ANT 302 Modules 1 and 2

Corporate nature of unilineal descent groups

- Lineage members see themselves as members of the group rather than individuals. They shape an individuals identity. - Regulate marriage because large numbers of family must approve of marriages - Property regulated by group rather than by individual - Function as political units that settle disputes within the lineage - Units have their own set of religious deities

Define the 3 types of cognatic descent.

1) Ambilineal descent: links relatives through males or females. The individual can choose his/her own lineage. 2) Double (bilineal) descent: both the patrilineal and matrilineal descent group are recognized. The two types of kin groups serve different functions. An individual affiliates for some purposes with the patrilineal group and for other purposes with the matrilineal group. 3) Bilateral descent: links a person to kin through both males and females simultaneously. Children are equally descended through both parents and people from both sides of the family are considered relatives. America has bilateral descent.

Two types of social stratification

1) Class system - a system of stratification defined by unequal access to economic resources and prestige, but permitting individuals to alter their rank (although it is difficult to do so). Ex: Americans born into poverty lack access to goods and prestige in American class system but can change class standing if they acquire wealth and symbols of higher standing on a continuing basis (but this is extremely difficult) 2) Caste system - a system of stratification defined by unequal access to economic resources and prestige, which is acquired at birth and does not permit individuals to alter their rank. Ex: India

List and describe the major theories used in cultural anthropology.

1) Cultural Evolution- the anthropological theory that refers to the idea that complex forms of society have evolved from simpler ones; 19th century evolutionary approach conceptualized cultural evolution in terms of stages through which all societies had progressed, w/ the simple societies developing into increasingly more complex forms, but was discarded due to bias of ethnocentrism; In 1940's, new form of evolutionary theory was proposed by Leslie White, in which he saw culture as a whole, over the world, evolving and becoming more complex as human beings in different areas developed increasingly more efficient ways of capturing energy from the environment 2) Cultural relativism- is the idea that a person's beliefs, values, and practices should be understood based on that person's own culture, rather than be judged against the criteria of another. It emphasizes the idea that each culture is unique and distinctive but that no one culture is superior. It also rejects the idea of cultural universals. 3) Functionalism- British anthropologists at beginning of 20th century replaced evolutionary theory with a model of society as a living organism. The basic organizing principles they used were structure and function. Malinowski- identified the institutions that made up the skeleton of society (structure) and then described how those institutions functioned; saw cultural institutions functioning in response to basic human biological needs, as well as to what he called culturally derived needs 4) Structuralism- emphasizes relationship b/ween cultural elements; looks for similarities in underlying structures in different cultures, so it tends to group together societies that may seem very different at first. It is associated with the work of Levi-Strauss, who used the linguistic method to analyze culture. Sounds in a language by themselves have no meaning but are part of a larger structure that conveys meaning. In the same way the elements of culture must be seen in their relationship to one another as they form a structure that conveys cultural meanings. Levi-Straussian structuralism has been rejected b/c its models were too abstract and its approach was basically ahistorical. 5) Historical Particularism- theoretical approach emphasizing each culture's uniqueness; approach that refers to the idea that anthropologists should first concentrate on learning about the history of the development of particular societies; emphasizes idea of cultural relativism 6) Symbolic Anthropology- theoretical approach emphasizing the interpretation of cultural symbols. Culture is seen as a system of symbols, and the task of the anthropologist is to decipher its meanings. 7)21. Postmodernism- refers to a contemporary point of view beginning in the 1980s and 1990s that is opposed to making universalizing generalizations in anthropological thinking and found fault with the more scientific approach (observation). Postmodernists thought that anthropology should embrace humanism, emphasizing cultural relativism. The ethnographer brings along his/her own cultural categories and therefore can't be a detached, objective observer of another culture. Postmodernists want to eliminate this kind of bias as much as possible by emphasizing the importance of dialogues with informants and the recording of info that informants present as ethnographic text over observations in fieldwork. * Cultural evolution raises problems with ethnocentrism because you can't objectively determine whether a society is complex or not. Postmodernism tries to eliminate the bias of ethnocentrism. * Cultural relativism focuses on the uniqueness of each culture. Structuralism focuses on the similarities between cultures. * Cultural evolution - scientific approach Functionalism - structure and function Structuralism - relationship between cultural elements Postmodernism - humanistic approach

Types of unilineal descent groups

1) Lineage - a kinship group based on a unilineal descent rule that is localized, has some corporate powers, and whose members can trace their actual relationships to each other 2) Clan - a kinship group normally comprising several lineages; its members are related by a unilineal descent rule, but it is too large to enable members to trace actual biological links to all other members 3) Phratry - a unilineal descent group composed of related clans 4) Moieties - the entire society is divided into two large unilineal descent groups, which are referred to as moieties. Moieties may be based on a patrilineal or matrilineal rule of descent and are usually composed of several clans.

