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Four Fields of anthropology

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1. Physical Anthropology: the science of human zoology, evolution, and ecology; evolution (change over time); primotology 2. Archaeology: the study of human history and prehistory through the excavation of sites and the analysis of artifacts and other physical remains; reconstruct past life/cultures 3. Linguistics: study of language, communication between groups; spoken and unspoken (body language) 4. Cultural anthropology: the comparative study of human societies and cultures and their development; knowledge, belief, art, laws, morals

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Definition of Culture

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A system of meaning embedded in symbols - the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively

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Aspects/Characteristics of Culture

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1. All cultures involve some level of inequality - even among egalitarian societies (H&G bands) - gender, age, ability 2. All cultures are learned/transmitted - No natural way of culture - *Enculturation*: the gradual acquisition of the characteristics and norms of a culture or group by a person, another culture; from parents/family, units 3. Culture changes over time eg. millennials vs baby boomers 4. Cultures have history, traditions - including with cultures with no written records 5. Culture is shared - going against culture is just as bad as being a conformist - no person can have their own culture

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Symbol

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Anything that can stand for something else - abstract but precise - explicit or implicit meaning

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Participant Observation

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field work, involved - emic: insider perspective - etic: outsider perspective

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Ethnography

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output of research that concerns one culture eg. film, book, essay

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Ethnology

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the study of the characteristics of various peoples and the differences and relationships between them - two or more cultures

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Ethnographer

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- a person that studies ethnography - the scientific description of the customs of individual peoples and cultures

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Edward Burnett Tylor

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- founder of cultural anthropology - wrote Primitive Anthropology -- 1871 - uni-lineal thinker; known for religion

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Lewis Henry Morgan

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- wrote Ancient Society (1877) - uni-lineal thinker; known for political/social organization

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Herbert Spencer

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- Created concept of social darwinism - wrote Principles of Sociology (1876) (height of colonialism) (justifies people's right to take other's land) - talks about cultural evolution

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Social Darwinism

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Charles Darwin (The Origin of Species) 1859 - evolution & natural selection - biological understanding of the natural world - People and groups are subject to natural selection just like plants and animals; the rich deserve to live not the poor

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"Survival of the Fittest"

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- the continued existence of organisms that are best adapted to their environment, with the extinction of others, as a concept in the Darwinian theory of evolution.

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Unilineal Evolution

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Believed that Western culture is the contemporary pinnacle of social evolution. Different social status is aligned in a single line that moves from most primitive to most civilized

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Animism - polytheism-monotheism

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1. The worship of nature - the attribution of a soul to plants, inanimate objects, and natural phenomena. - the belief in a supernatural power that organizes and animates the material universe. 2. The worship of multiple gods 3. The worship of one god

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Savagery - barbarism - civilization

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1. Hunter & Gatherer band level 2. those live off agriculture; small villages 3. settled groups of people; cities; farming is not only activity

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Ethnocentrism

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Evaluation of other cultures according to preconceptions originating in the standards and customs of one's own culture. - your culture is superior than others

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Pluralism

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form of society, multiple cultures are recognized

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Cultural relativism

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The principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture - suspend judgement - created by Franz Boas

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Incommensurability

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a cultural feature that are not understood when two or more cultures interact - creates tension eg. religious practices, language

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The Great Chain of Being

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- Human Inequality - Analogy of a chain - Serfs are at the bottom and Top links are the king ; pope - God's will

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Bishop Ussher

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- biblical chronology - used Genesis to calculate that man was created in 4004 BC

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Catastrophism

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- catastrophic things have created the layers we see in the earth (floods, earthquakes) - explains extinction through supernatural powers - challenged by geology

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Charles Lyell

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- wrote the Principles of Geology - the layers/strata in the Earth mean that the Earth is old - uniformitarianism: layers are formed slowly, natural - fought against religion's explanation of the earth's layers (supernatural forces and natural disasters)

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Franz Boas

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- believed in multi lineal evolution - created 4 fields of anthropology - cultural complexity: all societies have basic human institutions with varying complexity

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Multilineal Evolution

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- a process consisting of a number of forward paths of different styles and lengths. They posited that while no specific evolutionary changes are experienced by all cultures universally, human societies do generally evolve or progress

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A. R. Radcliffe-Brown

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- created structural functionalism - focused on institutions (marriage, family) - top down approach: how do institutions affect individuals

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Structural Functionalism

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sociological theory that attempts to explain why society functions the way it does by focusing on the relationships between the various social institutions that make up society (e.g., government, law, education, religion,etc).

