Midterm Review PDF

Midterm Review Cultural Anthropology The study of the ways that people organize themselves socially and assign meanings to their social activities and relationships. It is the study of human ways of life in the broadest comparative perspective. Franz Boas Considered the “father” of America...

Midterm Review Cultural Anthropology The study of the ways that people organize themselves socially and assign meanings to their social activities and relationships. It is the study of human ways of life in the broadest comparative perspective. Franz Boas Considered the “father” of American anthropology Critical of the application of Darwin’s ideas about evolution on people Mentored Zora Neale Hurston Sees the study of groups, not individuals, as the primary concern of anthropologists Emphasizes how the environment/external factors influence people Came up with the following theories/methods: ○ Intensive fieldwork ○ Historical Diffusion ○ Relativism ○ Race does not determine people's’ intelligence, abilities, or quality of culture–does not predispose people to any negative traits Social Darwinism The idea that societal advancement is driven by principles of “survival of the fittest” Used to justify eugenist pseudoscience and genocide Drawn on by earlier anthropologist to justify categorizations of people based on superiority/inferiority Herbert Spencer a proponent of this idea “Great Chain of Being” A European worldview from 17th/18th centuries that promoted the idea that everything (people, animals, nature, God) are arranged on a hierarchical scale Used as the basis for future thought around the hierarchization of people in sociocultural evolutionsim American anthropologists Saw the study of cultures as the process of reading into the symbolic meaning behind people's actions. Does not assume that universal social domains can be applied to all cultures Need to discover aspects of a culture empirically (through participant observation/interviews) British anthropologists Draw on the idea of utilitarianism See society as a totality and it is the anthropologist’s job to find the laws of society that can be used to analyze any culture Utilitarianism The idea that everyone is a rational, self-interested actor pursuing universal wants. The idea that all cultures organize only around making sure that peoples’ basic needs are fulfilled. Clifford Geertz An American anthropologist Sees people as “an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun” ○ people imbue everything they do with certain significance/meanings and it is the anthropologist’s job to find out what they are Came up with idea of “thick description” Thick description Idea developed by Geertz “ a way of writing that includes not only describing and observation (usually of human beh aviour) but also the context in which that behaviour occurs.” ○ goes beyond surface appearances to include the context, details, emotions, and w ebs of social relationships A more comprehensive/full way to describe a culture Fieldwork When anthropologists go out and live for extended periods of time among the people they study Includes the use of participation observation, interviews, and other qualitative methods to try to understand a culture Ethnography what anthropologists write up after completing their fieldwork, includes an analysis of what they witnessed through fieldwork ideas 19th century British and American social theorists assumed when conducting their research on cultures/societies Ranked peoples of world on evolutionary, progressive, unilinear, and universal scale of cultures that ended with themselves at the top Assumed all peoples are on the same path to civilization, and that there is only one scale and orientation–to be more like the West Saw “primitive” societies as being behind the West historically Karl Marx’s influence on anthropology’s theories reading symbolic practice into political economy, and power into culture Trying to understand how power relations in cultures are made to appear normal ○ Marx focused specifically on class differences and the tensions that come from that Crystal Palace/Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations A display/museum that was politically significant Used as an attempt by the British to put the Industrial Revolution on display and demonstrate how much further advanced they were culturally and technologically compared to other cultures around the world Was set up in a way that was reflective of British sociocultural evolutionism’s ideas about being able to categorize cultures as inferior/superior Happened during the “age of equipoise” “Age of equipoise” A period of time where there was considered to be a degree of temporary social balance/tranquility in British society Lewis Henry Morgan leading evolutionist in US who analyzed kinship and social organization Ranked societies from savagery to civilized, largely around ideas of how kinship systems were set up in a given culture Monogamy and nuclear families seen as being at the top of civilized social organization Saw cultures as developing along a progressive timeline Historical diffusion process of cultures exchanging ideas while cultural traits might be similar between cultures, they have different and unique histories based on how groups of people interacted with each other over time Relativism ethics, morals, values, norms, beliefs, and behaviors must be understood within context of the culture from which they arise All cultures have their own beliefs and there is no universal or absolute standard to judge cultural norms Functionalist anthropology Sees society as made up of many social institutions that all fulfill specific purposes to keep a society functional Sees society as working similarly to a human body: each body part contributes to make sure the body functions as a whole Zora Neale Hurston Author and anthropologist mentored by Franz Boas Treated largely as a “fact collector” rather than a theorist during her time Accused of plagiarism Publishers refused to publish her book since she didn’t want to change the dialect in which Kossola speaks–she wanted to keep the account authentic Faced with arbitrary cuts in her pay, having to do dreck work at times Her work contradicted social Darwinism by demonstrating and celebrating Black folk genius in her book Her work provided a counternarrative, breaking silences in the historical record and giving the people she wrote about a voice Kossola Zora Neale Hurston interviewed him at the request of Boas He was one of the last of the 110 survivors of the Clotilda, which was one of the last slave ships to travel from the United States to Africa. Africatown Survivors of Clotilda worked together to create a community in Africatown that embodied the ethos and traditions of their homeland People in Africatown today are facing attempts by others to buy up their