Perspectives: An Open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

Mechanical infrastructure

The apparatuses that bring networks of technology into existence.

Cultural evolutionism

a discredited theory popular in nineteenth century anthropology suggesting that societies evolved through stages from simple to advanced.

Contested identity

a dispute within a group about the collective identity or identities of the group.

Syncretism

the combination of different beliefs, even those that are seemingly contradictory, into a new, harmonious whole.

Agriculture

the cultivation of domesticated plants and animals using technologies that allow for intensive use of the land.

Foodways

the cultural norms and attitudes surrounding food and eating.

Ethnicity

the degree to which a person identifies with and feels an attachment to a particular ethnic group.

Habitus

the dispositions, attitudes, or preferences that are the learned basis for personal "taste" and lifestyles.

Social classes

the division of society into groups based on wealth and status.

Caste system

the division of society into hierarchical levels; one's position is determined by birth and remains fixed for life.

Circumscription

the enclosure of an area by a geographic feature such as mountain ranges or desert or by the boundaries of a state.

Religion

the extension of human society and culture to include the supernatural.

Family of orientation

the family in which an individual is raised.

Mediascape

the flow of media across borders.

Financescape

the flow of money across political borders.

Ethnoscape

the flow of people across boundaries.

Middle English

the form of the English language spoken from 1066 AD until about 1500 AD.

Cultural determinism

the idea that behavioral differences are a result of cultural, not racial or genetic causes.

Racial formation

the process of defining and redefining racial categories in a society.

Pharynx

the throat cavity, located above the larynx.

Language death

the total extinction of a language.

Heteronormativity

a term coined by French philosopher Michel Foucault to refer to the often-unnoticed system of rights and privileges that accompany normative sexual choices and family formation.

Thick description

a term coined by anthropologist Clifford Geertz in his 1973 book The Interpretation of Cultures to describe a detailed description of the studied group that not only explains the behavior or cultural event in question but also the context in which it occurs and anthropological interpretations of it.

Exogamy

a term describing expectations that individuals must marry outside a particular group.

Race

an attempt to categorize humans based on observed physical differences.

Revitalization rituals

attempts to resolve serious problems, such as war, famine or poverty through a spiritual or supernatural intervention.

Priests

full-time religious practitioners.

Multiculturalism

maintenance of multiple cultural traditions in a single society.

Polyandry

marriages with one wife and multiple husbands.

Remittances

money that migrants laboring outside of the region or country send back to their hometowns and families. In Mexico, remittances make up a substantial share of the total income of some towns' populations.

Redistribution

the accumulation of goods or labor by a particular person or institution for the purpose of dispersal at a later date.

Cultural appropriation

the act of copying an idea from another culture and in the process distorting its meaning.

Glocalization

the adaptation of global ideas into locally palatable forms.

Morphemes

the basic meaningful units in a language.

Phonemes

the basic meaningless sounds of a language.

Succession

changes in types of species in an area over time. For example, it would describe the different ecosystems that gradually replace one other after a forest fire.

Language universals

characteristics shared by all linguists.

Kinship diagrams

charts used by anthropologists to visually represent relationships between members of a kinship group.

Extractive reserves

community-managed protected areas designed to allow for sustainable extraction of certain natural resources (such as fish, rubber, Brazil nuts, and rattan) while maintaining key ecosystems in place.

Anthropogenic

environments and pollutants produced by human activities.

Polygamous

families based on plural marriages in which there are multiple wives or, in rarer cases, multiple husbands.

Household

family members who reside together.

Affinal

family relationships created through marriage.

Staple crops

foods that form the backbone of the subsistence system by providing the majority of the calories a society consumes.

Codified law

formal legal systems in which damages, crimes, remedies, and punishments are specified.

Nonconcordant

genetic traits that are inherited independently rather than as a package.

Generalized reciprocity

giving without expecting a specific thing in return.

Community of practice

A group of people who engaged in a shared activity or vocation, such as dance or medicine.

