Anthropology Exam 1 PDF

Exam 1 Friday, February 7, 2025 1:05 PM Anthropology - Study of humans over time Holism - a method of studying societies by examining them as a whole, taking into account all of their cultural aspects ○ EX: not judging someone by thinking their weird or odd from out pov Encult...

Exam 1 Friday, February 7, 2025 1:05 PM Anthropology - Study of humans over time Holism - a method of studying societies by examining them as a whole, taking into account all of their cultural aspects ○ EX: not judging someone by thinking their weird or odd from out pov Enculturation - the process through which an individual learns about their own culture through exposure and influence from various external sources and forces ○ EX: a child learning table manners by observing their parents at dinner § The pledge of allegiance Four Fields of Anthropology - Cultural ○ Traditions and customs passed through learning; forms and guides the beliefs/behaviors of the people exposed to them § EX: examining the meaning behind traditions and rituals of a specific society □ Religion, language, learning, family rituals, housing structures - Archaeological ○ Reconstructs, describes, and interprets human behavior and cultural patterns through material remains § EX: studying artifacts, burial sites, human fossils - Biological ○ Focuses on human biological diversity through time and as it exists in the world today § EX: Tracing lineage, looking at disease, diet, evolution, adaptation - Linguistic ○ studies the nature of human languages in the context of those cultures that developed them § EX: studies language variation, dialects, code-switching, language endangerment  § EX: Tracing lineage, looking at disease, diet, evolution, adaptation - Linguistic ○ studies the nature of human languages in the context of those cultures that developed them § EX: studies language variation, dialects, code-switching, language endangerment Applied Anthropology - Using anthropological knowledge to solve real world problems ○ EX: ethnography and using it to view other cultures from their perspective and not your own § Some anthropologists might live with a remote tribe in order to better understand them ○ EX: environmental, health, Medical anthropology, culture resource management, museum anthropology Body Ritual Among the Nacirema (Miner) - The Nacirema do painful body rituals to avoid aging and decay - Have a highly developed market economy, rich natural habitat, and most of the fruits of their labors and a lot of the day are spent in ritual activity - They focus rituals on the human body, appearance and health is a dominant concern of the people - The fundamental belief underlying the whole system is that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease. - Listeners, medicine men, holy mouth men Qualitative / Quantitative - Qualitative: detailed, non-numerical data through methods like participant observation and in-depth interviews to understand the subjective meanings and experiences within a culture - Quantitative: numerical data gathered through surveys, censuses, or experiments to identify patterns and trends across a larger population, allowing for statistical analysis and generalization Ethnology / Ethnography - Ethnology: based on cross cultural comparison and examines, compares, analyzes, and interprets the results of ethnography ○ Comparative studies of multiple cultures - Ethnography: based on fieldwork and provides an account of a particular community, society, or culture ○ EX: a researcher living within a remote indigenous village for an extended period, actively participating in their daily life and observing their customs, beliefs, and social interactions to understand their culture from their own perspective  - Ethnography: based on fieldwork and provides an account of a particular community, society, or culture ○ EX: a researcher living within a remote indigenous village for an extended period, actively participating in their daily life and observing their customs, beliefs, and social interactions to understand their culture from their own perspective Participant Observation - A technique of anthropological research - Researcher actively immerses themselves in the daily lives of those they're studying Bronislaw Malinowski - Argonauts of the Western Pacific - Wrote about ethnography, field work, and social theory - Approach: 1) Cut yourself off from your own kind of people 2) immerse yourself in the social world you’re studying 3) find patterns and structures of social life 4) fill in details of everyday life 5) collect a a set of telling examples this is how to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, and to realize his vision of his world Rapport - a harmonious relationship between a researcher and the people they are studying Emic / Etic - Emic: an insider, or local, point of view - Etic: an outsider, more analytical point of view Genealogical Method - a research technique that studies family history to understand kinship, marriage, and