Anthro 1415

knowledge and belief are:

intertwined in complex ways -our "faith" in science and medicine -today's truths may be tomorrow's errors -examine more closely other's beliefs. they turn out to be more complex than we first thought

Land in non-industrial societies

less permanent bond between people and land -unmarked, unenforced boundaries -rights to land come through kinship and marriage

polygyny

a marriage system involving one man having multiple wives

polyandry

a marriage system involving one woman having multiple husbands, mostly a Tibetan practice

special purpose money

a particular object serves as a medium of exchange in a specific situation, no substitute for this object, found in more small-scale societies

Boas called for:

a respect of cultural difference and a restraint on judgement

Lassiter's definition of culture

a shared and negotiated system of meaning informed by knowledge that people learn and put into practice by interpreting experience and generating behavior

subculture

a smaller group within a culture that shares specialized knowledges, languages or identities

economy

a system of production, distribution, and consumption of resources

Berderau

a team of women, always reciprocated- close to relatives and neighbors

adoption as a response to cultural change

adopt the outsiders' culture, practices, and ideas as your own -popular among elites, the young, the ambitious

What does is mean by culture is learned?

all culture is transmitted socially rather than biologically inherited (through growing up in it)

Boas' anti-cultural evolutionary perspective

all cultures are equally valuable and interesting and complex

Bohannon

all societies prohibit sexuality within the nuclear family except between husband and wife

woman marriage

among the Nuer, women unable to bear children may take a "wife." Her children (she is impregnated by a secret bf) will recognize the "female husband" as father

Other ways the family spends money on Lia's therapies

amulets, cupping, coining, changing her name, visit a txiv neeb in Minnesota

Gift giving

an exchange of objects, creates a social obligation

Bronislaw Malinowski (Argonauts of the Western Pacific)

anthropologist must "grasp the native's point of view" -document the culture and its structure -document the imponderabilia of actual life -record the cultural knowledge of the natives from their point of view

What does is mean by culture is integrated?

anthropologists recognize the need to study the interrelationship of many aspects of human life

polygamy

any marriage system involving more than one partner of one gender

interpretation of material culture

any object which has been modified by humans (clothing, structures, weapons, art, etc.)

applied anthropology

applying anthropological knowledge and techniques to the solving of practical real-world problems

primate relations

as a species we share a common ancestry with other mammals and more specifically with other primates and with monkeys and other animals closely related to humans

Classical economic theory

assumes that our wants are infinite while our means are limited; assume that when confronted with choices and decisions, people tend to make the most rational one; one that maximizes profit (profit motive)

Consanguinal kin relations

based on shared blood (biological relatedness)

generally, cross-cultural interaction is thought of as:

beneficial and progress and economic development is thought of as only positive

Lia's epilepsy initially looks like ____ but also generalizes to ____

benign focal seizures, grand mal seizures

Conventional 4 fields of anthro

biological or physical anthropolgy, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, cultural anthropology

Sex is:

biological; most individuals are born with the biological traits of either a male or a female member of the species

example of knowledge and belief from The Spirit Catches You

biomedicine vs. Hmong beliefs in spirits and herbalism

For anthropologists, class status is determined by:

both economic and cultural capital

patrilineal descent

both males and females belong to their father's kin group but not their mother's (found among 44% of all cultures)

Land in free market societies

bought and sold; it is property -marked boundaries -acquired through money

some aspects of culture:

change rapidly and some aspects tend to be rather conservative (changing slowly through time or more rapidly under special circumstances) but cultures are always in motion

How women veil is a ____ issue

class; burqas for "good" women who can stay home, chadors for elite, educated women

percentage of Africans who identified themselves as Christian at beginning of colonial era vs. today

less than 5% vs. nearly 50%

economic anthropology

numerous motives (profit, wealth, prestige, comfort, social harmony)

artifacts

objects that reflect a culture's ideas and needs

Consanquine

of the same blood, descended from the same ancestor, same lineage

monogamy

one man married to one woman (most common but not most preferred form of marriage)

marked/unmarked categories

originated in feminism as an analysis of "the culture of the powerful" -categories mask the way power operates in a society, makes harder to challenge privilege

ethnocentrism may be hard to recognize because:

our assumptions about the world are often unstated and taken for granted

What is the primary method used by cultural anthropologists?

