Anthropology flashcards, diagrams and study guides

The totality of learned social customs, knowledge, material objects, and influences human behavior.

Theodor Adorno - coined the term standardized goods and services demanded by consumers can permeate into international borders

A large number of people who live in the same territory, are independent of people outside their area, and participate in a common culture.

The Nuer. systematically documents the group's social structure—political, economic, and kinship, capturing the intricate details of community life. But later anthropologists have criticized his failure to consider the historical context and larger social world. Later anthropologists have questioned how he could have omitted such important details and ignored his status as a British subject when it had such potential for undermining his research success. At the time of his research, many nuer resisted British.

Mobilized her fieldwork findings to engage in crucial scholarly and public debates at home in the United States. At a time when many in the United States argued that gender roles were biologically determined, their fieldwork testified to the fact that U.S. cultural norms were not found cross-culturally but were culturally specific. unique blending of fieldwork and dynamic writing provided her with the authority and opportunity to engage a broad public audience and made her a powerful figure in the roiling cultural debates of her generation.

Feminism and Reflexivity. retraced Malinowski's footsteps to conduct a new study of the Trobriand Islands sixty years later. Quickly noticed aspects of Trobriand culture that had not surfaced in Malinowski's writings. In particular, she took careful note of the substantial role women played in the island economy. Whereas Malinowski had focused attention on the elaborate male-dominated system of economic exchange among islands, found that women had equally important economic roles and equally valuable accumulations of wealth. In the course of her fieldwork, came to believe that Malinowski's conclusions were not necessarily wrong but were incomplete. Now, people realize they need reflexivity in fieldwork.

c. when humans first appeared on earth

study of humans from a biological perspective

study of nonhuman primates in their natural environments for the purpose of gaining insights into the human evolutionary process

The comparative study of humans

study of human origins, evolution of human form , diet, and behavior

The inevitable change of plants and animals

Textbook: The study of material remains of human behavior. Class Notes: The study of the relationship between people and things.

Textbook: Any portable object intentionally made by human beings. Class Notes: Anything made, used, or modified by people.

Textbook: Elements from the environment that were collected by people for their use, but that were not themselves tools or manufactured objects. Class Notes: Plant, wood, and food remains at an archeological site.

Applied anthropology

Human evolution and contemporary human variation.

old pottery, stone tools, ruined houses, contemporary garbage heaps.

It's Explanatory (Why? When? How?), Falsifiable, Non-dogmatic (free inquiry), Iterative, Replicable

A logically self-consistent model or framework for describing behavior of a certain natural phenomenon supported by experimental evidence; a systematic and formalized expression of all previous observations made; it's predictive, logical, testable, and has not yet been falsified

It is often historical; it relies on natural experiments already done or in progress, compares observations between experiments; it's reconstructing the past (Think of the Dog Eats Book example)

the study of the human species and its immediate ancestors

encompassing past, present, and future; biology, society, language, and culture

traditions and customs transmitted through learning

the social science that studies the origins and social relationships of human beings

the attitudes and behavior that are characteristic of a particular social group or organization

a social group within a national culture that has distinctive patterns of behavior and beliefs

To understand past human behavior

3000BC

- The antiquities market is saturated - Scientific evidence is lost forever

tarsiers, monkeys, apes, humans

lemurs and lorises

new world monkeys

Humans learn culture throughout their lives

Institutions

Enculturation

study of human nature, human society, and the human past. Tries to explain in the broadest possible sense what it means to be human.

A characteristic of the anthropological perspective that describes how anthropology tries to integrate all that is known about human beings.

A characteristic of the anthropological perspective that requires all anthropologists to consider similarities and differences in as wide a range of human societies as possible before generalizing about human nature, society, and past.

A system of knowledge, beliefs, patterns of behavior, artifacts, and institutions that are created, learned, and shared by a group of people.

The process of learning culture.

Ideas or rules about how people should behave in particular situations or toward certain other people.

System of knowledge, beliefs, patterns of behavior, artifacts, and institutions that are created and shared by a group of people

Process of learning culture

Ideas or rules about how people should behave in particular situations or toward certain people

principal through which people trace their descent from previous generations

decent through one line, including paternal and maternal decent

form of decent in which individuals trace most important kinship relationships through their fathers

Ethnography - Rich description and analysis of culture that includes ant experience of being there Participant observation - Combines participation and observation in various ways to optimize one understanding of culture being studied

Missionaries - study theory and research of ant before ANT - involved in missions SIL translations

derived from the Greek words 'anthropos' for 'human' and 'logos' for 'study'- Anthropology is the study of people-their origins, their development, and contemporary variations, wherever and whenever they have been found. (understanding of biological and cultural origins and evolutionary development of species)

Physical Anthropology- humans as biological organisms Archaeology-attempts to reconstruct cultures of the past Cultural Anthropology-examines similarities and differences among contemporary cultures of the world Anthropological Linguistics-study of language in historical, structural, and social contexts

The notion that any part of a culture (such as an idea, a thing, or a behavior pattern) must be viewed in its proper cultural context rather that from the viewpoint of the observer's culture. This is a cognitive tool that helps us understand why people think and act the way they do.

study of humankind, primates, and where they came from

-learned behaviors from person to person -examine and describe culture

-material culture -artifacts that reconstruct lives of people in past

The study of the full scope of human diversity and the application of that knowledge to help people of different backgrounds better understand one another. The study of humankind in all times and places.

The strong human tendency to believe that one's own culture or way of life is normal, natural and superior to the beliefs and practices of others.

The primary research strategy for cultural anthropologists.