social systems ○ EX: a researcher visits a community and interviews the members about family lineage, marriage patterns, and kinship relationships Key Cultural Consultants - individuals who tell the anthropologist things that other members of the society do not want to share - EX: a village elder who shares detailed information about local traditions Life History - a research method where researchers collect detailed personal narratives from  - individuals who tell the anthropologist things that other members of the society do not want to share - EX: a village elder who shares detailed information about local traditions Life History - a research method where researchers collect detailed personal narratives from individuals to understand their lived experiences within a cultural context - EX: an in-depth interview with a village elder Forensic Anthropology - the study of human remains to identify victims, determine how they died, and reconstruct circumstances around death ○ EX: identifying the victims of 9/11 Longitudinal Research - research method where researchers repeatedly study the same group of individuals or community over a prolonged period of time ○ EX: The British Cohort Study- A study that has been collecting data on 17,000 people since they were born in 1970 Problem-Oriented Research - research approach where focus is on a specific issue or problem within a culture, a particular question is investigated, and then tailors data to answer that specific question ○ EX: examining how healthcare practices are changing in a rural community due to migration Multi-Sited Ethnography - studying a particular human activity that takes place in several locations ○ EX: studying a wedding where the ceremony and reception happens in two different places Team Research - Group of researchers work together the entire process in order to gain a better understanding of a culture/phenomenon by combining different perspectives and skills within the team Ethics - the moral principles that guide how anthropologists conduct research and interact with the communities they study. - avoiding harm, respecting cultures, and obtaining informed consent. Informed Consent - getting permission from research participants before conducting research - participants must understand the research topic, who is supporting the research,  interact with the communities they study. - avoiding harm, respecting cultures, and obtaining informed consent. Informed Consent - getting permission from research participants before conducting research - participants must understand the research topic, who is supporting the research, and how the research will be used. Naïve Realism - Failure to understand social class and assumption that others see the world the same way you do Nice Girls Don’t Talk to Rastas (Gmelch) - Girl interacted with the Rastas, a group shunned/less than in the culture in Barbados, and she was shunned and rejected Definition of Culture - Shared set of beliefs, tradition, etc by a group of people Distinctive Features of Culture - Symbolic - Shapes knowledge - All-encompassing - Learned - Shared - Integrative - Adaptive/maladaptive - Changing - Inclusive/exclusive Ethnocentrism - The belief that one's ethnic group is correct and anyone else is beneath, wrong, etc. Cultural Relativism - Viewpoint that culture should not be judged based on beliefs of another- not about morality Diffusion - Blending of different cultural materials Acculturation - Sharing and blending of cultures when having continuous firsthand contact with each other  - Blending of different cultural materials Acculturation - Sharing and blending of cultures when having continuous firsthand contact with each other Independent Invention - One person sets about producing a different result - Ex stuffed crust pizza Globalization - Making everything the same/standard International / National Culture - National culture: shared values, beliefs, behaviors, and customs of a country's population - International culture: major world religions, languages, dress, music Subcultures - Smaller cultures withing culture- Greek life, within the auburn culture Symbol - Arbitrary connection- no REAL meaning - Ex language Cultural Dimensions (Universality, Generality, Particularity) - Universality: shared by everyone; the taboo against incest - Generality: commonly shared but not universal; major world languages, religions, types of marriage - Particularly: very specific to cultures; Aubie Shakespeare in the Bush (Bohannan) - West africa - Tiv - Demonstrates naïve realism - Read the story of hamlet and things meant to have a certain connotation was opposite to the tiv because of cultural differences Christmas in the Kalahari (Lee) - Kalahari - South africa - He brought them an ox with the american thinking that people should be grateful for gifts but they didn’t express grratitude and said it was not enough to keep him humble Christmas in the Kalahari (Lee) - Kalahari - South africa - He brought them an ox with the american