ANT 2000 CH 1

Anthropology
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Terms in this set (27)
Anthropology
The study of human nature, human society, and the human past.
Applied Anthropology
Specialists who use information gathered from the other anthropological specialties to solve practical cross-cultural problems.
Archaeology
A cultural anthropology of the human past involving the analysis of material remains left behind by earlier societies.
Biocultural Organisms
Organisms (in this case, human beings) whose defining features are codetermined by biological and cultural factors.
Biological Anthropology (or physical anthropology)
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 charateristics they share.
Comparison
A characteristic of the anthropological perspective that requires anthropologists to consider similarities and differences in as wide a range of human societies as possible before generalizing about human nature, human society, or the human past.
Cultural Anthropology
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 acquire as members of society -that is, by culture.
Culture
Sets of learned behavior and ideas that human beings acquire as member of society. Human beings use culture to adapt to and transform the world in which they live.
Cyborg Anthropology
A form of anthropological analysis based on the notion of animal-machine hybrids, or cyborgs, that offers a new model for challenging rigid social, political, or economic boundaries that have been used to separate people by gender, sexuality, class, and race, boundaries proclaimed by their defenders as "natural."
Ethnography
An anthropologist's written or filmed description of a particular culture.
EthnologyThe comparative study of two or more cultures.EvolutionThe process of change over time.FieldworkAn 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.GenderThe cultural construction of beliefs and behaviors considered appropriate for each sex.GlobalizationReshaping of local conditions by powerful global forces on an ever-intensifying scale.HolismA 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.InformantsPeople in a particular culture who work with anthropologists and provide them with insights about their way of life. Also called respondents, teachers, or friends.LanguageThe system of arbitrary local symbols used to encode one's experience of the world and of others.Linguistic AnthropologyThe specialty of anthropoly concern with the study of human languages.Material CultureObjects created or shaped by human beings and given meaning by cultural practices.Medical AnthropologyThe 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.PaleoanthropologyThe search for fossilized remains of humanity's earliest ancestors.PrimatologyThe study of living nonhuman primates the closest living relatives of human beings.RacesSocial groupings that allegedly reflect biological differences.RacismThe systematic oppression of one or more socially defined "races" by another socially defined "race" that is justified in terms of the supposed inherent biological superiority of the rulers and the supposed inherent biological inferiority of those they rule.Science StudiesResearch that explores the interconnections among sociocultural, political, economic, and historic conditions that make scientific research both possible and successful.SexObservable physical characteristics that distinguish two kinds of humans, females and meales, needed for biological reproduction.