land Colonialism the process of European settlement, violent dispossession and political domination over the rest of the world C olonialism is the practice of setting up colonies and settlements in other count ries Is not over ○ Indigenous peoples still live in settler-colonial states, and there are ongoing struggles to reclaim control of traditional territories. Imperialism a doctrine, political strategy, practice, state policy, or advocacy that consists in extending power by territorial acquisition or by extending political and economic control outward over other areas. Imperialism is using policy of a country to influence other countries economically, socially Bronislaw Malinowski A functionalist anthropologist Did research in the Trobriand Islands and wrote about the Kula trading system Did not write about the influence of colonialism on the people who he was writing about Developed participant observation as a fieldwork method Focused on the imponderabilia of actual life Saw the final goal of anthropologist’s research as “to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world” He was critical of popular thinking around “native” groups that they lacked sophisticated social organization/structure Participant Observation A research methodology where the researcher is immersed in the day-to-day ac tivities of the participants The imponderabilia of actual life observing and recording everyday life in its full actuality, people’s everyday routines How Harrison proposes decolonizing anthropology converting anthropological discourse into an anti-imperialist weapon Harrison’s critique of commentaries on crime in Oceanview where she did her fieldwork Commentaries on crime rarely placed the problem within the context of larger social forces which produced and exacerbated it (for example, the larger effects of imperialism and U.S. interventionism in Jamaica’s politics and economy) Postcolonialism The study of colonialism and its effects Critiques effects of colonialism and seeks to deconstruct its premises/ideologies/belief systems Orientalism Idea developed by Edward Said that was influential for postcolonial scholars and anthropologists Criticizes the portrayal of the Middle East in art and media Claims that the underlying beliefs embedded in these representations (the West/Occident as being culturally and socially superior to the “Orient”) is used to justify imperialism and violence against the Middle East Settler colonialism a system of oppression based on genocide and colonialism, that aims to displ ace a population of a nation (oftentimes indigenous people) and replace it with a new settler population. Doctrine of Manifest Destiny elevated racism and nativism to divine right In U.S. history: the supposed inevitability of the continued territorial expansion of the boundari es of the United States westward to the Pacific and beyond “Culture of poverty” thesis argued the cultures of some ethnic groups were pathological, because their family structures (for example, single mother household) did not appear to be the same as those of the beneficiaries of the American Dream Had underlying racial and classist assumptions: belief that people's values in poverty cause them to stay in poverty differences between race and ethnicity (from video) Race: based on observable physical traits that a particular society thinks are significant Ethnicity: based on shared cultural heritage, including language, religion, foodways and other traditions influences anthropologists had on questions of race publically in the 1900s When anthropological ideas about race became popular, they were used to legitimate racism: Underwrote Jim Crow statutes and validated enactment of anti-immigrant legislation Other anthropologists assisted in demands for desegregation, UN resolutions concerning racial equality, challenged assertions about racial heritability of IQ scores, and thwarted claims that race was an essential biological category How research work was divided between sociologists and anthropologists during the 1900s when it came to discussions of race most US anthropologists were concerned with “primitive” communities on margins of civilized world, whereas US sociologists dealt with social problems, including race relations, in industrializing cities of capitalist world What Baker means in the reading when he says that the “not-quite-white ethnics of census in 1930 and 1940 became white Southern and Eastern Europeans’ ethnicity, place of birth, natality of parents no longer recorded in 1950 census, expanding the category of who was considered “white” in the U.S. Ideas of who was considered white changed over time processes that marked the development of identity politics Arrivals of new migrants coincided with related reorganization of US class structure and appearance of new groups composed of previously disconnected individuals who were beginning to sense that they had something in common claims about skull size, intelligence, and common ancestry Boas challenged in his article “Race and Progress” Around the 1800s: claim of a link between skull size and intelligence was becoming commonplace. Early 19th century, there was also increasing doubt that all humans shared common ancestry. Critiqued IQ tests for their ability to test intelligence–rather, they were filled with Eurocentric/white cultural assumptions What Boas claims racial heredity implies implies there must be unity of descent, must have existed at one time a small numbers of ancestors of definite bodily form, from whom the present population has descended Boas argument regarding claims about biological degeneracy from interracial mixing He has never observed any degeneracy due to this cause Biological degeneracy instead found in small instances of intense inbreeding What Boas argues regarding whether anatomical type determines behavior no justification in claiming that anatomical type determines behavior Boas argument regarding the connection between race and culture No reason to believe that one race is by nature so much more intelligent, endowed with great will power, or emotionally more stable than another, that the difference would materially influence its culture genetic signatures The molecular sequences of ancient peoples whom scientists perceive as original continental populations DNA profile More than genetic-ancestry tests that target “Native American” as a race or panethnic category, DNA profile is helping to reconfigure the concept of tribe (and who counts as Native American genetically) To find the DNA profile, need to have basic grasp of several types of complex knowledges: ○ molecular knowledges and their social histories ○ practices of tribal citizenship Ethnographic refusal researchers and research participants together decide not to make particular information available for use within the academy STS (science and technology