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status

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People who interact in society do so not as unique individuals but as incumbents of publicly recognized social positions.

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society

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Human interdependence means that we cannot survive as lone individuals but need to live with others.

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role

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A bundle of rights and obligations appropriate for occupants of the status in question.

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parent

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Kinship status, might include the right to discipline one's children and the obligation to feed them and send them to school.

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ascribed status

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A status over which you have little control: You are born into it or grow into it.

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achieved status

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A status that you may not assume until or unless you meet certain criteria through your own (or others') efforts.

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social structure

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Key enduring social relationships that provide a foundation for regularized, patterned social interaction.

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institutions

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The clusters of social statuses and groups that share a common focus.

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social organization

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The interlocking role relationships that are activated when statuses have incumbents and groups have members, all of whom are going about the daily business of living.

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functionalism

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A school of social scientific thought that was at its most influential in the early twentieth century and has since been much criticized, but many anthropologists and sociologists continue to find its terminology useful for describing basic social relations.

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Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

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A French sociologist considered a founder of both modern sociology and modern anthropology.

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Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

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He was interested in what held a society together, contrasting societies held together by mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity.

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mechanical solidarity

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Characterized by small-scale, kinship-based societies in which all the tasks necessary for survival were carried out on a family level and families stayed together because they shared the same language and customs.

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organic solidarity

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Characterized by large-scale societies such as nation-states, in which the tasks necessary for survival became specialties of different subgroups in a complex division of labor.

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band, tribe, chiefdom, state

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The fourfold classification of societies on the basis of their form of political organization.

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foragers, herders, extensive agriculturalists, intensive agriculturalists

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The fourfold classification of societies on the basis of their form of economic organization.

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egalitarian society

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Society in which all members (or component groups) enjoy roughly the same degree of wealth, power, and prestige.

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stratified society

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Society in which some members (or component groups) have greater (and often permanent) access to wealth, power, and prestige.

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bands, tribes

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Egalitarian societies.

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chiefdom, states

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Stratified societies.

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rank society

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Society in which some members rank higher than others in social honor but do not have disproportionate access to wealth or power.

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sodality

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Additional form of social organization that crosscuts kinship groups and binds their members together at a more inclusive level. Can take many forms including age-set systems from eastern Africa and secret societies from western Africa.

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age set

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Made up of a group of young men born within a specific time span such as five years; thus a new set is formed regularly every five years. Typically progress through a sequence of statuses, or age grades, as their members grow older.

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age grades

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Progress through a sequence of statuses as members of and age-set grow older. Example: junior, senior, elder grade. Promotion from one to the next typically marked by rituals.

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secret society (western Africa)

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Form of social organization that crosscuts kinship groupings. Some admit only men as members, some admit only women, and some accept both. Only adults may belong, and children must undergo initiation rituals to achieve status and gain admittance.

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caste society

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Stratified society in which membership in a particular ranked subgroup is ascribed at birth and in which social mobility is not allowed.

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social mobility

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Movement by individuals out of the subgroup in which they were born.

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Brahmins

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Highest on the purity scale; vegetarian priestly caste.

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dalit (out-castes, formerly \"untouchables\")

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The lowest caste on the purity scale, who eat meat and whose occupations (leather-worker, street sweeper) regularly bring them into contact with polluting substances such as dead animals and excrement.

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Ksatriya

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The king and his warrior caste, central to the system. Kings could determine the relative rank of local castes, for example, and from the king's perspective, the function of these other castes, including the Brahmins, was to protect him from pollution

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social class

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The term anthropologists use to describe ranked subgroups in a stratified society whose members are differentiated from one another primarily in economic terms, either on the basis of income level or on the kind of property owned by members of different classes.

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Karl Marx (1818-1883)

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Proposed that social class ranked subgroups on the basis of income level or on the kind of property owned by members of different classes.

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Karl Marx (1818-1883)

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Argued that in an industrial capitalist society that class divisions had formed between the bourgeoisie, or capitalist class, which owned the means of production, and the proletariat, or working class, which owned only their labor power, which they sold to the bourgeoisie factory owners in exchange for cash wages.