participant-observation

ideal cousin marriage in many Islamic societies

patrilineal parallel cousin marriages

bilateral descent is present in:

few (but heavily populated) societies

matrilineal descent

follows a female line, only daughters can pass on the family line to their offspring (15% of all cultures)

human evolution

fossils of long-ago ancestors of our species are studied to help us understand how, when and why we became the kind of biological animal we are today

Omaha naming system

found among patrilineal peoples including the Native American group of that name -patrilineally based kin naming system in which relatives are lumped together on the basis of descent and gender -siblings and parallel cousins of the same gender are given the same term of reference -father and father's brother also have same kin term -other people in ego's mother's patrilineage are lumped across generations -common in unilineal descent systems where it is important to distinguish between father's and mother's kin

Franz Boas

founder of american anthropology (career spanned the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century)

The spirit catches you and you fall down deals with the problem of:

fright

In all societies, what is the primary criterion for assigning social/cultural roles?

gender

Difference between gift exchange and barter or market exchange

gifting implies a social bond and the obligation to reciprocate, also about social status

In "The House We Live In," what happens to a community when African American families move in?

goes downhill, white people move out

In Dickson Mounds, Mississippian children:

had significantly shorter tibias and femurs

incest

having sexual relations with an individual who is culturally defined as related to you in a way which makes such sexual activity inappropriate

Early states are:

hierarchical, centralized, include state-sponsored religions, military and market exchange

tribes

horticulturalists and pastoralists live in these; lineages become more important than individual leaders; foraging may still be practiced

linguistic anthropologists study:

how we are different and how we are the same in our languages and our uses of language

Boas argued that:

human cultures were too complex and that all cultures are equal in value

Anthropology sits at the intersection of what?

humanities, natural sciences, social sciencies

fictive kin relations

identify an unrelated individual as a member of the kin group (ex: adoption, calling parents close friends "aunt" or "uncle")

When did Lia die?

in 2012 at age 30

Ex of land in societies

in Botswana in southern Africa, Ju hoansi San women habitually used specific tracts of berry-bearing trees. when a woman changed bands/kin groups, she immediately acquired a new gathering area

Anthropologists view systems and motivations:

in cross-cultural perspective

Alienation

in industrial societies, workers may be alienated from the items they make but in nonindustrial societies, people usually see their work from start to finish and feel a sense of accomplishment

structural racism

intersection of historical, cultural and institutional dynamics that routinely disadvantage people of color

Ego

person to whom all kinship relationships are referred

Lia's medication

phenobarbital, Tegretol, Dilantin

Agriculture encourages and is encouraged by:

population growth

general purpose money

portable medium of exchange, everyone accepts it, essential to market economy

In the film, "The House We Live In," how did suburbs like Levittown, PA become all white?

post WW2, federal housing programs create 30 year mortgages

Life expectancy of Pre-Mississippian vs. Mississippian people at Dickson

pre-mississipian: 26 years mississippian: 19 years

critics of neocolonialism contend that:

private, foreign business companies continue to exploit the resources of post-colonial peoples and that this economic control inherit to neocolonialism is akin to the classical, European colonialism practiced from the 16th to 20th centuries

patriarchy

social organization marked by supremacy of the father in the clan/lineage; broadly, when men control a disproportionate amount of power in a society

Ethnocentrism

the belief that one's own culture's way of doing something is the right, natural or universal way

cultural relativism

the belief that we must understand others' cultural practices on its own terms (take the "natives point of view")

postcolonial view of the contemporary world

the colonial period is over and we live in a new era but we are haunted by the old dynamics of culture and power

Culture provides:

the context-the shared system of meaning- that gives specific human actions meaning

gender

the cultural rights and tasks assigned to one sex or the other and the cultural system of understanding and institutionalizing similarities and differences in males and females

In modern industrial communities, family structures have been weakened by:

the dominance of the market economy and the provision of state organized social services