Types of post-marital residence

1) Neolocal residence - a rule of postmarital residence in which the newly married couple forms an independent household. Ex: America 2) Virilocal residence - a rule of postmarital residence whereby the newly married couple resides with the groom's family 3) Avunculocal residence - a rule of postmarital residence in which the bride goes to live with her husband after he has moved in with his mother's brother. Ex: Trobriand Islanders 4) Uxorilocal (matrilocal) residence - a rule of postmarital residence whereby the newly married couple resides with the bride's family

What are the two kinds of translation that the anthropologist performs?

1) translate from the language of the informants to the anthropologist's native language; problems usually arise b/c the terms in the indigenous language are never exactly equivalent to the concepts in English 2) translate the cultural categories of the society being studied into the language of anthropology

Answer the following questions about "Conversation Style: Talking on the Job" 1. What does Tannen mean by conversational style? 2. What is the important style difference in the way men and women ask for directions or help, according to Tannen? 3. What is Tannen's hypothesis about why males avoid asking other people for directions? 4. In Tannen's perspective, what conclusions do men and women draw about each other when they display typically different approaches to asking directions?

1. A person's conversation style refers to the way in which he/she communicates his/her message to others. People have different conversational styles, influenced by the part of the country they grew up in, their ethnic backgrounds and those of their parents, their age, class, and gender. Unaware that these and other aspects of our backgrounds influence our ways of talking, we think we are simply saying what we mean. Because we don't realize that others' styles are different, we are often frustrated in conversations. 2. Women stop to ask another person for directions, while men insist on trying to find their way on their own. 3. Men are more likely to be aware that asking for directions, or for any kind of help, puts them in a one-down position. 4. Gender differences in conversation style are responsible not only for miscommunication but also for misguided evaluations and moral judgments about the performance and character of coworkers. A woman may be seen negatively by men in the workplace for asking a lot of questions because they see her as doubtful or ignorant.

Answer the following questions about "Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?": 1. What is meant by colonial feminism? Can you think of other examples of changes to local custom promoted by colonial administrations? 2. How did Laura Bush and other U.S. officials use the lives of Afghan women to justify the invasion and bombing of Afghanistan? 3. What is the American perception of the burqa and how does that differ from the way women who wear the garment perceive its meaning? How has the American perception of the burqa influenced policy toward military intervention? 4. What meaning has the Taliban given the burqa and how is that related to the meaning given the garment by Americans? 5. What do the concepts of ethnocentrism and cultural relativism mean? How do they relate to Abu-Lughod's argument? 6. Can Americans find ways of helping Afghan women without "saving them"? What might some of these ways be?

1. Colonial feminism refers to the cynical practice of preaching concern for the well-being of women in order to advance colonial interests. Colonial administrations claimed they were "saving" women to justify their rule over a territory. Ex: Many who have worked on British colonialism in South Asia have noted the use of the woman question in colonial policies where intervention into sati (the practice of widows killing themselves on their husbands' funeral pyres), child marriage, and other practices was used to justify rule. 2. They framed the war as bringing "justice" and "freedom" to women in the area. They felt that the burqa is a sign of oppression. The war justified itself by being a war of liberation of Afghan women. In her speech, Laura Bush said "The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women." 3. For Westerners and especially some Western feminists, the burqa has been a symbol of male exploitation and control of women; for most Muslim women, however, these garments signify modesty and the separation of private family-oriented lives from the public realm. The burqa serves as a kind of "mobile home" for women in public spaces, and the Western perspective seems ethnocentric as a result. In order to get Americans to back the war effort, the military established a moral crusade to free Afghan women from their bondage. 4. For the Taliban, the burqa was a sign of religious piety, not only one that signified public modesty. The burqa was originally worn only by the Pashtun branch of the Muslim faith. The meaning of the burqa was complicated in Afghanistan when the Taliban took over and forced all Afghan women to wear the burqa. Americans, seeing the Taliban as bad, thought this was oppressive and against what most women in the region wanted. Even though the country isn't under the control of the Taliban, many women continue to wear it which complicates the views that Americans have of the current situation in Afghanistan. 5. Ethnocentrism refers to the human tendency to see one's own culture as superior to others. Ethnocentrism causes people to judge other cultures by the rules of their own culture. Cultural relativism refers to the belief that all cultures are unique and one culture is not better than the other. You cannot judge another culture based on your own culture. The Western perspective on the burqa is ethnocentric. 6. Instead of saving Afghan women from their own cultural customs and values, Western feminists should concentrate their efforts on helping to bring "justice" to women's lives by preventing war and increasing education and freedom from want (freedom to have an adequate standard of well being).