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clientage (patron-client relationships)

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Institutionalized cross-hierarchy connections that allow individuals belonging to differently ranked groups to create a more personalized relationship. Normally involve a member of a high-ranking group (the patron) and a member of a low ranking group (the client).

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compa-drazgo

answer

Latin American institution; a coparenthood. Created when a lower-ranking married couple (the clients) asks a higher-ranking individual (the patron) to serve as their child's compadre or comadre (godfather or godmother) at the child's baptism.

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fictive kin

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Institutions that remake the relationship of unrelated individuals on the model of formal kinship.

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state

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Stratified societies with large populations and a complex division of labor.

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bureaucracy

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A hierarchically organized set of formal statuses, each of which is associated with a highly specific role and all of which are designed to work together to ensure the smooth functioning of complex organizations such as state governments or business corporations.

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authority

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The ability to exert specific forms of influence and control by virtue of the fact that they legitimately occupy a formal office.

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state

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An independent political entity that controls a geographical territory with clear boundaries and that defends itself from external threats with an army and from internal disorder with police.

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Thomas Hobbes

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Seventeenth century philosopher, said that without the state life was supposed to be \"nasty, brutish, and short.\"

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political anthropologists

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These scholars share with political philosophers and political scientists an interest in politics, and have paid particular attention to how members of different societies go about making public decisions that affect society as a whole.

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politics

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The ways in which power relations (particularly unequal power relations) affect human social affairs.

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coercive power

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The use of physical force.

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power

answer

A generalized capacity to transform.

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persuasive power

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Range from the charisma of a religious prophet, to the formally proscribed but ubiquitous ability of weaker members of society to manipulate social rules to promote their own well-being, to the outright refusal of compliance shown by factory workers who go on strike.

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individualism

answer

Based on a view of human nature that sees individuals as the primordial \"natural\" units in the human world, believed to be endowed by nature with the desire to pursue their own personal self-interest above all else.

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agency

answer

An individual's ability to reflect systematically on taken-for-granted cultural practices, to imagine alternatives, and to take independent action to pursue goals of their own choosing.

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Elman Service, Morton Fried

answer

In the mid-twentieth century offered new interpretations of cultural evolution that incorporated critiques of nineteenth-century schemes. Their work has influenced most subsequent anthropological discussions of comparative political systems.

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egalitarian

answer

All (adult) members of the society has roughly equal access to valued resources, both material and social.

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band

answer

Forms of political organization: The egalitarian political form associated with foraging.

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band

answer

Forms of political organization: Typically number no more than fifty individuals coresident at the same time.

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band

answer

Forms of political organization: Tasks are assigned on basis of gender and age, but division is not rigid.

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band

answer

Forms of political organization: Kinship systems usually bilateral, and create alliances with one another through marriage.

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band

answer

Forms of political organization: Relations of economic exchange are organized on the basis of reciprocity.

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tribe

answer

Forms of political organization: Somewhat larger egalitarian social groups supported by the domestication of plants and animals, which marked a major shift in the subsistence strategy.

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tribe

answer

Forms of political organization: Appearance of unilineal kinship groups that became the joint owners of property in the form of farmland or herds.

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tribe

answer

Forms of political organization: New cultural forms such as age grades may create social links that cross-cut kinship groups.

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tribe

answer

Forms of political organization: Kin groups may compete with one another for resources, but they are not ranked hierarchically; indeed, within each kin group, the access of adults to communal resources remains broadly equal.

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chiefdom

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Forms of political organization: Make use of the same forms of subsistence and kinship as tribes, but new social arrangements show the emergence of distinctions among lineages in terms of status or ranking.

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chiefdom

answer

Forms of political organization: In particular, one lineage is elevated above the rest, and its leader (the chief) becomes a key political figure whose higher status often derives from his role in redistributive economic exchanges.

question

chiefdom

answer

Forms of political organization: The leader's higher rank (and that of the lineage to which he belongs) gives him an increased opportunity to favor hi kin and his supporters with material or social benefits, but he has very limited coercive power.

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chiefdom

answer

Forms of political organization: Significant power remains in the hands of lineages, who continue to control their own communal wealth in lands or herds.

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state

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Forms of political organization: The social differentiation, ranking, and centralization that are incipient in chiefdoms are fully realized.