Market exchanges

the exchange of objects for money, does not create obligations

Boas and other anthropologists of his time were motivated by:

the fear that the cultures they studied would soon disappear as people lost their old ways (salvage ethnography)

kin types (etic)

the terms anthropologists use to describe kin relations, supposed to be neutral terms

neocolonial view of the contemporary world

the world continues to be characterized by the same dynamics of culture and power as in the colonial period

latent kinship

ties to kin outside the network that you usually keep in touch with- can be activated, in certain circumstances

bricolage (Claude Levi-Strauss)

to do it yourself, patch something up, tinker, to take bits and pieces from here and there and put them together into something that works

one way of reducing tension in situations of potential negative reciprocity

to engage in "silent trade" (no personal contact during exchanges)

indigenize

to transform things to fit the local culture

"sacrifice a cow"

to welcome Lia's soul

Barter

trading one object for another (still a type of market exchange, more common between communities than within one)

Intuit's value

Judge individuals by the warmth of their heart

What is the culture of medicine?

"Scientism" -it manifests in the "authority" of doctors and the expectation of "compliance"

Hmong/Nao Kao and Foua perspective

"a little medicine and a little neeb" -doctors can treat the body and blood; shamanic ritual is also needed to treat the soul -too much medicine can impair the neeb's effect -parents sacrifice a cow; cupping, scraping, amulets, name-change, txiv neeb

Boas calls the Intuit (eskimos):

"savages" (language of "civilization")

ethnology

"study of people" older name for field of anthropology

fa'afafine

"to be a woman" (Somoa)- another 3rd gender category -born a man but feel you are a woman, sexually attracted to males, accepted in Somoan society, now a transgender category too

Moka

'interest' -exercises a large number of social relationships -collection of many gift exchanges

culture vs. "Culture"

-"Culture" means classical music, ballet, theater, etc. -culture in anthro means how you dress, walk, talk, eat, think, etc.

doctors perspective- racism? classism? (the spirit catches you)

-"high velocity transcotical lead therapy" -upset about traditional treatments- cupping and scraping -"they don't have a word for pancreas. They don't have an idea for pancreas" -"Hmong with total body pain" -Lack of trust of doctors- ectopic pregnancy, breech birth -"they breed like flies" -Hmong patients only like Dr. Roger Fife (lesser physician, "he doesn't cut")

Franz Boas questioning the value of the cephalic index

-1909, starts measuring heads of immigrants at Ellis Island (total of 18,000 head measurements) -by 1911, finds that cephalic indices change significantly with first generation immigrants -conclusion: differences b/t different types of man are small as compared to the range of variation in each type

epidemiology of epilepsy

-2/3 of patients will become seizure free for 5 years or more -if seizures are not controlled in the first year, only 60% can enter remission. If uncontrolled after 4 years, only 10% can enter remission

Do Muslim women need saving? (reading)

-only if we forget about the complexity -the problem of "reduction" or "simplification" -the cultural framing of the war in Afghanistan (taliban-terrorism-women-burquas) avoids other questions of politics and history

Can we follow Malinowski when examining the Hmong medical beliefs?

-Anne Fadiman struggles with this issue -What is truth? -Anthropologists argue that no knowledge is beyond the realm of culture -one approach to the truth claims of non-western systems of knowledge

Civilization

-Difference (technological, political, etc.) marks society in a ranking of development -Savage -> Barbarian -> Civilized

Culture

-Difference is simply arbitrary -Difference is not judged

The Great American Skull Wars: Native Americans, race, and natural history museums

-Sand Creek massacre of the Cheyenne -Skeletons shipped to Army Medical museum

the era of the natural history museum

-Smithsonian Institution -Competing museums: -Peabody museum- Harvard and Yale -American museum of Natural History- next to Central Park and near Metropolitan museum of art -University museum of Archaeology and Paleontology -Chicago's Field museum -Museum of Anthropology at Univ. California -these museums seek to build their own collections of Indian skulls and skeletons

neocolonialism

-a policy whereby a major power uses economic and political means to perpetuate or extend its influence over underdeveloped nations/areas -term used by late 20th century critics of developed countries involvement in the developing world

ethical issues in research

-anthropologists are obligated to tell their informants/consultants/collaborators what they are studying and why -communities welfare must come first

Why is race a scientifically invalid biological category?