Answer the following questions about "The Opt-Out Phenomenon: Women, Work, and Identity": 1. What is the relationship between occupation, class, and social identity in the United States? 2. Shandy and Moe described Ernestine Friedl's work on the degree to which males dominate females. What is Friedl's main argument and what evidence does she use to support it? 3. At what age are women likely to move from work to home, according to Shandy and Moe? 4. What factors push women to "head home" instead of continuing to work? 5. What factors pull women to do so? 6. How do women who have left work to raise their children at home deal with the apparent loss of gender equality that comes with their domestic identity over their occupational one?

1. In American society, one's occupation serves as the primary source of our public social identity. Occupational identity conveys one's class. We actually, and often without thinking, rank each other on the basis of our occupational identity. It also implies relative status between individuals. When men and women work at the same jobs, their work signifies that they are approximately equal. 2. Friedl argues against the position that males inherit a predisposition to dominate females everywhere. She asserts that control of publicly (beyond the family) shared resources, especially animal protein, determines the degree to which females are equal to males. She cites evidence about gender relations in four contrasting hunting and gathering societies. First, she notes that among the Washo Indians both men and women foraged for edible plants and both caught rabbits and other small animals as a source of protein. The result was relative gender equality. The Hadza of Tanzania also display relative gender equality largely because men and women forage separately and work to meet their own individual needs for food. On the other hand, among the Tiwi the men hunt and the women gather, and the male control of meat (protein), which is shared publicly by the whole group, results in domination over women. In the fourth case represented by the Inuit of the Arctic, males provide virtually all the food by hunting seals, walruses, whales, and fish. As a result, Inuit women are "used, abused, and traded". 3. Women in their twenties and early thirties. Members of the younger generation (millineals) 4. Phenomenon of the 100-hour couple: occurs when a husband and wife both have high-paying but demanding careers that require them to work a lot of hours. Because of this, they can't spend much time with their children and they have to hire childcare, which can be expensive. Many couples conclude that one of them has to reduce hours at work or quit his or her job altogether. This usually ends up being the wife, as it is most common that the husband makes more money. Childcare: high quality and affordable child care is hard to find. The second shift: refers to the work women do to maintain and sustain the household in addition to their paid employment. The glass ceiling 5. Being with their children Lower stress They feel a sense of responsibility for their children's care Nostalgia for their childhood They get group support by forming social networks with other like-minded mothers Living within their means: having one parent "in reserve" who could join the labor force if the family hit tough financial times instead of taking out a mortgage that relied on both incomes 6. They reinforce their past occupational identity. If someone asks what they do, they mention what they used to do professionally. Women may choose to maintain a sense of occupational worth by serving in "quasi professional" settings such as membership on the boards of civic associations, positions with nonprofit organizations, and aides at their children's schools

Symbol

A symbol is defined as something that stands for, or represents, something else. Humans apply meaning to symbols in an arbitrary way (w/out reason). Each symbol is used to refer to a particular meaning (or referent). Ex: Putting your hand over your heart for the pledge of allegiance symbolizes sincerity. The heart is a symbol for sincerity, or sincerity is the referent of the heart.

Affinity/Alliance

Affinity/Alliance is defined as a linkage between kin groups established through marriage for the mutual benefit of the two groups.

Age set

An age set is a group of individuals of the same age that moves as a unit through successive age grades. The members of one age grade constitute an age set

Extended family

An extended family consists of several related nuclear families living together in one household. It includes 2 or more married couples. Extended families are most commonly based on patrilineal descent.

Male and female speech

As young children learn their language and their culture, they are simultaneously learning female- and male-specific behavior, as well as appropriate gender-related forms of speech. Men and women play different though usually complementary gender roles in society, and differences in male and female speech reflect this. Women tend to talk about people and feelings, while men talk about things. Men tend to dominate the conversation by interrupting women, by controlling the topics of the conversation, and by becoming silent. Men talk more, swear more, and use imperative forms to get things done. In contrast, women use more tentative speech, use more linguistic forms associated with politeness, and make greater use of minimal responses (like uh-huh) to indicate support for the speaker.

