Culture, Ethnography and Cultural Relativism

• Culture is a complex, integrated system of learned, shared, and symbolic beliefs, behaviors, and material objects that constantly adapts to changing environments.
• Ethnography is a qualitative research method where anthropologists immerse themselves in a culture to study its practices, beliefs, and social interactions.
• Ethnology is the comparative study of different cultures to analyze similarities, differences, and patterns in human societies.
• Holism is an anthropological approach that considers all aspects of human life—biological, cultural, historical, and linguistic—as interconnected.
• Cultural relativism dictates that cultures should be understood within their own context without judgment based on another culture's standards.
• Participant observation involves living within a community to observe and participate in daily life for an in-depth understanding.
• The emic approach studies culture from the perspective of insiders, while the etic approach analyzes culture from an outsider’s perspective.
• Kinship refers to the social connections between individuals.
• Marriage can take forms such as polygamy (one person with multiple spouses), polyandry (one woman with multiple husbands), polygyny (one man with multiple wives), or monogamy (one spouse at a time).
• The Yanomamö are an indigenous Amazonian group studied by anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, who documented their social structures, warfare, and kinship practices.
• A taboo is a culturally forbidden behavior or practice that is often associated with strong social or moral disapproval.
• Foraging is a subsistence strategy where people rely on hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants for survival.
• Pastoralism centers on the domestication and herding of animals for food, trade, and resources.
• Horticulture is small-scale, subsistence farming that relies on simple tools and shifting cultivation.
• Agriculture is large-scale, intensive farming using advanced tools, irrigation, and domesticated crops to produce surplus food.
• Wealth refers to material resources, power is the ability to influence others, and prestige is social status or honor within a society.
• Egalitarianism describes societies where resources and power are equally distributed, while social stratification refers to hierarchical systems where individuals have unequal access to wealth, power, and status.
• Sensory ethnography explores culture through sensory experiences such as sound, touch, and smell to understand how people engage with their environment.
• Biological anthropology studies human evolution, genetics, and biological diversity, including our relationship with primates.
• The scientific method is a systematic process of observation, hypothesis formation, experimentation, and analysis to understand natural and social phenomena.
• Evolution is the process by which species change over time due to genetic variation, natural selection, and environmental pressures.
• Genes are units of heredity, while alleles are variations of a gene.
• Dominant alleles express traits when present, while recessive alleles require two copies to be expressed.
• A mutation is a random change in DNA that can introduce new genetic variations into a population.
• Gene flow is the transfer of genetic material between populations through migration and interbreeding.
• Genetic drift is random changes in allele frequency due to chance events, including the founder effect (when a new population is established by a small group) and genetic bottleneck (when a population drastically reduces in size).
• Natural selection is the process where individuals with advantageous traits are more likely to survive and reproduce, passing those traits to future generations.
• Genotype is an organism's genetic makeup, while phenotype is its observable physical traits influenced by genetics and the environment.
• Taxonomy is the classification system used to organize organisms based on evolutionary relationships.
• Primates are mammals with characteristics like grasping hands, forward-facing eyes, and complex social behaviors.
• Theories for primate success include the arboreal hypothesis (adaptations for tree-living), visual predation hypothesis (enhanced vision for hunting insects), and angiosperm hypothesis (ability to exploit flowering plants).
• Strepsirrhines (e.g., lemurs) are primates with a strong sense of smell, while haplorrhines (e.g., monkeys and apes) rely more on vision and have larger brains.
• Monkeys have tails and are generally smaller, while apes (e.g., chimpanzees, gorillas) lack tails and have greater intelligence and complex social behaviors.
• The great apes are highly intelligent primates that include orangutans (solitary tree-dwellers), gorillas (largest primates with strong social bonds), chimpanzees (highly social and tool-using), and bonobos (known for peaceful, matriarchal societies).
• Bipedalism is walking on two legs, while obligate bipedalism means a species is fully adapted for upright walking.
• The foramen magnum is the opening at the base of the skull, whose position indicates whether an organism was bipedal.
• The valgus angle is the inward angle of the femur, which helps bipedal species maintain balance while walking.
• A fossil is the preserved remains or impression of ancient organisms that provide evidence of past life.
• Exaptation is when a trait that evolved for one purpose is later co-opted for a different function, such as feathers initially evolving for insulation but later aiding in flight.

Explore culture as an adaptive system of beliefs, behaviors, and objects. Understand ethnography as immersive cultural study. Learn cultural relativism, advocating understanding cultures in their contexts.