-biological characteristics affected by natural selection, sexual selection, or gene flow are distributed in geographic gradations -any 2 or more gradations are likely to be distributed discordantly

settler colonies

-colonial power sought to establish a new homeland for some of its members -a significant # of members of the colonizing society would move into the colony, displacing native people and using them for labor

patrilineage

-descent is traced through male lineage -inheritance moves from father to son -man's position as father and husband is the most important source of male authority

matrilineage

-descent is traced through the female line -children belong to the mother's descent group -inclusion of a husband in the household is less important -woman usually have higher status

consequences of progress and economic development for tribal peoples:

-diseases like diabetes, obesity, hypertension, circulatory problems, bacterial and viral diseases, diseases of poverty -hazards of dietary change include worsening teeth, malnutrition, etc. -ecocide due to new technology, increased consumption, lowered mortality, eradication of traditional controls- environmental degradation

Earnest Hooton

-dominates American physical anthropology -joined Harvard in 1913, taught till 1954 -famous for study of Pecos Pueblo -advocate of Nordic superiority and Jewish inferiority -From 1913-1950, trains almost every physical anthropologist in America

Why don't Lia's parents like the drugs?

-drugs shouldn't be given forever -child protective services

Baka women

-engage in dam fishing -gather wild fruits and nuts -practice beekeeping

medical anthropology

-explores the experience of illness -studies non-western medical systems- from literate traditions (like Chinese medicine) to folk herbalism to shamanism, witchcraft, and sorcery -reflects critically on the nature of biomedical practice

globalization

-generally refers to a greater interconnectedness of the world through new info, communication and travel technologies but beyond that, has many different meanings -sometimes used to talk about an exciting era, sometimes a frightening era

factors of differentiation in kinship systems

-generation -sex -affinity -collaterality -relative age

Kleinman's suggestion

-get rid of compliance -adopt a model of medication -understand the culture of medicine

Non-market economy

-gift giving may be primary form of exchange -exchange is personal -social status and public opinion drive the exchange of goods -equality is strongly emphasized -small scale, face-to-face, societies

Market economy

-goods exchanged for money -exchange is impersonal -financial gain is the prime motivator of the distribution of goods and services -hierarchy of wealthy individuals -large scale societies

middle class

-great American majority -earnest and insecure -have "status panic" -timid, conventional, friendly

Ch 11: The Perilous Idea of Race

-head size thought to indicate intelligence -cephalic index: ratio of maximum skull breadth to maximum skull length- becomes more popular measurement

Things to remember about race

-historically recent concept -racial categories vary by society -groups identified as a race at one point in time may not be at another (ex: Jews)

Culture is:

-necessary -integrated -conservative and always changing -learned -normative -shared -multiple -taken for granted -embodied and material -tied to power

findings in rural northwest China about epilepsy

-negative attitudes (more than 1/2 of patients surveyed don't want their children associated with persons with epilepsy) -treatments cost about 25% of monthly family income -explanations: anger, fright, possession, head injury, overwork, heredity, genomancy, poverty, etc. -tendency to consult traditional Chinese medicine healers

AAA official statement on race (1997)

-human pops are not clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups -concept of "race" has no validity as a biological category -because it homogenizes widely varying individuals into limited categories, it impedes research and understanding of true biological variations

American Anthropological Associations questions the definition of race in 1997

-human pops are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups -racial beliefs constitute myths -folk beliefs about human difference

Baka men

-hunt and trap using poisoned arrows and spears -gather honey from hives in trees -fish using plant-based, non-toxic chemicals

fieldwork experience

-insider/outsider status -dependence and reciprocity issues -negotiating your own cultural needs and discovering another culture's logic in the process

human ecology

-interaction of human groups with their environment -foodways (what they eat, where it comes from, what it means)

class

-like race and gender, it is a social category that we live with/live though everyday -it is an inescapable part of who we are

functions of descent groups

-marital -economic (sharing work and resources) -political (both within the group and in relation to other groups) -religious (a descent group may have its own rites and beliefs)

upper class

-millionaires, inherited wealth -those who don't have to work -refer to tuxes as "dinner jackets" -have frequent house guests, horses

sexuality as identity

-modern Western concept (gay, straight) -sexual choices or behaviors have not always been a determinant of one's identity -economic and cultural globalization are both good and bad for spreading the notion of sexuality as identity virtually everywhere

symbolism of money in Langkawi

-money as a means of exchange is "hot," "anti-social" -women transform money into a consumption good to reproduce the household and maintain its unity

low prole class

-non-skilled of a lower level than mid prole -uncertainty of employment

extractive colonies

-primary intent of the colonizing power was to extract resources (mineral wealth or agricultural products) from the colonized territory -these were relatively few members of the colonizing society present in the colony in these situations

us vs. them ("the other")