Body symbolism

Body symbolism refers to the use of the human body as a metaphor to symbolize social groupings and social relationships; Ex: Americans use the metaphor of blood to represent kinship, the word bone was used for clan among the Mongols

Bride service

Bride Service is defined as a custom whereby the groom works for the bride's family before marriage. The yanomamo people of Venezuela practiced bride service.

Bridewealth

Bridewealth is defined as payments made by the groom's family to the family of the bride. The Kwakiutl marriage ceremony involves bridewealth.

Chain migration

Chain migration is a phenomenon in which earlier migrants attract later ones to the same community, resulting in residential clusters of individuals having long-term social and economic relationships.

Complex societies

Complex societies are heterogeneous, culturally diverse societies w/ regional, class, occupational, religious, and ethnic differences. Complex societies have subcultures of their own that may become units of analysis for anthropologists. The unit of analysis can also be dictated by the particular problem selected (ex: effects of rural-urban migration on a farming community, the effects of closing a factory in a company town)

Consanguinity

Consanguinity refers to the principle of relationship linking individuals by shared ancestry (blood)

Cultural Relativism

Cultural relativism is the idea that a person's beliefs, values, and practices should be understood based on that person's own culture, rather than be judged against the criteria of another. It emphasizes the idea that each culture is unique and distinctive but that no one culture is superior. It also rejects the idea of cultural universals.

Culture

Culture is defined as a system (or a pattern) of symbols and meanings created arbitrarily by humans. Culture is learned, shared, and used by people to interpret experience and generate behavior. The culture of a group of people is reflected by their way of life, including their behavior, their ideas, and the things they produce.

Culture shock

Culture shock refers to the anxiety that is felt when encountering a culture different than one's own. It results from an inability to predict the behavior of others or to act appropriately in cross-cultural situations. For example, one may experience culture shock when moving to a new place with an unfamiliar language.

Descent groups

Descent groups are defined as groups based on a rule of descent.

Define descent and give the two types of rules of descent.

Descent is defined as a rule of relationship that ties people together on the basis of common ancestry. It is based on the notion of a common heritage. Two types: 1) Unilineal descent 2) Cognatic descent

Discuss the centrality of understanding symbols and their meanings in understanding a culture

Different cultural domains, such as kinship, economics, political organization, and religion, are all imbued with symbolic meaning. To understand how these institutions work, one must understand the symbols and the cultural meanings through which they are organized.

Diffusion

Diffusion is defined as the spread of cultural traits from one society to another through a process of contact and borrowing.

Dowry

Dowry is defined as goods that are given by the bride's family to the groom's family at marriage.

Egalitarian societies

Egalitarian societies are societies that lack formal social stratification. With the exception of ranked differences between men and women and adults and children, they provide all people an equal chance at economic resources and prestige. Most hunter-gatherer societies are egalitarian.

Enculturation

Enculturation is the process by which culture is learned and acquired by particular individuals.

Endogamy

Endogamy is the term for a rule requiring group members to marry w/in their own group. Rules of endogamy preserve separateness and exclusivity. Religious groups such as the Amish, Mormons, Catholics, and Jews have rules of endogamy. Castes in India and Nepal are also endogamous.

Ethnocentrism

Ethnocentrism refers to the belief that one's own culture is superior to other cultures and conveys the tendency of people to judge other cultures based on the values of their own culture. For example, if we come from America, a society that abhors painful treatment of animals, we are likely to react with anger when an Indian villager hits a dog with a rock. Ethnocentrism is at the root of ethnic conflict and the ethnonationalism so prevalent in the world today. Ex: Neoconservative foreign policy of Bush administration pushed war against Iraq

Ethnography

Ethnography is defined as the process of discovering and describing a particular culture. It involves trying to learn how the members of a particular group see their worlds. The essential core of ethnography is this concern with the meaning of actions and events to the people we seek to understand.

Ethnosemantics

Ethnosemantics is defined as the anthropological investigation of native systems of classifications. The goal of ethnosemantics is to study the connection between the way language is organized and the way culture is organized. For example, if we examine the organization and classification of animals, we will find that people using different languages will sort animals in ways different from our own.

Phonemes

Every language has a small number of basic sounds, called phonemes, which are used in various combinations to make up the units of meaning. Phonemes do not carry meaning themselves, but are used to differentiate words in terms of their meanings.