Cultural Performance

A performance such as a concert or a play.

Photovoice

A research method that puts cameras into people's hands so they can make their own representations of their lives and the activities.

Placebo effect

A response to treatment that occurs because the person receiving the treatment believes it will work, not because the treatment itself is effective.

Fabrication

A technique for reporting on research data that involves mixing information provided by various people into a narrative account that demonstrates the point of focus for researchers.

Media

A word that used to describe a set of technologies that connect multiple people at one time to shared content.

Personal front

Aspects of one's clothing, physical characteristics, comportment, and facial expressions that communicate an impression to others.

Cultural imperialism

Attempts to impose unequal and unfair relationships between members of different societies.

Reflexivity

Awareness of how one's own position and perspective impact what is observed and how it is evaluated.

Harmful traditional practices

Behaviors that are viewed as ordinary and acceptable by members of a local community, but appear to be destructive or even criminal to outsiders.

Old English

English language from its beginnings to about 1066 AD.

Hominin

Humans (Homo sapiens) and their close relatives and immediate ancestors.

Inductive

a type of reasoning that uses specific information to draw general conclusions. In an inductive approach, the researcher seeks to collect evidence without trying to definitively prove or disprove a hypothesis. The researcher usually first spends time in the field to become familiar with the people before identifying a hypothesis or research question. Inductive research usually is not generalizable to other settings.

Mass communication

One-to-many communication that privileges the sender and/or owner of the technology that transmits the media.

Hegemony

Power so pervasive that it is rarely acknowledged or even recognized, yet informs everyday actions.

Bound morpheme

a unit of meaning that cannot stand alone; it must be attached to another morpheme.

Dialect

a variety of speech. The term is often applied to a subordinate variety of a language. Speakers of two dialects of the same language do not necessarily always understand each other.

Stem family

a version of an extended family that includes an older couple and one of their adult children with a spouse (or spouses) and children.

Joint family

a very large extended family that includes multiple generations.

Area studies

a way of organizing research and academic programs around world regions such as Africa, the Middle East, East Asia, China, Latin America, and Europe.

Matrilocal

a woman-centered kinship group where living arrangements after marriage often center around households containing related women.

Rite of intensification

actions designed to bring a community together, often following a period of crisis.

Polysemy

Settings, situations, and symbols that convey multiple meanings.

Coercive harmony

an approach to dispute resolution that emphasizes compromise and consensus rather than confrontation and results in the marginalization of dissent (harmony ideology) and the repression of demands for justice.

World Systems Theory

an approach to social science and history that involves examination of the development and functioning of the world economic system.

Oralist approach

an approach to the education of deaf children that emphasizes lip reading and speaking orally while discouraging use of signed language.

Negative reciprocity

an attempt to get something for nothing; exchange in which both parties try to take advantage of the other.

Armchair anthropology

an early and discredited method of anthropological research that did not involve direct contact with the people studied.

Nation

an ethnic population.

Multispecies ethnographies

an ethnographic approach in which anthropologists include non-human species as active participants in a society or culture and study their influence and actions.

Cosmology

an explanation for the origin or history of the world.

Language

an idealized form of speech, usually referred to as the standard variety.

Noble savage

an inaccurate way of portraying indigenous groups or minority cultures as innocent, childlike, or uncorrupted by the negative characteristics of "civilization."

Sorcerer

an individual who seeks to use magic for his or her own purposes.

Political ecology

an interdisciplinary field of research that emphasizes the political and economic dimensions of environmental concerns.

Zoomorphic

an object or being that has animal characteristics.

Anthropomorphic

an object or being that has human characteristics.

Hegemonic discourses

Situations in which thoughts and actions are dictated by those in authority.

Qualitative

anthropological research designed to gain an in-depth, contextualized understanding of human behavior.

Quantitative

anthropological research that uses statistical, mathematical, and/or numerical data to study human behavior.

Media practices

The habits or behaviors of the people who produce media, the audiences who interact with media, and everyone in between.

Presentation of self

The management of the impressions others have of us.

