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Anthropology Ch.12

Terms in this set (27)

Cultural Evolution
Changes over time in learned beliefs and behaviors that shape human development and social life.
Social Organization
The patterning of human interdependence in a given society through the actions and decisions of its members.
Economic Anthropology
The part of the discipline of anthropology that debates issues of human nature that relate directly to the decisions of daily life and making a living.
Institutions
Complex, variable, and enduring forms of cultural practices that organize social life.
Power
Transformative capacity; the ability to transform a given situation.
Political Anthropology
The study of social power in human society.
Free Agency
The freedom of self-contained individuals to pursue their own interests above everything else and to challenge one another for dominance.
Ideology
A worldview that justifies the social arrangements under which people live.
Domination
Coercive rule.
Hegemony
The persuasion of subordinates to accept the ideology of the dominant group by mutual accommodations that nevertheless preserve the rulers' privileged position.
Biopower
Forms of power preoccupied with bodies. Both the bodies of citizens and the social body of the state itself.
Governmentality
The art of governing appropriately to promote the welfare of populations within a state.
Neoclassical Economic Theory
A formal attempt to explain the workings of capitalist enterprise, with particular attention to distribution.
Capitalism
An economic system dominated by the supply-demand-price mechanism called the "market" ; an entire way of life that grew in response to and in service of that market.
Status
A particular social position in a group.
Gift Exchanges
Noncapitalist forms of economic exchanges typical of the capitalist market in which goods are exchanged for cash and exchange for cash and exchange partners need have nothing further to do with one another.
Commodity Exchanges
Impersonal economic exchanges typical of the capitalist market in which goods are exchanged for cash and exchange partners need have nothing further to do with one another.
Modes of Exchange
Patterns according to which distribution takes place: reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange.
Reciprocity
The exchange of goods and services of equal value. Anthropologists distinguish three forms of reciprocity: generalized, in which neither the time nor the value of the return is specified; balanced, in which a return of equal value is expected within a specified time limit; and negative, in which parties to the exchange hope to get something for nothing.
Redistribution
A mode of exchange that requires some form of centralized social organization to receive economic contributions from all members of the group and to redistribute them in such a way as to provide for every group member.
Market Exchange
The exchange of goods (trade) calculated in terms of a multipurpose medium of exchange and standard of value (money) and carried out by means of a supply-demand-price mechanism.
Labor
The activity linking human social groups to the material world around them; from the point of view of Karl Marx, labor is therefore always social labor.
Mode of Production
A specific, historically occurring set of social relations through which labor is deployed to wrest energy from nature by means of tools, skills, organization, and knowledge.
Means of Production
The tools, skills, organization, and knowledge used to extract energy from nature.
Relations of Production
The social relations linking the people who use a given means of production within a particular mode of production.
Classes
Ranked groups within a hierarchically stratified society whose membership is defined primarily in terms of wealth, occupation, or other economic criteria.
Consumption
The using up of material goods necessary for human survival.
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