Exogamy

Exogamy is the term for a rule requiring group members to marry outside their own social group. Rules of exogamy create links between groups. It is conceptualized as an extension of the incest taboo.

Explicit culture

Explicit culture refers to the cultural knowledge that people can talk about and of which they are aware. People learn explicit culture through spoken and written word. For example, as you grow up, you learn that there are words for many things you encounter. There are items such as clothes, actions such as playing, emotional states such as sadness, ways to talk such as yelling, and people such as mother.

Feminist anthropology

Feminist anthropology explores cultural practices and inequities based on gender

Fictive kinship

Fictive kinship refers to social relationships in which unrelated individuals use kin terms to establish and recognize their relationships. Oftentimes, the relationship is established by ritual observances. Ex: godparenthood, or compadrazgo

Gender

Gender is defined as the culture-specific set of behavioral, ideological, and social meanings constructed around biological and anatomical differences between sexes

Gender stratification

Gender stratification refers to the comparative ranking of economic and political activities associated with men and women in any society

Heteronormativity

Heteronormativity refers to the cultural perspective that privileges male and female heterosexual identity in conceptualizing social and family norms

How is the Kwakiutl marriage potlach a symbolic form of warfare?

Marriage and warfare are similar in that the two sets of affines are in opposition to one another, and in competition. Warriors from the groom's side come to "capture" the bride. The groom's side pays "bride-wealth" to the bride's side to compensate for taking the bride, just as the payment of "blood money" is compensation for the side in a feud that has suffered a loss. The symbolism of warfare continues when the bride's numaym repurchases her, using a symbolic war canoe. The blackened faces and warrior dress of the men also symbolize warfare.

Masculinity

Masculinity, like femininity, is a series of cultural constructions that are not based simply on biological differences. It is constructed, designed, and upheld by a system of beliefs and attitudes.

Monogamy

Monogamy refers to a marriage form in which a person is allowed only one spouse at a time.

Multi-sited ethnography

Multi-sited ethnography is defined as an ethnography that draws on information and informants in various locations, often across borders and over different time periods. Ex: Strauss focuses on yoga and the way it has moved West, and then back to India again

Naïve realism

Naïve realism refers to the almost universal belief that all people define the real world in pretty much the same way. Human languages may differ from one society to the next, but behind the strange words and sentences, all people are talking about the same things

Nonlinguistic symbols

Nonlinguistic symbols are any symbols that exist outside the system of language and speech. For example, visual symbols.

What is participant-observation? What type of data does it mainly rely on? What contradiction exists?

Participant-observation is an integral part of the ethnographic method. The goal of the anthropologist is to understand how members of a different culture view the world and how they interpret meaning, so participant-observation involves learning from members of that culture instead of just studying them. Participant observation depends on qualitative data, while other forms of research mainly rely on quantitative data. It involves an inherit contradiction b/c one is at the same time an observer outside the culture as well as a participant within it, so it's impossible for one to be completely objective.

Polyandry

Polyandry is a form of polygamy in which a woman has two or more husbands at one time. Polyandry is practiced in Tibet.

Polygamy

Polygamy refers to a marriage form in which a person has two or more spouses at one time. Polygyny and polyandry are both forms of polygamy.

Polygyny

Polygyny is a form of polygamy in which a man is married to two or more women at one time. Polygyny is practiced in many Islamic societies.

Private symbols

Private Symbols are symbols related to an individual's personal life experience. They are the symbols of our dream life and fantasies. Ex: In the creative process, the artist, novelist, or filmmaker uses private symbols

Public symbols

Public Symbols are symbols used and understood by the members of a society. They constitute the cultural system for a society. Ex: the cross symbolizes Christianity; rainbow symbolizes LQBTQ

Race

Race is defined as a system of classification of groups of people presumed to share biological characteristics

Rank socities

Rank societies are societies that contain unequal access to prestige, but not to valued economic resources; In such societies there may be chiefs or other persons with authority and prestige, and they may gain access to rank by birth, but their positions give them no substantial economic advantage. Ex: horticultural societies, including some chiefdomships.

Reciprocal exchange

Reciprocal exchange is the transfer of goods and services between two people or groups based on their role obligations. It is a form of nonmarket exchange in which women or material goods of equal value continue to be exchanged over generations. Ex: Kwakiutl marriage exchange, Sister exchange

Reciprocity

Reciprocity refers to the process in which the informant provides information about their culture and the anthropologist provides various forms of assistance in return. For example, the anthropologist with a car often reciprocates by driving around people in the community. Also, anthropologists can play the role of a partisan by advocating for the causes of the community and supporting their side as a witness in legal conflicts.