thinking that people should be grateful for gifts but they didn’t express grratitude and said it was not enough to keep him humble Primate Call Systems - Primates using sounds to communicate, different sounds mean different things - Form of language - Alarm calls: Vervet monkeys have different alarm calls for different predators, such as leopards, eagles, and snakes. - Food calls: Experiments have shown that primates make calls related to specific foods. - Social calls: Many non-human primates make low-amplitude grunts, coos, or trills to initiate social interactions. Non-Human Primate Language - ASL and symbols - EX: finger-bracelet for "ring" Distinctive Features of Language: - Productivity - Conventionality - Displacement - Cultural transmission Cultural transmission - pass on/ acquire new language through learning Productivity - ability to make words/sounds that will be recognized ○ EX: slang Displacement - able to refer to abstract concepts and things in future and past tense; can talk about things that aren’t actually there Conventionality - not universal, normal, or natural; you are familiar with meaning associated with the word even though there's no reason for the association FOXP2 - a transcription factor that controls the activity of other genes involved in the Conventionality - not universal, normal, or natural; you are familiar with meaning associated with the word even though there's no reason for the association FOXP2 - a transcription factor that controls the activity of other genes involved in the development of speech and language - located on chromosome 7 Nonverbal Communication - Gestures, body language, facial expressions Focal Vocabulary - Group of words important to a specific group of people - EX: Auburn= eagle, tiger, orange, blue Semantics - Meaning behind words Syntax - Grammar and punctuation Phoneme / Phonology - Phonology: study of speech sounds and considers what sounds are present and meaningful - Phonemes: sound contrasts that make a difference Minimal Pairs - words that differ by only one sound, but have different meanings - Bat vs cat Morpheme / Morphology - Morphology: studies how sounds combine to form words and focuses on morphemes - Morphemes: words and their meaningful parts Lexicon - Vocabulary within a language Noam Chomsky and Universal Grammar - Deep Structure / Surface Structure - Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Noam Chomsky and Universal Grammar - Deep Structure / Surface Structure - Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis - Style Shifts - Sociolinguistics - Symbolic Capital - African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and Stigmatization - Talking Black in America - Human Biological Diversity - Ethnic Group - Ethnicity - Race - Racism - Prejudice - Stereotypes - Discrimination - Thomas Theorem - Race and Ethnicity as Social Constructions - Genocide - Mass murder of a large group of people Ethnocide - Mass murder of a specific ethnic group Cultural Colonialism - Assimilation / Acculturation (and metaphors for each) - Assimilation: Ethnocide - Mass murder of a specific ethnic group Cultural Colonialism - Assimilation / Acculturation (and metaphors for each) - Assimilation: - Acculturation: Minority / Majority Groups - Minority: group of people not in the majority; not holding as much power or influence - Majority: the group of people with the most power and influence Social Stratification - Hypodescent - Burakumin in Japan - Discrimination against a specific group because of their background and lineage- not based on looks Race in Brazil - Race is fluid and can change by the day; looks based for the most part but not completely Benedict Anderson - Nation-States as Imagined Communities - Characteristics of a Nation-State - Plural Society - Multiculturalism - Race: The Power of an Illusion - Creationism - Theory that explains the origin of the universe as made by a divine creator (God) Catastrophism - Theory to explain fossils; some catastrophe or natural disaster is the reason for extinct species Evolutionism - Uniformitarianism - Darwin / Wallace and Natural Selection - Evolutionism - Uniformitarianism - Darwin / Wallace and Natural Selection - Lamarckianism vs. Darwinism - Lamarckianism - Darwinism Mendelian Genetics - Population Genetics - Gene - Allele - Recessive / Dominant Genes - Recessive: - Dominant: Heterozygous / Homozygous - Heterozygous: - Homozygous Genotype / Phenotype - Genotype: - Phenotype: Independent Assortment - Gene Pool - Mechanisms of Genetic Evolution: Natural Selection (directional, sexual, and stabilizing (balanced polymorphism) ○ Mutation ○ Random Genetic Drift ○ Gene Flow ○ Melanin - Haplogroup - Skin Color and Environment - Melanin - Haplogroup - Skin Color and Environment - Rickets and Vitamin D - Connected to skin color and balanced polymorphism Phenotypical Adaptation - Allen's, Bergmann’s, and Thomson’s Rule - Sickle-Cell Anemia and Malaria - Blood Type and Disease (like smallpox) - examples and relationships