-reductionist thinking leads to imagine divisions between "us" and "them" -this is the basis of ethnocentrism, racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of hate -anthropologists represent cultural difference but also insist on our shared humanity

Ethical issues raised by Lila Abu-Lughoud about the study of culture:

-respect cultural difference -the misuse of culture (being reductionistic as opposed to holistic) -ethnocentrism vs. cultural relativism

high proletarian class

-skilled workers but manual labor -electricians, plumbers, etc. -probably not familiar with the term "proletarian" -conviction of independence -respect brands -nice people

bottom out of sight class

-street people -the most destitute in society -"out of sight" because they have no voice, influence

linguistic anthropology

-structures of human languages -relation between language and worldview -social and cultural uses of language

how does globalization relate to the idea of neocolonialism?

-the idea is that the world gets more interconnected -connections and forms of power become more diverse and sometimes harder to see but they're really playing out the same pattern of control and exploitation of poorer countries by richer ones that characterized the colonial era

disciplining a work force

-through attire -computer surveillance -peer pressure -individual expression (through appearance, "getting out")

middle prole class

-unskilled manual labor -waitresses, painters -some bitterness about work -work is supervised

Yehudi Cohen (1974)

-used adaptive strategy to describe a society's system of economic production -similar economic causes have similar sociocultural effects

What if a combination of geographically variable genes are used?

-we might be able to identify distinct sub-groups -it might consist of several African races, and one race for peoples of all other continents

upper middle class

-wealthy surgeons, lawyers, etc. -professionals who couldn't be described as middle class -more rooms than you need in your home -role-reversed: men cook dinner, women work out of the home

destitute class

-working and non-working poor -dependent on welfare

Women own __ of the world's natural resources and grow __ of the world's food

1%, 60-80%

Marcel Mauss (The Gift)

1. Giving- creates a social bond and gives prestige to the giver 2. Receiving- acknowledges the bond and accepts a debt 3. Reciprocating- renews social bond, indebts the recipient, gives honor to the new gift giver

Lessons learned by Count and his family in Too Many Bananas, Not Enough Pineapples, and No Watermelon at all

1. In a society where food is shared of gifted as part of social life, you may not buy it with money. 2. Never refuse a gift and never fail to return a gift. If you cannot use it, you can always give it away to someone else (no such thing as too much) 3. Where reciprocity is the rule and gifts are the idiom, you cannot demand a gift, just as you cannot refuse a request

6 kinship systems

1. Sudanese 2. Hawaiian 3. Eskimo 4. Iroquois 5. Omaha 6. Crow

some responses to cultural change

1. adoption 2. resistance 3. bricolage and indigenization

3 stages of ethnography

1. background study (at university, studying languages, history, etc.) 2. fieldwork (leaving university, taking field notes) 3. writing (return to university and write about findings, conclusions)

Why did Europeans colonize Africa?

1. demand for raw materials 2. need for markets 3. the 3 "C's": commerce, christianity, civilization

stages of participant-observation

1. making entree- key informants/consultants/subjects 2. culture shock- derives from one's own ethnocentrism, must work through the clash of meaning systems 3. establishing rapport- moves the ethnographer from outsider to insider 4. understanding the culture- learning to appreciate the "native's point of view"

ethnography

1. the study of a particular culture (includes participant-observation, interviewing, field notes, etc.) 2. the genre of writing that anthropologists use to present the "native's point of view"

Percentage of death in first year of life of Pre-Mississippian vs. Mississippians

13% to 22%

Pre-Mississippian vs. Mississippian differences in percentages of trauma from Dickson Mounds

16% to 33%

When did capitalism start?

19th century, most decisively in Great Britain then throughout the rest of western Europe and North America

Further life expectancy at 15 years of Pre-Mississippian vs. Mississippian

23 (to age 38) to 18 (to age 33)

Degenerative diseases in pre-mississippians vs. mississippians in Dickson Mounds

40% to 70%

In 1951, how many cultures practiced polygyny?