Reflexivity

Reflexivity refers to the act of paying attention to one's own cognitive framework and cultural bias as one researches another culture. Reflexivity is important so that an anthropologist can minimize the effect that his/her own cultural biases have on his/her perception and understanding of the culture being learned

Roles

Roles are defined as the behaviors, or rules for action, associated with a particular social status in a society. We use them to interpret and generate social behavior.

Sex

Sex is defined as the physical differentiation between male and female through biological and anatomical composition of genitals and related secondary sexual characteristics.

Sexuality

Sexuality refers to erotic desires and the practices associated with them

Sister exchange

Sister exchange is defined as a marriage pattern in which two men marry each other's sisters. The Arapesh in New Guinea practice sister exchange.

Social stratification

Social stratification refers to a society's categorization of its people into rankings of socioeconomic tiers based on factors like wealth, income, race, education, and power. It is characterized by regularly experienced unequal access to valued economic resources and prestige.

Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics is defined as the study of the aspect of language that deals with status and class differences. It deals with the analysis of parole (speech) and its social functions. Sociolinguistic rules specify the nature of the speech community, the particular speech situations within a community, and the way that members use speech to convey their messages.

Status

Status is defined as the social position an individual occupies in a society. It refers to the categories of different kinds of people who interact

Stratified societies

Stratified societies are societies that organize around formal modes of social stratification. Members of stratified societies are likely to form classes or castes, and inequality affects access to both prestige and economic resources. Most complex societies, including agrarian and industrialized states, fit into this type

Symbolic system

Symbolic system is defined as a system of interconnected symbolic meanings. Symbolic anthropology views culture as an independent system of meaning deciphered by interpreting key symbols and rituals

Tacit culture

Tacit culture refers to the shared knowledge of which people usually are unaware and lack words for. People learn tacit culture by observing others' behaviors. For example, people from different societies have different ideas of what is an acceptable speaking distance (the amount of distance between people that are speaking with each other). A Latin American's closer personal speaking distance would make a North American uncomfortable because it seems intimate.

Terms of address

Terms of address are the kinship terms used when talking to a relative

Terms of reference

Terms of reference are the kinship terms used to refer to a relative when speaking to someone else

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis argues that the language we speak determines how we view the world and how we interpret experience, limiting our ability to think and act. According to Whorf, if a language did not have a word for a certain concept, then its speakers would not have the capability to understand that concept. Whorf believed that language restrained the mind and severely limited the ability of people to understand each other when they speak different languages.

Comparative Approach

The comparative approach is a method used by anthropologists that involves comparing societies to find similarities and differences between them.

Dialect

The diffusion of a language leads to the development of different dialects within that language.

Ethnography of speaking

The ethnography of speaking is a branch of anthropological linguistics which stresses the role of language as a social institution. Ethnographers of speaking highlight the various ways in which the social functions of language vary from one speech community to the next. Great emphasis is placed on the analysis of language skills as they are manifested in naturally-occurring social interaction.

How does the marriage potlach reveal the importance of rank in Kwakiutl culture?

The high rank of the bride demanded that there be large payments for her. At the same time, such payments enhanced the rank of the giver, the groom. The importance of making a return for what one has received was reflected in the repurchase payment made by the bride's side. Seating of guests at the potlach and the order in which they received gifts revealed their ranking with respect to one another.

Cultural construction of the self

The notion of the self is a human universal, though the conception of the person varies from one society to the next. The way in which emotion is expressed and interpreted is determined culturally. Societies vary in the nature of personhood, the self, and the structure of emotion. For example, Individualist (most Western) cultures emphasize individuals as separate, autonomous self-contained entities. In contrast, collectivist (most non-Western) cultures place primary value on group orientation, the goals and needs of others, and readiness to cooperate.

African-American Vernacular English

The speech of African Americans, referred to as African-American Vernacular English, has its own distinct phonology, morphology, and syntax, and is not an incorrect or incomplete form of English. It plays a role in the construction of African-American identity in a multicultural America. It is seen by some as a symbol of slave mentality, but by others as a symbol of resistance to slavery and oppression. Some African-American students in elite college campuses employ features of African-American Vernacular English in both formal and informal contexts in order to reinforce their ethnic identity.

Morphemes

The units of language that carry meaning are called morphemes. Morphemes are made up of phonemes. They are not equivalent to words. Free morphemes can stand independent, while bound morphemes are always found bound to other morphemes. For example, the word shoemaker consists of two free morphemes (shoe and make) and one bound morpheme (-er)

Describe the Kwakiutl marriage. What is a potlatch?

