Anth103 - Ch 2 Key Terms

institutional review board (IRB)

A committee organized by a university or other research institution that approves, monitors, and reviews all research that involves human subjects.

informant (respondent, interlocutor, consultant)

A person from whom an anthropologist gathers data.

Postmodernists

Adherents of a theoretical perspective focusing on issues of power and voice. Postmodernists suggest that anthropological accounts are partial truths reflecting the background, training, and social position of their authors.

Human Relations Area Files (HRAF)

An ethnographic database that includes descriptions of more than 300 cultures and is used for cross-cultural research.

native anthropologists

Anthropologists who do fieldwork in their own culture.

engaged anthropology

Anthropology that includes political action as a major goal of fieldwork.

Which anthropologist popularized participant observation?

Bronislaw Malinowski

______ refers to viewing each culture within a particular context rather than against a particular standard?

Cultural relativism

emic perspective

Examining a society using concepts and distinctions that are meaningful to members of that culture.

etic perspective

Examining societies using concepts, categories, and rules derived from science; an outsider's perspective that produces analyses that members of the society being studied may not find meaningful.

culture shock

Feelings of alienation and helplessness that result from rapid immersion in a new and different culture.

Ethnocentrism

Judging other cultures from the perspective of one's own culture. The notion that one's own culture is more beautiful, rational, and nearer to perfection than others.

In the past, many anthropologists worried that the disappearance of traditional or "primitive" cultures would doom the discipline to obscurity. What changed in order to make the discipline still relevant today?

Thanks to a globalizing world, the development of new cultural forms has generated new interest.

Ethnology

The attempt to find general principles or laws that govern cultural phenomena.

participant observation

The fieldwork technique that involves gathering cultural data by observing people's behavior and participating in their lives.

Fieldwork

The firsthand, systematic exploration of a society. It involves living with a group of people and participating in and observing their behavior.

Ethnography

The major research tool of cultural anthropology; includes both fieldwork among people in society and the written results of fieldwork.

cultural relativism

The notion that cultures should be analyzed with reference to their own histories and values, in terms of the cultural whole, rather than according to the values of another culture.

informed consent

The requirement that participants in anthropological studies should understand the ways in which their participation and the release of the research data are likely to affect them.

Positioning

The situation of an individual; their history, background, and goals

collaborative anthropologists

These anthropologists practice an ethnography that gives priority to informants on the topic, methodology, and written results of research.

It is common for anthropologists to feel confused and disoriented when they first arrive to their field sites.

True

What is the primary purpose of anthropological research?

adding to the general store of knowledge about human behavior

The work of early anthropologists in the late 1800s was based upon ______.

compiling writings of travelers, explorers, and missionaries

A(n) ______ perspective seeks to understand cultures from the inside, as though the anthropologist were a member of the culture they are studying.

emic

Anthropologists working for government and industry often conduct secret research, which doesn't tend to pose ethical challenges to the discipline.

false

Due to increasing global connectivity and movement of people between places, anthropologists must now constantly reconsider ______.

how cultures relate to one another

The most important ethical responsibility in anthropological fieldwork is to protect the interests of the people whom you are studying.

true