Naturalistic ethno-etiology

Views disease as the result of natural forces such as cold, heat, winds, or an upset in the balance of the basic body elements.

Personalistic ethno-etiology

Views disease as the result of the actions of human or supernatural beings.

Status

any culturally-designated position a person occupies in a particular setting.

Symbol

anything that serves to refer to something else.

Broad spectrum diet

a diet based on a wide range of food resources.

Extended family

a family of at least three-generations sharing a household.

Discreteness

a feature of human speech that they can be isolated from others.

Open system

a form of communication that can create an infinite number of new messages; a feature of human language only.

Closed system

a form of communication that cannot create new meanings or messages; it can only convey pre-programmed (innate) messages.

Big man

a form of temporary or situational leadership; influence results from acquiring followers.

Structural violence

a form of violence in which a social structure or institution harms people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs.

Third gender

a gender identity that exists in non-binary gender systems offering one or more gender roles separate from male or female.

Clan

a group of people who have a general notion of common descent that is not attached to a specific biological ancestor.

Segmentary lineage

a hierarchy of lineages that contains both close and relatively distant family members.

Matrilineal descent

a kinship group created through the maternal line (mothers and their children).

Patrilineal descent

a kinship group created through the paternal line (fathers and their children).

Creole

a language that develops from a pidgin when the pidgin becomes so widely used that children acquire it as one of their first languages. Creoles are more fully complex than creoles.

Patrilocal

a male-centered kinship group where living arrangements after marriage often center around households containing related men.

Bilateral cross-cousin marriage

a man marries a woman who is both his mother's brother's daughter and his father's sister's daughter.

Matrilateral cross-cousin marriage

a man marries a woman who is his mother's brother's daughter.

Restricted exchange

a marriage system in which only two extended families can engage in this exchange.

Carrying capacity

a measurement of the number of calories that can be extracted from a particular unit of land in order to support a human population.

General purpose money

a medium of exchange that can be used in all economic transactions.

Unbound morpheme

a morpheme that can stand alone as a separate word.

Eco-justice

a movement to recognize and remedy the adverse relationship between social inequality and the harms and risks that come from environmental destruction and pollutants.

Wilderness

a natural area that is untouched or unchanged by human activities and often seen as a cultural construct of the American West.

Family of procreation

a new household formed for the purpose of conceiving and raising children.

Nuclear family

a parent or parents who are in a culturally-recognized relationship, such as marriage, along with minor or dependent children.

Shaman

a part time religious practitioner who carries out religious rituals when needed, but also participates in the normal work of the community.

Neolithic Revolution

a period of rapid innovation in subsistence technologies that began 10,000 years ago and led to the emergence of agriculture. Neolithic means "new stone age," a name referring to the stone tools produced during this time period.

Prophet

a person who claims to have direct communication with the supernatural realm and who can communicate divine messages to others.

Proletarianization

a process through which farmers are removed from the land and forced to take wage labor employment.

Hypodescent

a racial classification system that assigns a person with mixed racial heritage to the racial category that is considered least privileged.

Animatism

a religious system organized around a belief in an impersonal supernatural force.

Animism

a religious system organized around a belief that plants, animals, inanimate objects, or natural phenomena have a spiritual or supernatural element.

Culture

a set of beliefs, practices, and symbols that are learned and shared. Together, they form an all-encompassing, integrated whole that binds people together and shapes their worldview and lifeways.

Legitimizing ideologies

a set of complex belief systems, often developed by those in power, to rationalize, explain, and perpetuate systems of inequality.

Processual archaeology

a shift in archaeological studies toward scientific methods, testing of hypotheses, quantitative analysis, and theory-driven approaches and away from an earlier emphasis on typologies and descriptive analysis.

Pidgin

a simplified language that springs up out of a situation in which people who do not share a language must spend extended amounts of time together.

Pigmentocracy

a society characterized by strong correlation between a person's skin color and his or her social class.

Matriarchal

a society in which women have authority to make decisions.