studies) explains how social, political, and cultural values affect science-and- technology research/innovation and how techno-sciences affect politics, cultures, and social institutions justifications provided by anthropologists in the 19th-20th centuries for inspecting Native American bones and skulls taken from battlefields or gravesites was for the good of knowledge, and thus supposedly for the good of all Indians were seen as doomed to vanish, first through westward expansion, now through genetic admixture types of knowledge geneticists use to determine someone’s DNA profile compared with the types of knowledge that tribal folks use geneticists, who understand technical limitations of DNA-testing, do not have deep historical/practical understanding of tribal enrollment nor the broader political frame circumscribing their work Tribal folks know these politics and histories well, but do not know about the molecular intricacies of the test Tribes are increasingly combining DNA tests with longer-standing citizenship rules What Tallbear means by: “Native American DNA could not have emerged as an object of scientific research until individuals and groups emerged as ‘Native American’ in the course of colonial history?” Native American DNA as an idea did not really exist since Native Americans are made up of panethnic backgrounds Wasn’t until introduction of colonists to the mix that Native Americans were then to be defined as one cohesive category in opposition to Europeans This cohesive category is now used to study “Native American DNA” What is at stake when some peoples’ ideas and knowledge about Native American DNA are made to matter more than others Indigenous political authorities and identities, as well as land and resource claims Classificatory system classifies a whole group of relatives under a single term All men one generation above you on father’s side called by same term, and all men of generation on mother’s side called by another term Descriptive system uses separate words to describe each distinct relationship (Euro-American system primarily descriptive) Stereotypical oppositions between nature and culture Assumption that women are, by virtue of their sexual biology, allied with animals and with nature While biological science is a modern discipline, our commonplace notions about biology are embedded in older mythological tradition, confusing much of what biological science actually tells us How courtship in college environment changed over time College long considered primary place for finding mate, but way this happens has changed since early 1960s Then women’s dorms had curfews Men expected to call women for dates at least a week in advance Women could not go away for weekend without parental permission School was acting in in place of parents by taking responsibility for their daughters they never would have dreamed that a few decades later, would be co-ed dorms or even co-ed floors and bathrooms How Apache courtship differed from other types of courtship People often stress feeling comfortable and being able to talk to the other person as important in relationship Keith Basso: found in fieldwork in 1960s that Apache young people would not speak to their girlfriend or boyfriend for weeks or months, even though already holding hands and going places together How expectations around compatibility differ between the U.S. and Turkish youth in the village In US: people expect compatibility before considering a committed relationship Different from Turkish youth in village: assumed that compatibility and love would develop after marriage How behaviors of couples vary between France and the U.S. In France, couples show with words rather than bodies and gestures that they are a couple ○ couple’s relationship considered relationship of equality ○ for French they can accept that a couple may spend time fighting but that doesn’t prevent them from loving each other American couples show they are a couple visibly, standing close to each other, holding hands, and other physical contact ○ relationship of interdependency or alternating dependency ○ Ideal American couple always agrees How U.S./Western marriages follow rites of passage When you marry, separate yourself from your friends to some extent couple becomes new social unit established by wedding ceremony Liminal (transitional) period: called honeymoon–trip away from friends and family allowing you to adjust to each other and new state of being married Upon return, take up residence in new home, and reintegrated back into society as a new entity–a married couple What Delaney argues regarding universality of marriage Marriage, as most Americans understand it, is not universal, and family does not mean the same thing everywhere How people in the U.S. and Turkish villagers ascribe different meanings to marriage Turkish villagers: insist marriage is not a union but a contractual relationship for economic and sexual benefits Means spouses are distinct individuals who assume and value their separateness One of the unexpected benefits of arranged marriage for woman is that she is not identified with her husband: leaves her freer than American contemporaries who often merge into identity of their husbands What Delaney proposes would make marriage more of an equal partnership in the U.S. If marriage to become equal partnership, then wider societal changes are necessary, including variable work times, job sharing, flexible career arcs, and more widespread and accessible child care and health care What “nurturance” means, according to Delaney Idea of “nurturance” means more than provision of stuff for biological survival Nurturance a certain kind of relationship entailing affection and love, cooperation, enduring, noncontingent upon performance, governed by feeling and morality instead of law and contract differences Lewis Henry Morgan noted between Iroquois and Anglo-American kinship systems + assumptions he brought to his analysis Noticed Iroquois had a very different kinship from that of Anglo-Americans While English has 2 different words for father and father’s brother (father and uncle), Iroquois had one word While English has two different words for mother and mother’s sister (mother and aunt), Iroquois had one word his work based on underlying assumption that kinship terms reflect the biological facts of reproduction David Schneider’s assertion that blood symbolizes kinship relations, but does not create them People may reference blood when talking about their kinship relations, but the actual relations they have on an everyday basis might be very different, outside of connections by blood Why kinship has never been stable, according to Delaney Kinship is not and never has been stable; not something given “in the nature of things” but constructed in particular cultures in ways around notions of person and cosmos