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79 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
Anthropology |
The study of human beings, their biology, their pre-histories and histories, and their changing languages, cultures, and social institutions |
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Industrialization |
Economic process of shifting from an agricultural economy to a factory based one |
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Evolution |
The adaptive changes organisms make across generations |
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Charles Darwin |
Created theory of natural selection and argued life exists under complex, changing conditions and those individuals having inherited traits best suited to a particular environment will survive and reproduce |
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Emperical |
Verifiable through observation rather than through logic or theory |
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Colonialism |
Historical practice of more powerful countries claiming possession of less powerful ones |
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Salvage paradigm |
To observe indigenous ways of life before knowledge of traditional languages and customs were presumed to disappear |
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Cultural anthropology |
the study of social lives of living communities |
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Archeology |
Studies past cultures, by excavating sites where people lived |
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Historical archeology |
Excavate sites where written historical documentations about the sites also exists |
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Biological anthropology |
Focuses on the physical aspects of the human species, past and present, along with those of our closest relatives, the non-human primates |
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Linguistic anthropology |
Looks at how people communicate through language and how languages use and shapes group membership and identity |
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Culture (with linguistic anthropology) |
Referring to ideas about the world and ways of interacting in society or in the environment in predictable or unexpected ways |
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Ethnocentrism |
The assumption that one's own way of doing things is correct while dismissing other people's practices or views as wrong or ignorant |
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Cultural relativism |
The moral and intellectual principle that one should withhold judgement about seemingly strange or exotic beliefs and practices. This avoids ethnocentrism |
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E.B. Tylor |
Believed that the social and cultural differences of humanity could be explained as the product of evolutionary forces and stages (social evolutionism). Primarily concerned with developing an evolutionary sequence that would explain how people evolved from a state of “primitive savagery” to more “advanced levels of civilization |
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Initial definition of culture (by E.B. Tylor) |
Complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society |
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Diversity |
The sheer variety of ways of being human around the world |
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Holism |
Efforts to synthesize distinct approaches and finds into a single comprehensive interpretation |
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Scientific method |
The standard methodology of science that beings from observable facts, generates hypotheses from these facts, and then tests these hypotheses |
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Theory |
A tested and repeatedly supported hypothesis |
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Quantitative method |
Methodology that classifies features of a phenomenon, counting or measuring them, and constructing mathematical and statistical models to explain what is observed |
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Qualitative method |
Research strategy producing in depth and detailed descriptions of social actives and beliefs |
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Ethnographic method |
Prolonged and intensive observations of and participation in the life of a community |
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Comparative method |
Research method that derives insights from careful comparison of aspects of two or more cultures |
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Applied Anthropology |
Anthropological research commissioned to serve an organization's needs |
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Practicing Anthropology |
Anthropological work including research, design, implementation and management of some organizations, process or product |
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Ethics |
Moral questions about right and wrong and standards of appropriate behaviors |
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Culture |
(no single definition) Acquired, complex whole, stable, learned, dynamic, integrated with daily experiences, shared by groups of people and passed along from generation to generation |
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Social evolutionism (theory of culture) |
All societies pass through stages, from primitive state to complex civilization. Cultural differences are the result of different evolutionary stages. (E.B. Tylor) |
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Historical particularism (theory of culture) |
Individual societies develop particular cultural traits and undergo unique processes of change. Culture traits diffuse from one culture to another. (Franz Boas) |
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Functionalism (theory of culture) |
Cultural practices, beliefs, and institutions fulfill psychological and social needs. (Bronislaw Malinowski) |
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Structural Functionalism (theory of culture) |
Culture is systematic,its pieces working together in a balanced fashion to keep the whole society functioning smoothly. (A.R. Radcliffe-Brown) |
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Structuralism (theory of culture) |
People make sense of the world through binary oppositions. These binaries are expressed in social institutions and cultural practices like kinship, myth, and language. (Claude Levi-Strauss) |
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Interpretive Anthropology (theory of culture) |
Culture is a shared system of meaning. People make sense of their worlds through the use of symbols and symbolic activities like myth and ritual. (Clifford Geertz) |
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Enculturation |
Th process of learning the social rules and cultural logic of a society |
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Clifford Geertz |
Created interpretive theory of culture |
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Symbols |
Something (an object, idea, image, figure, or character) that represents something else |
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Cross cultural perspective |
Analyzing human social phenomenon by comparing the phenomenon in different cultures |
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Cultural construction |