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state

answer

Forms of political organization: Organization (with its territory, army, police, tax collectors, and so forth) did not appear until well after the invention of intensive agriculture approximately 10,000 years ago.

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state

answer

Forms of political organization: Generated surpluses that could be used to support full-time occupational specialists such as potters, weavers, metalworkers, priest, and kings.

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social stratification

answer

A permanent, inherited inequality between the various component groups of which the society is composed.

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caste society

answer

Individual members of distinct stratified groups are not allowed to move out of the stratum in which they were born.

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class society

answer

Some individual social mobility up or down the class hierarchy may occur.

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slaves

answer

A social category whose access to valued resources is so restricted that members do not even control their own labor.

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sumptuary privileges

answer

High-ranking groups may be the only members of society entitled to wear certain fabrics or eat certain foods.

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material wealth

answer

example: land or herds

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prestige

answer

example: esteem or respect

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complex societies

answer

State societies that have an elaborate division of labor and hierarchical organization in stratified castes or classes.

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Meyer Fortes, E.E. Evans-Pritchard

answer

More than 70 years ago, said that centralized societies like chiefdoms or states have heads (chiefs, kings, or presidents), whereas uncentralized do not.

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acephalous

answer

\"without heads\"

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consensus

answer

A decision that all adult members of the society accepts.

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headman

answer

Individuals who may be the ones chosen by their fellows to deal with outsiders in ambiguous or threatening situations. Have little or no coercive power as seen bands or tribes, where they have no capacity to force others to do their will.

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big man

answer

Have an ability to use personal persuasive skills to arrange complex regional public events that involve kin and neighbors.

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formalization

answer

Means to specify, explicilty and publicly, the rights and responsibilities of the officeholder.

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sanctions

answer

Penalties, to be meted out if social rules are broken.

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law

answer

When a centralized government publicly sets forth both explicit formal definitions of right conduct and explicit penalties for failure to observe such standards and backs these definitions with its monopoly on coercive power.

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substantive law

answer

Aim to be universal in scope, applying to all members of a society who possess certain attributes; usually focus on compliance (or lack thereof) with specific obligations (rights and duties) that all such individuals are expected to honor.

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procedural law

answer

Describes how those accused of breaking the law are to be treated.

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civil law

answer

The breaking of which affects only one or a few individuals.

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criminal law

answer

Regulates attacks against society or the state.

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law codes

answer

Explicit rules covering many areas of social, economic, and political life are articulated, together with the penalties incurred for breaking them.

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adjudicate

answer

Based on the law code, they decide how a dispute will be settled.

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nation

answer

A synonym for ethnic group or tribe to identify a social group whose members saw themselves as a single people because of shared ancestry, culture, language, or history.

question

Benedict Anderson

answer

Conceived of the nation as an imagined community, whose members' knowledge of one another does not come from regular face-to-face interactions but instead is based on their shared experiences with national institutions, and the bonds created from reading the same newspapers and books.

question

Terence Ranger, Eric Hobsbawm

answer

The invention of tradition

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Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937)

answer

Emphasized a contrast between the role of authoritarian domination (or coercive power) and hegemony (or persuasive power) that many contemporary social scientists have found useful.

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Domination

answer

Can put a regime in power, but alone will not keep it in power.

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hegemony

answer

Control achieved by persuasive means.

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Michel Foucault

answer

French historian who identified a new form of state power that began to emerge in Europe after the Middle Ages and was fully developed by the nineteenth century called bipower.

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bipower

answer

Concerned with managing the behavior of populations of living bodies in ways intended to promote national policies.

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Machiavelli

answer

Mainly concerned with ways in which a ruler could maintain control of the state.

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governmentality (bipolitics)

answer

Example: statistics on population and production might indicate to bureaucrats that a famine was likely, and make calculations accordingly.

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hidden transcript

answer

Describes alternative (or counterhegemonic) understandings because they are frequently too dangerous to be openly proclaimed.

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relatedness

answer

People in all societies live in a world of ties and consider themselves to be connected to other people in a variety of different ways, and consider that there are some people to whom they are not connected at all.

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kinship

answer

The various systems of social organization that societies have constructed on principles derived from the universal human experiences of mating, birth, and nurturance.

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idiom

answer

A selective interpretation of the common human experience of mating, birth, and nurturance.