Register

a style of speech that varies depending on who is speaking to whom and in what context.

Cultural ecology

a subfield of cultural anthropology that explores the relationship between human cultural beliefs and practice and the ecosystems in which those beliefs and practices occur.

Horticulture

a subsistence system based on the small-scale cultivation of crops intended primarily for the direct consumption of the household or immediate community.

Pastoralism

a subsistence system in which people raise herds of domesticated livestock.

Foraging

a subsistence system that relies on wild plant and animal food resources. This system is sometimes called "hunting and gathering."

Taxonomies

a system of classification.

Taxonomy

a system of classification.

Gesture-call system

a system of non-verbal communication using varying combinations of sound, body language, scent, facial expression, and touch, typical of great apes and other primates, as well as humans.

Sodality

a system used to encourage solidarity or feelings of connectedness between people who are not related by family ties.

Endogamy

a term describing expectations that individuals must marry within a particular group.

Anthropocene

a term proposed to describe the current moment (or epoch) in geological time in which the effects of human activities have altered the fundamental geochemical cycles of the earth. There is some disagreement about when the Anthropocene period began—most likely, it began with industrialization.

Cargo cult

a term sometimes used to describe rituals that seek to attract material prosperity. The term is generally not preferred by anthropologists.

Domestic group

a term that can be used to describe a group of people who live together even if members do not consider themselves to be family.

Homo economicus

a term used to describe a person who would make rational decisions in ways predicted by economic theories.

Jim Crow

a term used to describe laws passed by state and local governments in the United States during the early twentieth century to enforce racial segregation of public and private places.

The Other

a term used to describe people whose customs, beliefs, or behaviors are "different" from one's own

Cisgender

a term used to describe those who identify with the sex and gender they were assigned at birth

Ordeal

a test used to determine guilt or innocence by submitting the accused to dangerous, painful, or risky tests believed to be controlled by supernatural forces.

Universal grammar (UG)

a theory developed by linguist Noam Chomsky suggesting that a basic template for all human languages is embedded in our genes.

Biological determinism

a theory that biological differences between males and females leads to fundamentally different capacities, preferences, and gendered behaviors. This scientifically unsupported view suggests that gender roles are rooted in biology, not culture.

Filial piety

a tradition requiring that the young provide care for the elderly and in some cases ancestral spirits.

Participant observation

a type of observation in which the anthropologist observes while participating in the same activities in which her informants are engaged.

Participant-observation

a type of observation in which the anthropologist observes while participating in the same activities in which her informants are engaged.

Duality of patterning

at the first level of patterning, meaningless discrete sounds of speech are combined to form words and parts of words that carry meaning. In the second level of patterning, those units of meaning are recombined to form an infinite possible number of longer messages such as phrases and sentences.

Going native

becoming fully integrated into a cultural group through acts such as taking a leadership position, assuming key roles in society, entering into marriage, or other behaviors that incorporate an anthropologist into the society he or she is studying.

Paleoanthropologist

biological anthropologists who study ancient human relatives.

Kinship

blood ties, common ancestry, and social relationships that form families within human groups.

Built environment

spaces that are human-made, including cultivated land as well as buildings.

Ethnogenesis

gradual emergence of new ethnicities in response to changing social circumstances.

Age grades

groups of men who are close to one another in age and share similar duties or responsibilities.

Matrifocal

groups of related females (e.g. mother-her sisters-their offspring) form the core of the family and constitute the family's most central and enduring social and emotional ties.

Patrifocal

groups of related males (e.g. a father-his brothers) and their male offspring form the core of the family and constitute the family's most central and enduring social and emotional ties.

Land tenure

how property rights to land are allocated within societies, including how permissions are granted to access, use, control, and transfer land.

Pragmatics

how social context contributes to meaning in an interaction.

Ideologies

ideas designed to reinforce the right of powerholders to rule.

Key Informants

individuals who are more knowledgeable about their culture than others and who are particularly helpful to the anthropologist.