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Bronislaw Malinowski

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- created functionalism - bottom up focus; focus on the people (interview; questions how people as individuals affect societies)

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Functionalism

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the theory that all aspects of a society serve a function and are necessary for the survival of that society.

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pastoralism

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branch of agriculture concerned with the raising of livestock. It is animal husbandry: the care, tending and use of animals such as camels, goats, cattle, yaks, llamas, and sheep.

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Hunter-Gatherers (Foragers)

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<100 people - live to carrying capacity - Seasonal Round: exploiting the environment seasonally - Migrate to different areas - some inequality: ability, sex, age - use social leveling systems: !King insulting the meat

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Insulting the Meat

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- social leveling technique - used by the !Kung - when a hunter brings in meat; they try to humble themselves saying the meat is bad - they do this to make sure everyone is of equal importance

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Annette Weiner & Trobrianders

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A group of individuals that use yams as symbol of wealth and for religious/political reasons - They are a tribe that uses yams to gain leadership - Leadership is not inherited but achieved with prestige - They had multiple wives to get more work done

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Yams

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- A symbol of wealth & political/social status - the accumulation of yams signifies wealth

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Ferdinand de Saussure

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- concerned with the structure of languages - specifically saying that language is universal - unilineal thinker - deep structure that provides universal language

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Phonemes

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the smallest class of sounds in a language - roughly analogous to English alphabet; but vowels may stand for more than one sound - all human languages use a limited number of sounds or phonemes

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Free (Unbound) Morphemes

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- roughly analogous to words and can stand alone and carry meaning in a language eg. cat, dog, run

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Bound Morphemes

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- class of sounds that must be attached to a free morpheme - they modify free unbounded morpheme - English example: suffix, prefix cat+s=cats jump+ing=jumping

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Allophones

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- two or more different sounds that may be substituted for each other and change meaning eg. butter=budder - "t" and "d" are allophones BUT "tip" and "dip" are not the same meanings, in this case t & d are phonemes

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Syntax

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refers to the word order for phrase construction in a language - how subjects, objects and verbs are placed in relation to each other

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SVO/SOV

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- subject object verb - understanding language in an analytical sense

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Kinesics

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- body language - some gestures are universal but when it is appropriate (cultural rules) - habitual, rote behavior ex: olfactory bubble - space between people when they converse

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Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

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- structure of a language determines or greatly influences the modes of thought and behavior characteristic of the culture in which it is spoken - language is like a pair of colored glasses - predisposes people to view & interpret the world in a certain way - language influences reality

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Minimal Pairs

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- words with a difference in one sound to determine the phonemes of a language

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Prestige Dialects

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dialect: a varying form of a language - prestige dialects distinguishes class/wealth eg. refined queen english compared to an english cockney accent

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Code Switching

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the ability to change from one dialect to another - when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation

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Darmok

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- Star trek reference - Their language consists of metaphors & myths - Darmok was a warrior that - two can't communicate

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Laura Bohannon ; Hamlet

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wrote Shakespeare in the Bush - studied the Tiv in West Africa to record their stories - brought Hamlet to read - when she explained that Hamlet's uncle married Hamlet's mother the Tiv people understood that it was right of the uncle to do that (compared to immoral Euro culture) - the fact that Hamlet's mom should have mourned longer was not understood by Tiv people because they asked who would tend the farm - overall this essay describes how different cultures can interpret a story to their understanding - while it is okay in Euro countries to believe in ghosts; the Tiv believed that the witch summoned the ghost

