Test 1 Chapter 1
Ethical Fieldwork
Anthropologist Must: +obtain consent of the people to be studied +protect them from risk +Respect their privacy and dignity
**Code of Ethics-AAA Statement
"Anthropological researchers must do everything in their power to ensure that their research does not harm the safety, dignity, or privacy of the people with whom they work..."
Race and human variation
-"races" do not correlate with genetic variation -there is more genetic variation within so-called races than between them -the human population emerged in Africa and spread from there -DNA can trace where some of a persons ancestors are form, but cannot tell you the person's "race" -example: Derek Todd Lee -Human genetic and biological variation exists (link with geography in part), but the meanings we give to this variation differ from society to society
**Naom Chowsky
---
**What is the history of race in anthropology?
-16th century:race indicated lineage -19th century: race as biological type-scientific racism -20th century:race as social construct genetic variation not linked to race Race in 16th-18th centuries -rare -indicated lineage (decendents of common ancestors share common qualities)-Biblical associations -Connected to notion that environment influenced character and physical appearance -concept of European superiority-e.g, social evolution Race in the 19th Century -Race comes to be seen as permanent seperable types with innate qualities passed on from generation to generation -Natural differences of lineages come to be seen as biological differences of hierarchically ordered "races" -scientific racism-scientific methods were used to justify the belief in racism Race in the 20th century -Eugenics-is the theory and practice of improving the genetic quality of the human population
**Norm
-An ideal cultural pattern that influences behavior in a particular society -way things out to be done
**Cultural Relativism
-Belief that cultures should be analyzed with reference to their own histories and values rather than according to the values of another culture -Looking for the cultural logic in which certain practices making sense -But are all cultural tradition of equal worth? What about slavery? Female circumcision? Torture?
**Ethnocentrism
-Belief that one's culture is superior to all other cultures more natural (most of us are somewhat ethnocentric) -Judges other cultures from the perspective of one's own culture -measures other cultures by the degree to which they live up to one's own cultural standards. -Related concept: racism- the belief that some human populations are superior to others because of inherited, genetically transmitted characteristics.
Cultural Change
-Changes may come from within or from outside a culture -Cultural change can result from +invasions by a foreign culture +revolution +Epidemic disease
**List characteristics/features of culture.
-Cultures are made up of learned behaviors -all cultures involve the use of language and symbols -Cultures are patterned and integrated -Cultures are shared by members of a group -Cultures are in some way adaptive -Cultures are subject to change
Post Modernism Influence
-Feminism and Anthropology -Reflexive Anthropology -Collaborative Anthropology -Native Anthropology
Participant Observation
-Field work technique that involves gathering cultural data by observing people's behavior and participating in their lives +Anthropologists work with respondents who guide them and offer insights into the culture.
Race and Colonialism
-First phase of colonialism, 1450-1800: many argue that this is when our notions of racial types, racial difference and racial superiority?inferiority developed, as European came into contact with and began to define themselves in relation to others (africans, native americans) -Race and Beliefs in European racial superiority were used as justifications of colonization
**Cultural Ecology
-Focused on adaptive aspects of Culture -Anthropologist who view culture as an adaptation tend to be concerned with people's behavior as it relates to their well being or the relationship of cultural practices to ecosystems. -They investigate the ways cultures adapt to specific environments and the ways in which cultures have changed in response to new physical and social conditions
**Historical Particularism
-Focused on culture as shared set of norms and values -Interested in presenting objective descriptions of cultures within their historical and environmental context
**Postmodernism
-Focuses on issues of power and violence -Culture is a context in which norms and values are contested and negotiated -Sees culture and society as battlegrounds of fights for power and the right to determine what is accepted as true -Suggests Anthropological views are subjective rather than objective; they reflect the views of their authors
**Interpretive Anthropology
-Focuses on using humanistic methods, such as those found in the analysis of literature, to analyze culture and discover the meaning of culture to its participants -Culture is an "esemble of texts...which the anthropologist strains to read over the shoulders of those to whom they properly belong" (Clifford Geertz)
reasons to study anthropology
-Helps one understand other groups of people, other cultures (this is important considering the cultural diversity that is growing in the U.S.) -Helps one understand what it means to be human -Can help us understand important issues society faces (Poverty, homelessness, violence, war, disease, pollution) -Can be useful for one's career (as anthropologist or any job where it is useful to know about people and society)
Cross Cultural Comparisons
-In the 1860s herbert spencer began to develop a way of organizing, tabulating, and correlating information on a large number of societies, a project he called, Descriptive sociology -William Graham Sumner, albert keller, and George Murdock brought spencer's ideas about cross cultural comparison to the united states. +in the late 1930s, Murdock and Keller created a large, indexed ethnographic data base at Yale university +in the late 1940s the project was expanded to include other universities and its name changed to the human relations are files (HRAF)
**Evolutionary Anthropology
-Morgan and Tylor relied on the writings of travelers, explorers, missionaries, and colonial officers for their data. -They used data from archaeological finds and colonial accounts of current day peoples to produce evolutionary histories of human society. -They used technology types and social institutions to place each society on an evolutionary complexity.