The meanings, concepts, and practices that people build out of their shared and collective experiences |
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Claude Levi Strauss |
Postulated that all humans think in the same way based on the biology of the brain and structure of the mind. This brought metaphor as an universal logical principle. Supported idea of structuralism. |
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Metaphor |
Establishes that one thing can be associated with another thing because the two share some similarity |
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Egocentrism |
Having the self or the individual as the center of all things and having little to no regard for interests, beliefs, or attitudes other than one's own |
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Relativism |
Interpret and make sense of another culture in terms of other culture's perspective |
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Critical relativism |
Taking stance on a practice or belief only after trying to understand it in its cultural and historical context |
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Cultural determinism |
The idea that all human actions are the product of culture, which denies the influence of other factors like physical environment and human biology on human behavior |
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Franz Boas |
Came up with cultural relativism. Major figure responsible for establishing anthropology in America. Conducted research in Baffin Islands (Newfoundland). Befriended inuit people and learned that they thought about the world differently. Came up with valuable lesson → to learn about other people’s perspective, one has to try to overcome one’s own cultural framework AKA cultural relativism. |
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Culture (defined in book) |
Culture consists of the collective process that make the artificial seem natural |
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Values |
Symbolic expression of intrinsically desirable principles or qualities |
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Norms |
Typical patterns of actual behavior as well as the unwritten rule about how things should be done in everyday life |
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Social sanctions |
A reaction or measure intended to enforce norms and punish their violation |
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Customs |
Long established norms that have a codified and law-like aspect |
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Tradition |
Practices and customs that have become most ritualized and enduring |
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Social institutions |
Organized sets of social relationships that link individuals to each other in a structured way in particular society |
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Holistic perspective |
A perspective that aims to identify and understand the whole - that is, the systematic connections between individual cultural beliefs and practices - rather than the individual parts |
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Cultural appropriation |
The unilateral decision of one social group to take control over the symbols, practices, or objects of another |
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Nature and nurture |
A kind of shorthand for biological (nature) and cultural or environmental (nurture) influences |
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Biocultural |
The complex intersections of biological, psychological, and cultural processes |
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Neurons |
Brain cells that transmit information through chemical and electrical signals |
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Neural plasticity |
The moldability and flexibility of brain structure |
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Mind |
Emergent qualities of consciousness and intellect that manifests themselves through thought, emotion, perception, will, and imagination |
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Cultural models |
Implicit and typically non-conscious cognitive models shared by a group of people of what is real and natural |
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Personal models |
Individual's idiosyncratic way of making sense of things |
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Psychological anthropology |
The subfield of anthropology that studies psychological states and conditions |
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The culture and personality school |
A school of thought in early and mid twentieth century American anthropology that studied how patterns of child-rearing, social institutions and cultural ideologies shapes individual experience, personality, characteristics, and thought patterns |
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Ruth Benedict |
American anthropologist of mid twentieth century. Mentored by Franz Boas. Strong advocate of culture and personality school. Argued for the power of culture over biology in explaining how and why individual develop their personalities. |
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Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss |
Explored cultural concepts of a person.Focused on individuals as a social category and what it revealed about how a society focused on the individual as a social category and what it revealed about how a society works. Were not part of culture and personality school. |
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Person |
The socially recognized individual |
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Self |
An individual's conception of his or her fundamental qualities and consciousness |
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Ethnopsychology |
The study of culturally specific ideas of personhood, self emotion, and other psychological states |
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Emotion |
The affects and feelings we experience as humans |
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Culture Bound Syndrome |
A mental illness unique to a culture. |
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Phenotype |
Visible characteristics of an organism |
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Natural Selection |
Process through which the natural environment selects those individuals with the most suitable characteristics for that environment to have more successful offspring than other, less well adapted individuals |
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Mutation |
Seemingly random changes in an organism's genetic code |
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Gene Flow |
The movement of genes through interbreeding or intermarriage in humans between distinct populations so the two populations become more similar or maintain shared traits |
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Genetic drift |
Random sampling effects - not natural selection - that bring changes to the distribution of traits within a population |
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Biological determinism |
The belief that human behaviors and beliefs are primarily, if not solely, the result of biological characteristics and processes |
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Geneticization |
The use of genetics to explain health and social problems over other possible causes |