84% of 185 cultures

What percentage of chance of determining the race based on a human skull?

85%-90%

"personal kindred"

American kin pattern where only full siblings share the same set of kin

What does it mean by culture is shared?

Culture makes interpersonal communication, mutual understanding and coordinated action possible; one person cannot have culture in isolation

Colonial rule provided an environment in which:

Christianity, in many forms, spread in many parts of Africa

Fingerprints

Europeans and Africans vs. Jews and Indonesians vs. Aboriginees

the history of anthropology is largely the history of:

Europeans trying to make sense of the world

Problems with the black/white model

Excluding other groups: -hispanics often get ignored or written off as immigrants -Asians get the "model minority" stereotype Multiracial identities: -more and more people identifying themselves as multiracial

cultural (symbolic) capital (Pierre Bourdieu)

Includes knowledge, judgements and other socially valued characteristics that: 1. require economic capital or pre-existing social privilege to acquire 2. can be reconverted into economic capital

Who helps Lia go home after almost a year in foster care?

Jeanine Hilt

exogamy

marrying outside some culturally-defined group

endogamy

marrying within some culturally-defined group

Arthur Kleinman

Medical anthropologist at Harvard. A leading figure/founder of this subfield -he is a MD and anthropologist of China -has done extensive research on "the illness experience"- how patients (and their families) understand illness -famous for his "explanatory model" and 8 questions to understand cross-cultural experience of illness

According to Paul Fussel, how many classes are there?

Most simply two- rich and poor, ultimately there are nine

What does is mean by culture is necessary?

People need a shared system of meanings, values, symbols, and understandings to be able to predict and interpret one another's behavior

Where are cross cousin marriages preferred and parallel cousin marriages forbidden?

South India, Iroquois and other native Americans, Australian aborigines, Maori, etc.

What did Jared Diamond in "Race Without Color" say about a species skin color, eye color and hair?

They don't correspond to other biological differences; no concordance

Who has the most unequal distribution of wealth of all industrialized nations?

US

White Man's Burden

When not sheer exploitation, the benevolent aspect of colonialism can be found in this 1. obligation of whites to civilize others by getting them to adopt western culture 2. philanthropic duty to help others whether poor, want it 3. he was being ironic about imperialism and its ultimate failings and transitory nature

Fundamental question that interested Boas

Where does cultural difference come from? The environment? History and change?

cousin marriages

not only taboo, but sometimes the ideal marriage partner in certain societies

in China, suffering is:

a family experience, goes beyond the individual

The Big One (Spirit catches you) was caused by:

a fever

Montagnards

a history of flight to avoid assimilation (to Chinese civilization)

Concept of civilization insists on:

a judgement of cultural difference

Iroquois naming system

common in unilineal descent systems where it is important to distinguish between father's and mother's kin -same term of reference used for father and father's brother (same w mother and sister) -parallel cousins from both sides of the family are lumped together with siblings but distinguished by gender -all cross cousins are similarly lumped together and distinguished by gender

consent to corporate discipline reveals:

complex and contradictory attitudes

Agriculture leads to:

concentration of power, prestige and resources

what did christian missionaries think of potlatching?

considered it to be wasteful and antithetical to the protestant work ethic (US and Canada pressured into outlawing it)

Gender is:

cultural; assigning rights and tasks to one sex or the other and understanding and institutionalizing the similarities and differences between males and females (Bohannon)

What does it mean by culture is taken for granted?

culture is often invisible, taking the form of expectations, assumptions, beliefs, identities, and other types of ideas which exist in people's individual minds and the community's shared sense of itself and the world

most important point from Boas

culture vs. civilization

the term neocolonialism can combine a critique of:

current actual colonialism and modern capitalist businesses involvement in nations which were former colonies

Dickson area transition to agriculture also included:

degenerative pathologies and traumatic pathologies

White flight

depresses tax base, schools and services decline

Bilateral descent

descent can be traced through either or both parents

Unilineal descent

descent is traced through parents and ancestors of only one sex

a kin type is used to:

designate each individual relationship (ex: mother, father, mother's brother)