Lineage

individuals who can trace or demonstrate their descent through a line of males or females back to a founding ancestor.

Amalgamation

interactions between members of distinct ethnic and cultural groups that reduce barriers between the groups over time.

Bilateral descent

kinship (family) systems that recognize both the mother's and the father's "sides" of the family.

Unilineal descent

kinship (family) systems that recognize only one sex-based "side" of the family.

Matrilineal

kinship (family) systems that recognize only relatives through a line of female ancestors.

Patrilineal

kinship (family) systems that recognize only relatives through a line of male ancestors.

Protected areas

lands set aside for conservation of the environment for their scenic beauty, biodiversity, recreational value, and other reasons.

Chiefdom

large political units in which the chief, who usually is determined by heredity, holds a formal position of power.

Symbolic ethnicity

limited or occasional displays of ethnic pride and identity that are primarily for public display.

Acculturation

loss of a minority group's cultural distinctiveness in relation to the dominant culture.

Serial monogamy

marriage to a succession of spouses one after the other.

Polygyny

marriages in which there is one husband and multiple wives.

Avunculocal

married individuals live with or near an uncle.

Patrilocal residence

married individuals live with or near the husband's father's family.

Matrilocal residence

married individuals live with or near the wife's mother's family.

Exurban

migration of generally affluent people from urban areas to rural areas for the amenities of nature, recreation, and scenic beauty associated with rural areas.

Deductive

reasoning from the general to the specific; the inverse of inductive reasoning. Deductive research is more common in the natural sciences than in anthropology. In a deductive approach, the researcher creates a hypothesis and then designs a study to prove or disprove the hypothesis. The results of deductive research can be generalizable to other settings.

Biologic sex

refers to male and female identity based on internal and external sex organs and chromosomes. While male and female are the most common biologic sexes, a percentage of the human population is intersex with ambiguous or mixed biological sex characteristics.

Plasticity

refers to the human capacity to learn any language or culture.

Global South

refers to the poorest countries of the world. The definition includes countries that are sometimes called "Third World" or "Least Developed Economies."

Global North

refers to the wealthier countries of the world. The definition includes countries that are sometimes called "First World" or "Highly Developed Economies."

Descent groups

relationships that provide members with a sense of identity and social support based on ties of shared ancestry.

Monotheistic

religious systems that recognize a single supreme God.

Polytheistic

religious systems that recognize several gods.

Critical age range hypothesis

research suggesting that a child will gradually lose the ability to acquire language naturally and without effort if he or she is not exposed to other people speaking a language until past the age of puberty. This applies to the acquisition of a second language as well.

Peasants

residents of a state who earn a living through farming.

Positive reinforcements

rewards for compliance; examples include medals, financial incentives, and other forms of public recognition.

Poro and sande

secret societies for men and women, respectively, found in the Mande-speaking peoples of West Africa, particularly in Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast, and Guinea.

Raids

short-term uses of physical force organized and planned to achieve a limited objective.

Reverse dominance

societies in which people reject attempts by any individual to exercise power.

Stratified

societies in which there are large differences in the wealth, status, and power of individuals based on unequal access to resources and positions of power.

Ranked

societies in which there are substantial differences in the wealth and social status of individuals; there are a limited number of positions of power or status, and only a few can occupy them.

Egalitarian

societies in which there is no great difference in status or power between individuals and there are as many valued status positions in the societies as there are persons able to fill them.

Delayed return system

techniques for obtaining food that require an investment of work over a period of time before the food becomes available for consumption. Farming is a delayed return system due to the passage of time between planting and harvest. The opposite is an immediate return system in which the food acquired can be immediately consumed. Foraging is an immediate return system.

Interchangeability

the ability of all individuals of the species to both send and receive messages; a feature of some species' communication systems.

Displacement

the ability to communicate about things that are outside of the here and now.

Productivity/creativity

the ability to produce and understand messages that have never been expressed before.

Balanced reciprocity

the exchange of something with the expectation that something of equal value will be returned within a specific time period.