There are 3 stages to a Kwakiutl marriage. First messengers and chiefs are sent by the groom's side to the bride's father requesting the bride in marriage. They are rewarded with blankets, and returned to the groom, who also gives them blankets. That night, the bride's father tells the groom that he expects a certain amount of blankets as the bride-wealth payment. The groom's father then assembles the blankets and hands them over to the bride's father. Several months later, at the next ceremony, the men of the groom's numaym (Kwakiutl term for kin group) blacken their faces and dress like warriors as they go to the bride's house with the final payment of blankets. The chiefs from the groom's side then make traditional wedding speeches. The purpose of these actions is to "move the bride" to the groom. After the speeches, the ceremony of giving out the blankets brought by the groom's side for the bride's side takes place. Sometime later, usually after a child is born to the couple, the wife's side prepares to make a large return of goods to the husband's side (the goods are usually more valuable than blankets), which Boas refers to as the "repurchase of the wife" by her own numaym. The Kwakiutl refer to this as payment of the marriage debt. Since the wife's group was the receiver of the marriage potlach from the groom's group, it is under an obligation to make a return. When everything is ready, the wife's father announces that he is going to hold a potlach to repay the marriage debt. The men of the wife's father's numaym carry the goods to the son-in-law's house. They arrange part of the goods (the box covers) in a square or rectangle to symbolize the boat upon which the bride's father comes to repay the debt. The younger brother of the son-in-law, his face blackened as a warrior, rushes out and splits one of the box covers with an ax, thereby "sinking the boat." Marriage for the Kwakiutl was a series of events that extended for years. When the wife has been repurchased by her father, she is free to return to him unless her husband purchases her for the second time. This would be followed by a second repurchase by her own group. These exchanges of property via potlaches could take place up to 4 times. The families of both groom and bride increased their rank and prestige with each potlach and its transfer of goods.

Total social phenomena

Total social phenomena are large-scale rituals that integrate all aspects of society- economic, political, kinship, religion, art, etc.

Totemic animal

Totemic animal is defined as an animal from which members of a clan believe themselves descended and with whom they have a special relationship that may prohibit the eating of that animal

Define unilineal descent and give the two types of unilineal descent.

Under a rule of unilineal descent, only one family line is recognized as kin. Two types: 1) Rule of patrilineal descent links relatives through males only. Females are part of their father's line, but their children descend from the husbands. China, Japan, and India have a rule of patrilineal descent. 2) Rule of matrilineal descent links relatives through females only. Males belong to their mother's line, but their children descend from the wives. The Apache and the Trobriand Islanders have matrilineal descent.

Age grade

When age categories are formally named and recognized and crosscut an entire society, they are referred to as age grades. ex: infant, child, adolescent, adult, senior

Proto-language

A proto-language is defined as an ancestral form of a language arrived at by reconstruction. For example, the vernacular Latin of the Roman period is the proto-language for the Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and Romanian languages.

Speech community

A speech community is a group of people that interacts and speaks frequently w/ one another.

Answer the following questions on "Fieldwork on Prostitution in the Era of AIDS": 1. Based on reading this selection, how is ethnographic research different from other social science approaches to research? 2. What can ethnographic research reveal that other forms of research cannot? What can the use of questionnaires and observational experiments reveal about people that ethnographic research might miss? 3. What were some of the techniques used by Sterk to enter the field, conduct her research, and leave the field? What problems did she face? 4. What advice does Sterk have for aspiring ethnographers? 5. What are some of the ethical issues faced by anthropologists when they conduct ethnographic research? Learning more about the women and gaining a better understanding of their lives also raised many ethical questions. No textbook told me how to handle situations in which a pimp abused a woman, a customer forced a woman to engage in unwanted sex acts, a customer requested unprotected sex from a woman who knew she was HIV infected, or a boyfriend had unrealistic expectations regarding a woman's earnings to support his drug habit. I failed to know the proper response when asked to engage in illegal activities such as holding drugs or money a woman had stolen from a cus- tomer. In general, my response was to explain that I was there as a researcher. During those occasions when pressures became too severe, I decided to leave a scene. For ex- ample, I never returned to certain crack houses because pimps there continued to ask me to consider working for them.