Boas' challenge to the concept of race

differences within one race exceed the similarities between peoples of different races

What does it mean by culture is multiple?

different categories of people (such as men and women, children and adults) have different experiences of their culture and may have expertise in different areas of cultural knowledge

Salvage Ethnography

documenting disappearing cultural practices

Malinowski

each part of culture has a function, usually to preserve social cohesion

historical particularism

each society is the outgrowth of its own unique past

parallel cousins

ego's father's brother's children and mother's sister's children

cross cousins

ego's father's sister's children and mother's brother's children

holism

emphasizing the whole over the parts, essential to grasping the meaning of a particular behavior/practice

Main reason to distinguish race from ethnicity

ethnicity is seen as something that can be overcome (discrimination can no longer be a problem)

What does we are all bound by "shackles of tradition" mean?

everyone has culture

example of knowledge and belief from our society

evolution vs. creationism

intersectionality

examining how cultural categories like race, class, sexuality and gender interact on multiple levels to manifest themselves as inequality in society

reciprocity

exchange between social equals, who normally are related by kinship, marriage or another close personal tie

Balanced reciprocity

exchanges between people who are more distantly related, the giver expects something in return (ex: market exchanges, you must pay for objects you buy)

Negative reciprocity

exchanges in which someone attempts to get something for as little as possible, even using dishonesty (ex: ingratiating yourself with your boss, taking advantage of someone's desparation to buy something cheap)

critics of neocolonialism argue that:

existing or past international economic arrangements created by former colonial powers were used to maintain control of their former colonies and dependencies after the colonial independence movements of the post WW2 period

fundamental institution responsible for rearing children and organizing consumption

nuclear family household

key distinction of economies

is an economy small, self-sufficient and isolated or is it integrated into the modern system of global commerce

Affinal

kin relations based on marriage

How is labor deployed in non-industrial societies?

labor is usually not bought but given as a social obligation and teamwork based production or mutual aid is part of a larger web of social relations

Hawaiin naming system

least descriptive system -emphasizes distinctions between generations (nuclear fam deemphasized) -merges together many different relatives into a few categories -ego differentiates relatives only on the basis of sex and generation -reflects the equality between the mothers and fathers sides of the family Ex: Kiowa kinship

Culture enables us to:

live with other people

Mississippian skeletons from Dickson Mounds had a significantly higher occurence of bone lesions resulting from:

low-level, long-term bacterial infections pre-mississippians: 22% mississippians: 80%

The enzyme lactase

lumps northern and central Europeans, Arabians, north Indians, some Africans vs. southern Europeans, most Africans, east Asians, Aboriginees, native Americans

Sickle-cell gene

lumps some Africans with peoples of Arabian peninsula and southern India

States dependent on:

markets to distribute food

serial monogamy

marriage to multiple spouses, one at a time

distinction between marriage and mating

mating concerns only individuals (and their offspring), marriage concerns the whole society: it is culturally sanctioned and is backed by legal, economic and social forces

How is labor deployed in a capitalist society?

money buys labor power and there is a social gap between the people (bosses and workers) involved in the production process

rationale for women in polygyny

more help for their work, companionship, support in controlling husband

Modern nation-states are:

more interdependent than ever

rationale for man in polygyny

more sexual partners, more children, more prestige

compliance in China

more than 25% admitted to stopping medical treatments

kin terms can include

more than one relationship

kinship

most basic principle of organizing individuals into social groups, roles and categories (both biological and cultural)

Sudanese naming system

most descriptive system, named after the groups that use them in Africa -assigns different kin term to each distinct relative -8 different cousin terms -technically no general categories -often associated with societies with distinct class divisions ex: Chinese kinship

Crow naming system

named for the Crow Indians of North America, matrilineal equivalent of the Omaha system -matrilineally based kin naming system in which siblings and parallel cousins of the same gender are given the same term of reference -other people in ego's father's matrilineage are lumped across generations, reflecting the comparative unimportance of the father's side of the family in societies using the Crow system

Anthropology reflects tension between

nature and nurture, or biology and culture

ambilocal residence pattern

near whichever family is convenient or has the most resources or work to share

social sanctions

negative influences from others which encourage us to behave more 'normally'