Modern English

the form of the English language spoken from about 1500 AD to the present.

Ideoscape

the global flow of ideas.

Technoscape

the global flows of technology.

Reincarnation

the idea that a living being can begin another life in a new body after death.

Linguistic relativity

the idea that the structures and words of a language influence how its speakers think, how they behave, and ultimately the culture itself (also known as the Whorf Hypothesis).

Cultural relativism

the idea that we should seek to understand another person's beliefs and behaviors from the perspective of their own culture and not our own.

Neoliberalism

the ideology of free-market capitalism emphasizing privatization and unregulated markets.

Ethnography

the in-depth study of the everyday practices and lives of a people.

Speech act

the intention or goal of an utterance; the intention may be different from the dictionary definitions of the words involved.

Semanticity

the meaning of signs in a communication system; a feature of all species' communication systems.

State

the most complex form of political organization characterized by a central government that has a monopoly over legitimate uses of physical force, a sizeable bureaucracy, a system of formal laws, and a standing military force.

Homeostasis

the movement of a particular system (a human body, an ecosystem) towards equilibrium. In ecology this is associated with the idea that ecosystems should remain at a climax ecosystem associated with an area.

Cultural transmission

the need for some aspects of the system to be learned; a feature of some species' communication systems.

Collective effervescence

the passion or energy that arises when groups of people share the same thoughts and emotions.

Kinship system

the pattern of culturally recognized relationships between family members.

Legitimacy

the perception that an individual has a valid right to leadership.

Sororate marriage

the practice of a man marrying the sister of his deceased wife.

Levirate

the practice of a woman marrying one of her deceased husband's brothers.

Oaths

the practice of calling on a deity to bear witness to the truth of what one says.

One-drop rule

the practice of excluding a person with any non-white ancestry from the white racial category.

Patrilateral cousin marriage

the practice of marrying a male or female cousin on the father's side of the family.

Mode of production

the social relations through which human labor is used to transform energy from nature using tools, skills, organization, and knowledge.

Kinesics

the study of all forms of human body language.

Historical ecology

the study of how human cultures have developed over time as a result of interactions with the environment.

Historical linguistics

the study of how languages change.

Anthropology

the study of humanity, including its prehistoric origins and contemporary human diversity

Morphology

the study of the morphemes of language.

Proxemics

the study of the social use of space, including the amount of space an individual tries to maintain around himself in his interactions with others.

Phonology

the study of the sounds of language.

Modes of subsistence

the techniques used by the members of a society to obtain food. Anthropologists classify subsistence into four broad categories: foraging, pastoralism, horticulture, and agriculture.

Ethnocentrism

the tendency to view one's own culture as most important and correct and as the stick by which to measure all other cultures.

Kinship terminology

the terms used in a language to describe relatives.

Historical particularism

the theory that every culture develops in a unique way due to its history, including the interaction of people with the natural environment.

Pragmatic function

the useful purpose of a communication. Usefulness is a feature of all species' communication systems.

Standard

the variant of any language that has been given special prestige in the community.

Lexicon

the vocabulary of a language.

Minimal response

the vocal indications that one is listening to a speaker.

Larynx

the voice box, containing the vocal bands that produce the voice.

Domestic economy

the work associated with obtaining food for a family or household.

Paralanguage

those characteristics of speech beyond the actual words spoken, such as pitch, loudness, tempo.

Dyads

two people in a socially approved pairing. One example is a married couple.

Code-switching

using two or more language varieties in a particular interaction.

Language shift

when a community stops using their old language and adopts a new one.

Zoonotic

Diseases that have origins in animals and are transmitted to humans.

Semantics

how meaning is conveyed at the word and phrase level.

Holism

taking a broad view of the historical, environmental, and cultural foundations of behavior.

Communal healing

An approach to healing that directs the combined efforts of the community toward treating illness.

Humoral healing

An approach to healing that seeks to treat medical ailments by achieving a balance between the forces, or elements, of the body.