**Bronislaw Malinowski
-One of the most prominent students of the Torres Straights scholars (Alfred Cort Haddon et al) -Malinowski began work in the Trobrian Islands and was unable to leave because of WWI -His long period of fieldwork was a signal moment in anthropology -his work emphasized the notion of function in culture. -He strongly endorsed the idea that native ways were completely logical even though different from his own.
**Etic
-Outsider or analyst's view -How the anthropologist views a given community's social organization and cultural practices -Tries to determine the cause of particular cultural patterns that may be beyond the awareness of the culture being studied -may involve comparison with researcher's society and cultures
**The Subsystems of the Structure of Language
-Phonology +the sound system of a language +a phone is a sound made by humans and used in any language +the international phonetic alphabet is a system of writing designed to represent all the sounds used in the different languages of the world. +a phoneme is the smallest significant unit of sound in a language. +the form of english spoken by most of the american middle class is standard spoken american english. +allophones are two or more different phones that can be used to make the same phoneme in a specific language.
Feminism and Anthropology
-Questions gender bias in ethnography and cultural theory -Men, who had limited access to women's lives, performed much early fieldwork -Ignoring women's perspectives perpetuates the oppression of women. -By the 19702 more female anthropologists were joining university faculties
**Social Darwinism
-Social Darwinism, term coined in the late 19th century to describe the idea that humans, like animals and plants, compete in a struggle for existence in which natural selection results in "survival of the fittest."
**Functionalism
-Specific Cultural institutions function to support the structure of society or serve the needs of individuals in society -associated with malinowski
Katherine Frank
-Studies Gender and Sexuality -Has written on the sex industry, pornography, feminism, swinging and reality tv
History Of Anthropology
-The First scholars who called themselves anthropologists worked in the second half of the 19th century -The most famous were sir Edwards Burnett Tylor and Louis Henry Morgan -They saw themselves as compilers and analysts of ethnographic accounts, rather than field researchers (armchair anthropologist)
**Ethnology(not sure if correct)
-The attempt to find general principles or laws that govern cultural phenomena -
**Dominant Culture
-The culture with the greatest wealth and power in a society that contains many subcultures -Dominates social institutions, like legal systems -often views subcultures as negative
Human Relations Area Files (end 3)
-The ethnographic database used most frequently to statistically test relationships between two or more culture traits across world cultures is the
**Franz Boaz
-The father of american anthropology -a critic of evolutionary anthropology -insisted that grasping the whole of a culture could be achieved only through field work -Believed that anthropologists must live among the people they study, Observing their culture and participating in it. -Boaz style of field work became known as participant observation -boas believed in cultural relativism(all humans are equal)
List the Characteristics and features of Culture
-The learned behaviors and symbols that allow people to live in groups -the primary means by which humans adapt to their environment -the ways of life characteristic of a particular human society -Includes beliefs, practices and values -Culture is learned (not genetic), shared, patterned, dynamic, adaptive, symbolic, normative
**Ecological Functionalism
-Theoretical approach that holds that the ways in which cultural institutions work can best be understood by examining their effect on the environment -Example: Hindu religious taboo against eating cows
Autism
-a developmental disorder characterized by difficulties in verbal and nonverbal communication, impairment of social interaction, and other symptoms -some with autism have exceptional intellectual skills, such as dr. temple Grandin, an associate professor of animal science at colorado state university
**subculture
-a group within a society that shares norms and values that are significantly different from those of a larger, dominant culture within the same society
Childrearing in the Inuit
-a hunting people of the Arctic, teach their children to deal with a dangerous world in which making wrong decisions might mean death -They force their children to develop skills for problem solving and children are brought up to constantly test their physical skills, in order to extend them and learn their capacity for pain and endurance. They frown upon asking questions
**Cultural Innovation
-a new variation on an existing cultural pattern that is subsequently accepted by other members of society
**Ethnoscience
-a theoretical approach that focuses on the ways in which members of a culture use language to classify their world and that hold that anthropology should be the study of cultural systems of classification -Idea that culture is a mental template that determines how members of a society understand their world -Ethnoscience is one position or technique within cognitive anthropology which focuses on the relationship between the mind and society
**Ethnomedicine
-an anthropological discipline devoted to describing the medical systems of different cultures -Examines the ways in which people in different cultures understand health and sicknesses as well as the ways they attempt to cure disease
Participant Observation
-an intensive field research method in which the investigator lives among the subjects of study
**Characteristic of Human Language
-conventionality-the idea that words are arbitrarily connected to the things for which they stand -productivity-the idea that humans can combine words and sounds into new meaningful utterances -displacement- the human capacity to descrive things not happening in the present
**William Labov
-demonstrated that aaev was just a different way of speaking, and from a linguistic point of view neither better nor worse than any other.
