ascribed?
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• Most countries outside the US determine race through descent
• The US uses hypodescent, that is children of mixed parents are ascribed the race of the socially lower group |
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Basic features of language:
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• There is no such thing as a “primitive” language
• Languages change over time • Translatable to a certain extent |
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displacement
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• Humans can use language to talk about abstractions
o Past/present o Absent or hidden o Invisible o Purely abstract or conceptual o Even non-existent |
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Language builds or constructs:
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• From individual units of sound (phenemes)…
• To units of meaning (morphemes)… • To intelligible utterances… • To socially appropriate speech o Stories o Sentences |
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phonology
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o How language sounds
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morphology/semantics
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o How meaning is achieved through the combination or manipulation of sounds
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Three functions of language:
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o Convey factual information
o Convey social information o Construct social relations – make, perform, comment on, and negotiate statuses |
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Language reveals:
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• Social relations
• Concepts • Values • Familiarity or intimacy • Status/power differences and respect • Age and gender differences • Class differences • Regional, racial, and ethnic differences |
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How is language performative?
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• Language is a form of social action
• Often has real effects on social world • Often calls for an active response |
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Diglossia
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co-existence of two language forms, usually one “high” or prestigious and one “low”
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Jargon
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technical and sub-cultural
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Pidgin
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o A simplified language derived from two or more languages
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Creole
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o Adopt new words into native language
o When a pidgin language gains a large number of native speakers (first language) it is considered a creole o Pronounce English words differently and with different meanings |
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Language also includes a variety of non-verbal and non-semantic verbal practices:
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• Kinesics or “body language”
• Proxemics = use of proximity • Sign languages • Gestures |
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Linguistic relativity hypothesis
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• A language is more than a list of words for things, but a set of verbal concepts, ideas, relations, values, meanings, categories, etc.
• Humans are born without any particular language • As humans acquire a language, they acquire its particular set of verbal concepts, ideas, relations, values, meanings, categories, etc. • Humans who speak different languages would thus think and experience different concepts, ideas, relations, etc. • Controversial • Language influences thought and experience (weak version) • Language determines thought and experience (strong version) |
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Deities?
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• Polytheism: belief in several gods
• Monotheism: belief in one single god • Henotheism (Olympian): one supreme deity, but others exist and are active |
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Ancestral spirits?
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• Free at physical death – leave the physical body. May return to a new body. May exists before birth or after death.
• May maintain an active interest and/or involvement in society when not embodied. |
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Animism
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• Belief that all things possess a soul, spirit, or force; that all reality is animate. Plants, animals, springs, mountains, rocks and other natural features may be occupired by spirits or forces. Impresonal forces at work in the world- “Mana”, “Ebo” (Benin), “The Force”.
• Tylor said that all religions starts as animism, then develop into polytheism, then ultimately to monotheism. An evolutionary view-what do you think? |
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Rites of Passage
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• Rituals which mark important transitions in life
• Three stages (Arnold Van Gennep)” o Separation o Transition of “liminality” o Incorporation |
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productivity
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the capacity of language to combine meaningless sounds to create new words or to combine words to create new utterances
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competence
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in language, the mastery of the elements of a language to be able to make intelligible utterances
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phoneme
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the smallest bit of sound in a language
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semantics
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the study of meaning of language
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morpheme
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the smallest bit of meaningful sound in language, usually a word but also a prefix or suffix or other meaning-conveying sound that may be used in conjunction with a word
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syntax
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the rules in a language for how words are combined to make intelligible utterances or speech acts
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pragmatics
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the rules or practices regarding how language is used in particular social situations to convey particular social information, such as the relative status or power of the speakers
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honorifics
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language forms specialized to indicate the relative social status or relationship of the speakers
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performatives
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linguistic utterances that do not merely describe but actually accomplish a transformation in the social world
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paralanguage
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the qualities which speakers can add to language to modify the factual or social meaning of speech, such as tone of voice, volume, pitch, speed and cadence, and "non-linguistic" sounds like grunts and snickers
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kinesics
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the study of how body movements are used to communicate social information, sometimes referred to as "body language"
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proxemics
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the study of how cultures use personal space
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anti-language
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a speech style used by individuals or groups in the performance of roles opposing or inverting the society outside of their group
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Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
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linguistic relativity hypothesis
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self
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the more or less enduring, bounded, and discrete part of an individual's identity or personality, and the reflexive awareness of this aspect of oneself
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psychic unity of humanity
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the attitude that all humans regardless of culture share the same basic thought processes
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primitive mentality
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the idea, associated with Lucien Levy-Bruhl, that non-Western and "primitive" peoples possessed a distinctly different, "pre-logical" mode of thought.