Biomedical

An approach to medicine that is based on the application of insights from science, particularly biology and chemistry.

Culture-bound syndrome

An illness recognized only within a specific culture.

Agency

An individual's ability to make independent choices and act upon his/her will.

a separation of the producers of goods from the consumers.

The world system for food is characterized by...

Emic

a description of the studied culture from the perspective of a member of the culture or insider.

Etic

a description of the studied culture from the perspective of an observer or outsider.

Negative reinforcements

punishments for noncompliance through fines, imprisonment, and death sentences.

Medical anthropology

A distinct sub-specialty within the discipline of anthropology that investigates human health and health care systems in comparative perspective.

Ethno-etiology

Cultural explanations about the underlying causes of health problems.

Food taboos

Cultural rules against the preparation and/or consumption of certain foods.

Biocultural evolution

Describes the interactions between biology and culture that have influenced human evolution.

Performing culture

Everyday words and actions that reflect cultural ideas and can be studied by anthropologists as a means of understanding a culture.

Indigenous media

Media produced by and for indigenous communities often outside of the commercial mainstream.

Emotionalistic explanation

Suggests that illnesses are caused by strong emotions such as fright, anger, or grief; this is an example of a naturalistic ethno-etiology.

Somatic

Symptoms that are physical manifestations of emotional pain.

Ethnomedicine

The comparative study of cultural ideas about wellness, illness, and healing.

Epidemiological transition

The sharp drop in mortality rates, particularly among children, that occurs in a society as a result of improved sanitation and access to healthcare.

Cultural infrastructure

The values and beliefs of communities, states, and/or societies that make the imagining of a particular type of network possible.

Maladaptive

Traits that decrease the capacity of individuals to survive and reproduce.

Adaptive

Traits that increase the capacity of individuals to survive and reproduce.

Discourse

Widely circulated knowledge within a community.

Performativity

Words or actions that cause something to happen.

Materialism

a Marxist theory emphasizing the ways in which human social and cultural practices are influenced by basic subsistence (economic) needs.

Transgender

a category for people who or people who identify as a different gender than the one that was assigned to them at birth. This may entail a social transition or a physical one, using a number of methods.

Rite of passage

a ceremony designed to transition individuals between life stages.

World system

a complex economic system through which goods circulate around the globe.

Gender ideology

a complex set of beliefs about gender and gendered capacities, propensities, preferences, identities and socially expected behaviors and interactions that apply to males, females, and other gender categories. Gender ideology can differ among cultures and is acquired through enculturation. Also known as a cultural model of gender.

Socially constructed

a concept developed by society that is maintained over time through social interactions that make the idea seem "real."

Swidden

an agricultural practice, also called shifting cultivation and slash-and-burn, in which fields are cleared, burned, and planted for several seasons before being returned to fallow for an extended period.

Political economy

an approach in anthropology that investigates the historical evolution of economic relationships as well as the contemporary political processes and social structures that contribute to differences in income and wealth.

Functionalism

an approach to anthropology developed in British anthropology that emphasized the way that parts of a society work together to support the functioning of the whole.

Structural-Functionalism

an approach to anthropology that focuses on the ways in which the customs or social institutions in a culture contribute to the organization of society and the maintenance of social order.

Binary model of gender

cultural definitions of gender that include only two identities-male and female.

Androgyny

cultural definitions of gender that recognize some gender differentiation, but also accept "gender bending" and role-crossing according to individual capacities and preferences.

Unilineal

descent is recognized through only one line or side of the family.

Patriarchy

describes a society with a male-dominated political and authority structure and an ideology that privileges males over females in domestic and public spheres.

Supernatural

describes entities or forces not governed by natural laws.

Design features

descriptive characteristics of the communication systems of all species, including that of humans, proposed by linguist Charles Hockett to serve as a definition of human language.

Ethnocide

destruction of a culture, often intentionally, through destruction of or removal from their territory, forced assimilation, or acculturation.

Ecocide

destruction of an environment, especially when done intentionally by humans.