**Ethnobotany
-describes the ways in which different cultures classify plants -focuses on the relationship between humans and plants in different cultures -How plants are used for food, medicine, clothing, shelter, hunting, religious ceremonies
**The nacirema (article)
-each day the nacirema perform a complex set of rituals devoted to the mouth -they believe that, were it not for these rituals their teeth would fall out, their gums bleed, their jaws shrink, their friends desert them, and their lovers reject them. -much of the population shows masochistic tendencies. -a portion of the daily ritual performed by men involves scraping and lacerating the face -etic
Collaborative Anthropology
-ethnography that gives priority to cultural consultants on the topic, methodology, and written results of ethnographic research
Field work
-firsthand exploration of a society and culture -Reveals the differences between what people say they do and what they do -Culture shock(the feelings of alienation, loneliness and isolation common to one who has been placed in a new culture-most researchers experiance some degree of culture shock.)
**Emic
-insiders view -How people in a given community view their society and culture -Describes the organization and meaning a culture's practices have for its members
Dr. Grandin
-known for her work in humane slaughter of cattle has written extensively on her experience with autism -According to grand in, autistics think in concrete terms and have profound difficulty understanding social conventions -through observation and analysis she has learned many of the rules of cultural behavior. -she was featured in the book anthropologist on mars written by oliver sacks which is a story about different cases of neurological disorders
**The Subsystems of the Structure of Language (cont.)
-morphology-a system for creating words from sounds +a word is the smallest part of a sentence that can be sail alone and still retain its meaning +a morpheme is the smallest unit of a language that has a meaning +a bound morpheme is a unit of meaning that must be associated with another morpheme to make sense +a free morpheme is a unit of meaning that may stand alone as a word
paul farmer
-phd is medical anthropology -conducted research for dissertation on aids in haiti -looked at how members of one small village began to understand Aids as it first emerged -studied local beliefs about aids local treatments, but also explained how the emergence and prevalance of aids in haiti is related to poverty, which has roots in Haiti's history (fought and gained independence from France in 1804) -created an organization called partners in health
Culture and Adaptation
-populations adapt to the environment so they can survive and reproduce
Man's Most Dangerous Myth
-published in 1942 -argues that race is a social construct and biological differences are not significant -Argued race is typological, not evolutionary
**Race
-sociocultural construct not relate to biological reality -Racial categories differ from society to society, even within societies at times, and are not stable over time -What racial categories describe often has much to do with things other than race(i.e. socioeconomic class, behavior, dress and ideologies developed around them)
**Native anthropology
-study of one's own society -anthropologist must maintain social distance of the outsider. -Becoming more common as native cultures disappear.
**The Structure of Language
-study of structure and content of languages is called descriptive or structural linguistics. -these linguistics assume that language can be separated from other aspects of culture and studied outside of the social context in which speaking takes place.
20th Century Anthropology
-study one or two aspects of a society rather than society as a whole -collaborative in nature: use of consultants and participants -Pre-fieldwork research: regional/ global context -Ethnologies-comparing cultures in order to gleam cross-cultural universals
**Symbolic Anthropology
-symbolic anthropologists try to understand a culture by discovering and analyzing the symbols that are most important to its members -these often reflect the deep concerns of the culture's members in ways that may be difficult to articulate
Culture and Adaptation -Plasticity is-
-the ability of humans to change their behavior with relative ease in response to environmental demands
