Anthropology 201 Chapter 1 – Flashcards

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Anthropologists want to learn about as many different human ways of life that they can.
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The people they come to know are members of their own society or live on a different continent, in cities or rural areas.
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Anthropology can be defined as
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The study of human nature, human society, and the human past. (Greenwood and Stini 1977). It is a scholarly discipline that aims to describe in the broadest sense what it means to human.
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What is distinctive about the way anthropologist study human life?
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AS we shall see, anthropology is holistic, comparative, field based, and evolutionary.
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Holism
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A characteristic of the anthropological perspective that describes, at the highest and most inclusive level, how anthropology tries to integrate all that is known about human beings and their activities, with the result that the whole is understood to be greater than the sum of its parts.
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Comparison
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A characteristic of the anthropological perspective that requires anthropologists to consider similarities and differences in as wide range of human societies as possible before generalizing about human nature, human society, or the human past.
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anthropology is a field-based discipline.
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That is, for almost all anthropologists, the actual practice of anthropology- its data collection- takes place away from the office and direct contact with the people, the sites, or the animals that are of interest.
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anthropologists are in
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direct contact with there data.
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evolution
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A characteristic of the anthropological perspective that requires anthropologists to place their observations about human nature , human society, or the human past in a temporal framework that takes into consideration change over time.
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evolution is at the
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core of the anthropological perspective.
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anthropologists examine
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the biological evolution of the human speies, which documents change over time in the physical features and life processes of human beings and their ancestors.
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anthropologists have long been interested in
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cultural evolution, which concerns change over time in beliefs, behaviors, and material objects tha shape human development and social life.
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biological evolution is not the same as
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cultural evolution.
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culture which we define here as patterns
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Sets of learned behavior and ideas that human beings acquire as members of society. Human beings use culture to adapt to and to transform the world in which they are in.
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biocultural organisms
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Organisms (in this case, human beings) whose defining features are codetermined by biological and cultural factors.
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material culture
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Objects created or shaped by human beings and given meaning by cultural perspective.
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human beings are more
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dependent than any other species on learning for survival because we have no instincts that automatically protect us and help us find food and shelter.
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Daniel Miller
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" the best way to understand, convey, and appreciate our humanity is through attention to our fundamental materiality" and this means taking material culture seriously.
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What it is not
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exotic, primitive, or the savage, terms that anthropologists reject.
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North American Anthropology has be divided into four subfields:
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biological Anthropology, cultural Anthropology, linguistic Anthropology, and archaeology.
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races
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Social groups that allegedly reflect biological differences.
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racism
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The systematic oppression of one or more socially defined "race" that justified in terms of the supposed inherent biological superiority of the rulers and the supposed inherent biological inferiority of those they rule.
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Frans Boas
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who in the early 1900's founded the first department of anthropology in the united states, at Columbia University.
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Stated, students were trained in both human biology and human culture to provide them with the tools to fight racial stereotyping.
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After World War II, this position gained increasing strength in North American anthropology, under the forceful leadership of Sherwood Washburn.
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biological anthropology (or physical anthropology)
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The specialty of anthropology that looks at human beings as biological organisms and tries to discover what characteristics make them different from other organisms and what characteristics they share.
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primatology
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The study of nonhuman primates, the closest living relatives of human beings.
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paleoanthropology
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The search for fossilized remains of humanity's earliest ancestors.
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cultural anthropology also called( sociocutural anthropology, social anthropology, or ethnology.)
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The specialty of anthropology that shows how variation in the beliefs and behaviors of members of different human groups is shaped by sets of learned behaviors and ideas that human beings as members of society-that is, by culture.
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sex
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Observable physical characteristics that distinguish two kinds of humans, females and males, needed for biological reproduction.
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gender
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The cultural construction of beliefs and behaviors considered appropriate for each sex.
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cultural anthropologist
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talk to many people, observe their actions, and participate fully as possible in a group's way of life.
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anthropologists rejects labels like
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civilized and primitive.
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fieldwork
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An extended period of close involvement with the people in whose language or way of life anthropologists are interested, during which anthropologists ordinarily collect most of their data
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informants
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People in a particular culture who work with anthropologists and provide them with insights about their way of life. Also called respondents, teachers, or friends.
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ethnography
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An anthropologist's written or filmed description of a particular culture.
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ethnology
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The comparative study of two or more cultures.
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language
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The system or arbitrary vocal symbols used to encode one's experience of the world and of others.
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linguistic anthropology
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The specialty of anthropology concerned with the study of human languages.
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archaeology
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A cultural anthropology of the human past involving the analysis of material remains left behind by earlier societies.
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applied anthropology
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The subfield of anthropology that uses information gathered from the other anthropology specialties to solve practical cross-cultural problems.
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people who share information about their culture and language with anthropologists
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informants (respondents, collaborators, teachers, or "the people I work with."
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fieldworkers gain insight into another culture by participating with members in social activities and by observing those activities as outsiders.
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research method known as " participant observation" is central to cultural anthropology
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write ethnographies
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called ethnographers
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who compare ethnographic information
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called ethnologists
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sociolinguistics
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study the way language differences correlate with differences in gender, race, class, or ethnic identity.
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pidgins
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when speakers of unrelated languages are forced to communicate with one another, producing languages called
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anthropology of practice
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anthropologists who work in a non-university setting.
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medical anthropology
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The specialty of anthropology that concerns itself with human health-the factors that contribute to disease or illness and the ways that human populations deal with disease or illness.
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medical anthropology is one of the most
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rapidly growing branches. It has developed into in an important anthropological sepecialty that has found new ways to link biological and cultural anthropology.
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critical medical anthropology
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which links questions of human health and illness in local settings to social, economic, and political processes operating on a national or global scale.
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Anthropology involves
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learning about the kinds of living organisms we human beings are, the various ways we live our lives, and how we make a sense of our experiences.
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anthropology is a
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field-based discipline
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anthropology is considered to have five major subfields
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biological anthropology, archaeology, cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and applied anthropology
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contemporary anthropologists
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are interested in human biology include biological anthropologists, primatologists, and paleoanthropologists.
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medical anthropology concerns
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concerns itself with human health and illness, suffering, and well-being.
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