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new reproductive technologies

answer

Technologically mediated reproductive practices such as in vitro fertilization, surrogate parenthood, and sperm banks.

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marriage

answer

Culturally defined connections based on mating.

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affinal relationships

answer

Link a person to the kin of his or her spouse.

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affinity

answer

\"Personal attraction.\"

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descent

answer

Culturally defined relationships based on birth and nurturance.

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consanguineal kin

answer

All those people who are linked to one another by birth as blood relations, and may include individuals whose membership in the group was established not by birth but by means of culturally specific rituals of incorporation that resemble what Euro-Americans call adoption.

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sanguineus

answer

Latin: \"of blood.\"

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nurturance

answer

Feeding, clothing, sheltering, and otherwise attending to the physical and emotional well-being of an individual for an extended period.

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bilateral descent

answer

When people believe themselves to be just as related to their father's side of the family as to their mother's side.

question

bilateral descent group

answer

An unusual form that consists of a set of people who claim to be related to one another through descent from a common ancestor, some through their mother's side and some through their father's.

question

bilateral kindred

answer

A much more common form that consists of all the relatives, related through males or females, of one person or group of siblings. The kinship group that most Europeans and North Americans know. Forms around particular individuals and includes all the people linked to that individual through the kin of both sexes.

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Ego

answer

People form a group only because of their connection to the central person, in the terminology of kinship.

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unilineal descent

answer

Based on the principle that the most significant kin relationships must be traced through either the mother or the father but not both, found in more societies today than any other kind.

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patrilineal (agnatic) groups

answer

Those unilineal gorups that are based on links traced through a person's father (or male kin).

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matrilineal (uterine) groups

answer

Those unilineal gorups that are based on links traced through a person's mother (or female kin).

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unilineal descent groups

answer

Found all over the world, they are based on the principle that significant relationships are created via links through one parent rather than the other.

question

patrilineage

answer

Formed by father-child links. By far the most common form of lineage organization. Consists of all the people (male and female) who believe themselves to be related to one another because they are related to a common male ancestor by links through men.

question

matrilineage

answer

Formed by mother-child connections. Descent is traced through women. Certain features make it distinct: The prototypical kernel is the sister-brother pair, thought of as a group of brothers and sisters connected through links made by women.

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lineage

answer

Composed of all those people who believe they can specify the parent-child links that connect them to one another through a common ancestor. Typically, vary in size from 20 or 30 members to several hundred or more.

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clan

answer

When members of a descent group believe they are in some way connected but cannot specify the precise genealogical links. Usually, made up of lineages that the larger society's members believe to be related to one another through links that go back to mythical times.

question

matriarchy

answer

Society in which women rule.

question

pronatalist state

answer

Having children is encouraged, and the national health system supports access to reproductive technologies to all women, married or not, who wish to have children.

question

kinship terminologies

answer

Special terms to refer to and address people we recognize as kin.

question

generation

answer

Distinguish relatives according to which of these the relative belongs in. In English, the term cousin conventionally refers to someone in the same ____ as ego.

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gender

answer

Used to differentiate kin. In Spanish, primo refers to a male cousin and prima to a female cousin. In English, cousins are not distinguished on this basis, but uncle and aunt are.

question

affinity

answer

A distintion is made on the basis of connection through marriage. In matrilineal societies, Ego's mother's sister and father's sister are distinguished from each other on this basis. The mother's sister is a direct, lineal relative, and the father's sister is an affine.

question

collaterality

answer

A distinction is made between kin who are believed to be in a direct line and those who are \"off to one side,\" linked to Ego through a lineal relative. Can be seen in the distinction between mother and aunt or father and uncle.

question

bifurcation

answer

Distinguishes the mother's side of the family from the father's side.

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relative age

answer

Whether they are older or younger than Ego.

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Sex of linking relative

answer

Related to collaterality, distinguishes cross relatives (usually cousins) from parallel relatives (also usually cousins). Parallel relatives are linked through two brothers or two sisters.

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parallel cousins

answer

Ego's father's brother's children or Ego's mother's sister's children.

question

Cross cousins

answer

Ego's mother's brother's children or Ego's father;s sister's children.

Cultural Anthropology 2

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