**Ethnography (ethnology comp/cont.)
-the description of a society or culture -Field work (living among a group of people in order to study them) -Participant observation (participating in a given society but also observing social behavior and cultural beliefs- combines subjective and objective views, etic and emic perspectives -includes both +fieldwork among people in a society +the written results of the field work
Armchair anthropologists of the 19th century
-uses secondary sources -focuses on "primative" cultures and isolated societies -writes about societies as a whole rather than one specific aspect -viewed societies in heirarchy with white, European societies as superior to all others +led to social Darwinism and Eugenics
Other areas of interest
-virtual communities-luke epp's sexism and racism in a virtual world -Food anthropology-analysis of food in culture -Medical Anthropology-Paul Farmer and Doctors without borders -Anthropology of sport -Race and whiteness studies
Philippe Bourgois
-works with the homeless, drug addicts, and dealers. -focuses on societal forces -works with organization to alleviate issues of homelessness, addiction, spread of disease
**value
A culturally defined idea of what is true, right, and beautiful
**Reflexive Anthropology
Being reflexive in anthropology means acknowledging your own subjectivity and the part you play in your work. For example, an ethnologist may study a culture and interpret their behaviors and customs. But as a reflexive anthropologist, they would also describe their own background and the way in which they interacted with the people they study. We have learned that anthropological knowledge is situated-- your interpretation depends on whether you're a native or outsider, your gender, race or national background, your personal involvement with the people you study, your political views, and so on. Reflexive anthropology means foregrounding the researcher and admitting that anthropology (or any knowledge) can never be completely objective.
**What are the four subfields of anthropology? Plus the extra subfield.
Biological/Physical Anthropology-Paleontology-human evolutionary theory and the history of plants and animals Primatology-Non human primates Forensic Anthropology-used to identify skeletalized/decomposed human remains) Archeology-Study of past societies/ cultures based on material remains Linguistic Anthropology-study of language change, language use and documentation of languages Cultural Anthropology-the study of human society and culture (ethnography is main research tool of this) Applied Anthropology- Analyzes social political and economic problems and develops solutions, often involves collaboration with community members, Can involve any subfield of anthropology (or several), and an example is that cultural anthropologists have been instrumental in promoting the welfare of tribal and indigenous people.
Anthropological Studies at LSU
Dr. Helen Regis- Race, Public Space, Jazz Fest and Second Lines Dr. Kathe Managan-Guadalupean Kreyol Dr. Jill Brody-mayan Discourse, Discourse analysis Dr. Joyce Jackson-African Diaspora,mardi Gras Indians Dr. Jay Edwards-vernacular architecture, shotgun houses Graduate student work includes: lolspeak, New Orleans Bounce Music, Race and Ethnicity Among Italian Americans in Northwest Louisiana
Do current anthropologist view race as a biological realty? If not how do they view it.
No they view it as a sociocultural (Social constructionism is a sociological theory of knowledge that considers how social phenomena or objects of consciousness develop in social contexts. A social construction (also called a social construct) is a concept or practice that is the construct (or artifact) of a particular group.construct, not relate to biological reality
**Anthropologist relationship with the military
Project Camelot +mid 1960s U.S. military project that used anthropologists to achieve foreign policy goals +anthropologists seen as spies in host countries +American Anthropological Association members raised concerns about the ethics of the project Today, Anthropologist positions: +on military bases, training officers or analyzing military culture +on the ground inn active conflict zones, collecting data on local people (Human Terrain Systems)
Anthropological Techniques include
Questionnaires Open ended questions structured interviews mapping photography observation Measurement
**The Subsystems of the Structure of Language (cont.)
Semantics-relates form to meaning -the total stock of words in a language
Enculturation
The process of learning to be a member of a particular cultural group
**Cultural Diffusion
The spread of Cultural Elements from one culture to another through cultural contact
**Culture and Personality Theory
a theoretical approach that holds that cultures could best be understood by examining the patterns of child rearing and considering their effect on adult lives and social institutions
**descriptivist
believes that language can be separated from other aspects of culture and studied outside of the social context in which speaking takes place.
**what is a holistic approach?
its the idea that anthropologist use many different factors when determining the behavior of a certain culture (i.e history, culture, language, and biology) most other academic disciplines focus on one factor as the explanation for human behavior
Components and units
phonetics-phones phonology-phonemes morphology-morphemes lexicon-words syntax/grammar-clauses, sentences semantics-meaning
components of language
phonetics-sounds phonology-sound system morphology-word structure sytax-grammar semantics-meaning discourse-everything
**The Subsystems of the Structure of Language (cont.)
syntax-the part of grammar that has to do with the arrangement of words to form phrases and sentences
Postmodernism is
the philosophy that there is no single objective reality but rather many partial truths or cultural constructions, depending on one's frame of reference is known as post modernism
Tales in the Jungle From Malinowski
videos