Gotong pinjam ("borrowed cooperation")

no short term reciprocation- close relatives and neighbors

Symbolism of money

not just a means of exchange, also a consumption good- male and female meanings to money

race as cultural construct

race does not exist biologically but it is a powerful social category

Upah pinjam ("borrowed wages")

reduced wage to distant kin

Potlatch

regional exchange system among tribes of the North Pacific Coast of N America including the Salish and Kwakiutl in which sponsors gave away food, blankets, pieces of copper or other items in return for prestige; considered the ultimate example of irrational economic behavior (banned in US and Canada); some tribes still practice, sometimes as memorial to dead

resistance as a response to cultural change

reject (overtly or covertly) outsiders' culture in favor of maintaining your own -large-scale, such as millitant movements in many parts of the world reject western globalization

romantic love

relatively recent invention

Fair Housing Act (1968)

removes racial language from federal housing policy (under President Johnson)

Epilepsy in China

rethinking non-compliance

In the US, wealth inequality:

runs even more pronounced than income inequality

postcolonialism

set of theories in philosophy, film, political science and literature that deal with the cultural legacy of colonial rule

humans constantly make their culture material by:

shaping objects to reflect their ideas and their needs (artifacts)

In the Hmong society, seizures are thought to be:

signs that an individual either into trances, perceives things others can't, can journey into the realm of the unseen, gives one sympathy for the suffering of others

bands

small, mobile groups, organized around kinship, relatively egalitarian; any elder can be leader; dependent on reciprocity (hunter-gatherers)

the biggest determinant of social achievement in the US is ____

social class (but no one talks about it)

marriage

some person has continuing claim to sexual access to another person

Generalized reciprocity

someone gives to another person and expects nothing concrete or immediate in return (ex: birthday present)

neolocal residence pattern

somewhere new, not close to either family

Anthropology

study of human diversity

biological or physical anthropology

study of humans as biological organisms

cultural anthropology

study of living human cultures

Archaeology

study of past cultures

Boas urged anthropologists to:

study the cultures and histories of particular societies for their own value, their own way of life, their own beauty

participant-observation

studying a culture by both participating and observing the actions and statements of its members

descent

systems of reckoning consanguinal kin

bricolage and indigenization as a response to cultural change

take pieces of the outsiders' culture and integrate them into your own way of life

traditional Bari society believes:

that the fetus is nurtured by multiple washings of semen (hard work for men to support a pregnancy), having a secondary father seems to help the child survive and be healthy

the history of "colonial feminism"

the British in Egypt, the French in Algeria- "womens oppression" was frequently used to justify European colonial expansion

economic aspects of class

the amount of income or wealth possessed by households or individuals

bridewealth

the practice in which a husband's kin give gifts to a wife's kin at marriage (sets up a reciprocal relationship, unilineal descent)

Enculturation

the process whereby culture is transmitted from one generation to the next

kin terms (emic)

the role labels used in different societies to classify kin, specific to particular cultures

comparativism

the search for differences and similarities between cultures

bride service

the service (such as hunting) of a man to his wife's family after marriage ex: !Kung

Eskimo kinship system

typically found among hunting and gathering people in North America and correlated with bilateral descent -no division is made between patrilineal and matrilineal kin -nuclear family members are assigned unique labels not extended to any other relatives -more distant collateral relatives are grouped together on basis of distance (collateral merging)

majority of world's cultures reckon descent:

unilineally (only about 30% reckon it cognatically)

the problem of "cultural framing"

us vs. them

levirate marriage

when a husband dies, the widow will marry his brother

sororate marriage

when a wife dies, the widower marries her sister

In the spirit catches you, Lia's first seizure happens:

when her older sister slammed the front door

dowry

wife's kin give the woman's inheritance to husband's kin at marriage (husband can lose "hope chest" if there is a divorce)

patrilocal residence pattern

with the husband's patrilineal kin

avunculocal residence pattern

with the wife's brother (children's uncle)

matrilocal residence pattern

with the wife's matrilineal kin

75% of all the world's people living on less than $1 a day are:

women

In all racial groups in the US, who fares the worst economically and politically?

women

Carsten (Cooking Money)

women purify money, socialize it and invest it with values and morality

global capitalist economic system

world of "free markets"