Sustainable development

development that can meet present needs without damaging the environment or limiting the potential for future generations.

Cline

differences in the traits that occur in populations across a geographical area. In a cline, a trait may be more common in one geographical area than another, but the variation is gradual and continuous, with no sharp breaks.

Feuds

disputes of long duration characterized by a state of recurring hostilities between families, lineages, or other kin groups.

Age sets

named categories to which men of a certain age are assigned at birth.

Neolocal residence

newly married individuals establish a household separate from other family members.

Vernaculars

non-standard varieties of a language, which are usually distinguished from the standard by their inclusion of stigmatized forms.

Sumptuary rules

norms that permit persons of higher rank to enjoy greater social status by wearing distinctive clothing, jewelry, and/or decorations denied those of lower rank.

Profane

objects or ideas are ordinary and can be treated with disregard or contempt.

Sacred

objects or ideas are set apart from the ordinary and treated with great respect or care.

Bridewealth

payments made to the bride's family by the groom's family before marriage.

Dowry

payments made to the groom's family by the bride's family before marriage.

Ethnic group

people in a society who claim a distinct identity for themselves based on shared cultural characteristics and ancestry.

Millenarians

people who believe that major transformations of the world are imminent.

Indigenous

people who have continually lived in a particular location for a long period of time (prior to the arrival of others) or who have historical ties to a location and who are culturally distinct from the dominant population surrounding them. Other terms used to refer to indigenous people are aboriginal, native, original, first nation, and first people. Some examples of indigenous people are Native Americans of North America, Australian Aborigines, and the Berber (or Amazigh) of North Africa.

Subsistence farmers

people who raise plants and animals for their own consumption, but not for sale to others.

Tribe

political units organized around family ties that have fluid or shifting systems of temporary leadership.

Magic

practices intended to bring supernatural forces under one's personal control.

Assimilation

pressure placed on minority groups to adopt the customs and traditions of the dominant culture.

Undocumented

the preferred term for immigrants who live in a country without formal authorization from the state. Undocumented refers to the fact that these people lack the official documents that would legally permit them to reside in the country. Other terms such as illegal immigrant and illegal alien are often used to refer to this population. Anthropologists consider those terms to be discriminatory and dehumanizing. The word undocumented acknowledges the human dignity and cultural and political ties immigrants have developed in their country of residence despite their inability to establish formal residence permissions.

Reified

the process by which an inaccurate concept or idea is accepted as "truth."

Consumption

the process of buying, eating, or using a resource, food, commodity, or service.

Enculturation

the process of learning the characteristics and expectations of a culture or group.

Arbitrariness

the relationship between a symbol and its referent (meaning), in which there is no obvious connection between them.

Ethnoecology

the relationships between cultural beliefs and practices and the local environment. Components include ethnobiology, ethnobotany, and ethnozoology.

Mono-cropping

the reliance on a single plant species as a food source. Mono-cropping leads to decreased dietary diversity and carries the risk of malnutrition compared to a more diverse diet.

Means of production

the resources used to produce goods in a society such as land for farming or factories.

Palate

the roof of the mouth.

Syntax

the rules by which a language combines morphemes into larger units.

Diaspora

the scattering of a group of people who have left their original homeland and now live in various locations. Examples of people living in the diaspora are Salvadorian immigrants in the United States and Europe, Somalian refugees in various countries, and Jewish people living around the world.

Commodity chain

the series of steps a food takes from location where it is produced to the store where it is sold to consumers.

Role

the set of behaviors expected of an individual who occupies a particular status.

Gender

the set of culturally and historically invented beliefs and expectations about gender that one learns and performs. Gender is an "identity" one can choose in some societies, but there is pressure in all societies to conform to expected gender roles and identities.

Subsistence system

the set of skills, practices, and technologies used by members of a society to acquire and distribute food.

Family

the smallest group of individuals who see themselves as connected to one another.

Band

the smallest unit of political organization, consisting of only a few families and no formal leadership positions.