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Dorrine Kratz

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- Wrote Circumcision, Pluralism & Dilemmas of Cultural Relativism -- This essay focused on the cultures that use female circumcision (removal of the clitoris) on young girls which is practiced in Africa - Three different levels of this circumcision - sparked controversy because Western cultures look down on upon the mutilation of women - African cultures and their women defend this practice because it is a rite of passage for young girls - This essay emphasizes the growing idea that Western cultures judge and condemn other cultures based on what they observe as wrong; it makes the reader look into how immigrants should be perceived when they want to practice their culture in other states

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Horace Miner & Body Ritual Among Nacirema

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- This essay focuses on how the "Nacirema" need to be clean - It talks about their bathrooms in they have "potions" in a cabinet -- medicine, makeup -- people must perform the ritual of washing their hands - If you have a lot of bathrooms you are considered wealthy - Talks about how people must brush their teeth in order to have social relationships -- bad breath - Men Shaving, going to the dentist, women going to barber shop to get hair done - Talks about how you have to pay to go to the hospital; doctors are medicine men

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Napoleon Chagnon & Yanamamo

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- Wrote the essay and documentary "Doing Fieldwork among the Yanamamo" - Chagnon went there to document the genealogy of the Yanamamo tribes - Brought medicine and tools to gain their trust - Yanamamo located in the Central America in Venezuela - They use slash and burn ag and move their tribe when the soil is not fertile - they talk about their myths and legends to Chagnon - they are very aggressive and an argument can result in to a violent fight - children are trained to fight each other and dodge arrows

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Slash and Burn (Swidden Agriculture)

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- the act of burn a section of the forest so leaves and wood would provide nutrients for soil - people will farm there until the soil is depleted and move to another section of the land

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Horticulturalists

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- Yanamamo & Trobianders - incipient agriculture: not relying on staple diets may hunt and gather; oldest form of agriculture

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Marcel Mauss & Techniques of the Body

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Wrote Techniques of the Body - he was originally studying the habits of the English and the French during the war - he then begins to study the habits of different societies eg. the way girls walk in America was different to how French girls walked eg. running - introduces term habitus - habits are formed when children observe their parents and other adults - the difference in how men and women throw a punch (men with thumb outside) (women thumb inside) - Children squat while adults do not

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Habitus

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the individual's personality structure -- the composite of an individual's lifestyle, values, dispositions, and expectations associated with particular social groups that are acquired through the activities and experiences of everyday life

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Subsistence

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- the action or fact of maintaining or supporting oneself at a minimum level. - H;G - Horticulture - Intensive agriculture - pastoralism - industrialism

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Pastoralists

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branch of agriculture concerned with the raising of livestock. It is animal husbandry: the care, tending and use of animals such as camels, goats, cattle, yaks, llamas, and sheep. - Masai people in E. Africa are an example of pastoralists (yak herders)

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Intensive Agriculture

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- production beyond kinship unit/beyond household - staple crops - stratification, socio economic gap - large urban centers, specialization in goods - chiefdom ; states eg. Ancient Egypt ; Aztecs

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Industrialism

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- intensive agriculture + manufacturing of products - intense inequality - accumulation of goods signifies social status

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Egalitarian

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- equality - closest is hunter ; gatherer societies

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Stratified Society

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- societies that have identified class systems - each class signifies the level of wealth

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Adam Smith

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- Father of economics - wrote A Wealth of Nations - All humans have unlimited wants but make decisions based on limited resources - competition as natural outcome - H;G who live off the land are considered brutish and have short lives

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Thomas Hobbes

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- believed in the ideal environment

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Homo Economicus

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Humans are organisms that have unlimited wants but cannot achieve them with scarce resources

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Marshall Sahlins

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- wrote that H;G worked less than 20 hours a week to exist

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The Original Affluent Society

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- a book about how hunters ; gatherers were groups of people that measured their wealth in the amount of leisure time they had - this compares to people who worked in the industrial society that have to work 80+ hours to survive

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