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childrearing practices
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the methods employed by members of a society to care for children and to prepare those children to become future members of that society
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basic personality
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the psychological traits common to most or all of the members of a society
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national character
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the alleged common personality characteristics of an entire society or country; especially applied to modern societies or nation-states
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modal personality
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the statistically most commonly occurring personality traits in a society
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sexual dimorphism
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the occurrence of two physically distinct forms of a species, based on sexual characteristics as well as non-sexual ones such as body size
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gender
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the social categories based on physical sexual characteristics and the meanings, behaviors, and values associated with these categories
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purdah
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"wearing a veil"
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honor killing
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the killing, usually of females, when their behavior has brought shame or dishonor on a family
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foot-binding
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a traditional Chinese practice of tying a young girl's feet tightly so that her feet remained small into adulthood
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Sati
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the traditional Indian practice in which a widow commits suicide throwing herself on her dead husband's funeral pyre
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dowry death
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the killing of wives because the husbands were not satisfied with the dowry payment they received, or else to free them to marry again and collect another dowry
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female circumcision
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female genital mutilation; the practice of cutting off some or all of a female's external genitalia
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Berdache
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a gender concept in some Native American societies for biological males who adopt certain behavioral and personality characteristics of females
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Eunuch
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a gender category involving non-sexual individuals (usually men), who may be castrated or merely celibate, sterile, or lacking sexual desire
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anthropometry
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the measurement of human bodies to determine individual and group physical characteristics
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facial angle
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the slope of the lower face and jaw away from the flatness of the forehead, used by "scientific racists" to measure the difference between races
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cephalic index
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a measurement of the skull/brain volume and shape, based on a ratio of width of the head from ear to ear relative to the depth of the head from front to back
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miscegenation
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a term for the undesirable effects of the mixing of different genetic types or populations, especially race groups
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eugenics
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the scientific practice of "improving" a population or species by selective breeding or genetic engineering, to breed out "bad" traits and breed in "good" ones
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endogamy
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the marriage principle in which an individual marries someone who is in the same cultural category as himself or herself
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ethnogenesis
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the process by which ethnic groups come into being and/or attain their cultural characteristics
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assimilation
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the social process by which individuals are absorbed into another, usually dominant, cultural group:
- cultural assimilation - racial assimilation - social assimilation |
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pluralism
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the co-existence of multiple social/cultural groups on the same society or state
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typology of group relations
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1. assimilation
2. pluralism 3. legal protection of minorities 4. population transfer 5. continued subjugation 6. extermination |
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Functions of religion:
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1) explanation, especially of origins or causes
2) control, both of culture and of nature 3) legitimation, of cultural and natural realities |
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totemism
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a religious conception that human individuals or groups have a symbolic or spiritual connection with particular natural species, objects, or phenomena
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pantheism
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"everything" is god
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animism
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non-human species and phenomena have spiritual components that interact with and sanction humans
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Shaman
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a religious specialist, often part-time, who has personal power, based on unique life experiences or apprenticeship to a senior shaman, to communicate, interact, and sometimes struggle with supernatural beings or forces. often a healer.
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priest
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a religious specialist, often full-time, who is trained in a religious tradition and acts as a functionary of a religious institution to lead ritual and perpetuate the religious institution
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sorcerer
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a religious specialist who uses spells and poisons to achieve supernatural effects
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contagious magic
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the belief and practice that objects that come into contact with each other have some supernatural connection with each other
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sympathetic magic
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the belief that objects which have something in common with each other have some supernatural connection with each other
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witch
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a religious specialist conceived as a human with a supernatural ability to harm others, sometimes through possession of an unnatural bodily organ or an unnatural personality
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diviner
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a religious specialist who can "read" information from the supernatural world
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oracle
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with the power to forecast the future or answer questions through communication with or manipulation of supernatural forces
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prophet
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a human who speaks for or receives messages from spirits
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ritual
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any type of formal, repetitive behavior that is felt to have significance beyond the actions themselves
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rite of intensification
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a form of ritual in which members of the society are brought into greater communion, in which social bonds are intensified
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sacrifice
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a ritual behavior in which something is destroyed or killed
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liminality
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the condition of being "in between" or "on the margins" of social roles
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myth
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a narrative telling of how some or all of the natural or social world was established
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prayer
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speak and interact with supernatural beings
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