1. Many Americans associate social research with questionnaires, structured interviews, word association tests, and psychological experiments. They expect investigators to control the research setting and ask for specific information, such as age, income, place of residence, and opinions about work or national events. But ethnographic fieldwork is different. Cultural anthropologists may administer formal research instruments such as questionnaires, but largely their goal is to discover culture, to view the actions and knowledge of a group through the eyes of its members. In this sense, ethnographers are more like students; cultural informants are more like teachers. To implement ethnographic research, anthropologists must often become part of the worlds they seek to understand. 3. Enter the field: Sterk had to identify locations where street prostitution took place. She often learned of well-known public places from professional experts, such as law enforcement officials and health care providers at emergency rooms and sexually transmitted disease clinics. She gained other insights from lay experts, including taxi drivers, bartenders, and community representatives such as members of neighborhood associations. Her status as an unknown woman in an area know for prostitution made it difficult to gain entry in the prostitution world. She used a strategy in which she moved slowly and didn't force any interaction. She learned it was helpful to know something about respondents but to avoid an "expert" role. She also learned not to depend too much on contacts (gatekeepers) she met initially. She also learned that she needed to proceed cautiously with self-nominated key respondents. For example, one of the women presented herself as knowing everyone on the stroll. While she did know everyone, she was not a central figure. On the contrary, the other prostitutes viewed her as a failed streetwalker whose drug use caused her to act unprofessionally. By associating with me, she hoped to regain some of her status. For me, however, it meant limited access to the other women because I affiliated myself with a woman who was marginal to the scene. Conduct research: In order to develop a relationship and trust with informants, she had to use a technique of reciprocity. Being supportive and providing practical assistance were the most visible and direct ways for her to develop a relationship. She has given countless rides, provided child care on numerous occasions, bought groceries, and listened for hours to stories that were unrelated to her initial research questions. Allowing women to tell their stories and engaging in a dialogue with them probably were the single most important techniques that allowed her to develop relationships with them. She also learned to refrain from expressing her own opinions about the culture and lives of her subjects. Leave the field: Physically removing herself from the scene was common when she experienced difficulty remaining objective. She also took temporary breaks from a particular scene by shifting settings and neighborhoods. For example, I would invest most of my time in women from a particular crack house for several weeks. Then I would shift to spending more time on one of the strolls. By shifting scenes, I was able to tell people why I was leaving and to remind all of us of my researcher role. 5. Learning more about the women and gaining a better understanding of their lives also raised many ethical questions. No textbook told me how to handle situations in which a pimp abused a woman, a customer forced a woman to engage in unwanted sex acts, a customer requested unprotected sex from a woman who knew she was HIV infected, or a boyfriend had unrealistic expectations regarding a woman's earnings to support his drug habit. I failed to know the proper response when asked to engage in illegal activities such as holding drugs or money a woman had stolen from a customer. In general, my response was to explain that I was there as a researcher. During those occasions when pressures became too severe, I decided to leave a scene. For ex- ample, I never returned to certain crack houses because pimps there continued to ask me to consider working for them.

Answer the following questions on "Nice Girls Don't Talk to Rastas": 1. What does the term naive realism means? Give some examples from your own experience. 2. What behavior by an American study abroad student offended the Barbadian villagers she lived with? Why was she surprised by their reaction? 3. What did George Gmelch do to mediate the cross-cultural misunderstanding? How successful was it? 4. What part does social class play in this event? 5. Why is this story a good example of naïve realism?

1. Naive realism refers to the belief that even though people speak different languages, the meaning behind what they are saying is fundamentally the same. People think that their cultural view of reality is universal. For example, 2. She unwittingly assumes that villagers are a homogeneous group of which Rastafarians (a religious sect) are members. By interacting with them, she finds herself shunned by everyone. For American students like Johanna, Barbados is the first time they have ever lived in another culture, and they arrive with their naive realism fairly intact. American students often operate on an assumption of personal autonomy. That is, if they can see "the truth" in a situation (or view their actions as harmless) then they feel entitled to act without regard for what others might think. Her American vision of equality causes her to assume that villagers accepted everyone as equal. As a result, she overlooks the existence of class distinctions in the Barbadian community. 3. He tried to explain to the villagers about how Johanna didn't know any better, how she was just trying to do some extra research and didn't understand the cultural hatred behind the Rastas. She was naïve but the village still rejected her because they don't want their children growing up around the ways of the Rastas. While Johanna was allowed to stay, the village didn't accept her in the same way as they did before. 4. The American students in this article have the misconception that the great majority of their fellow Americans come from a middle class background, and this leads students to believe that the social classes of foreign cultures have the same homogeneous status. As an anthropologist, you have to be sensitive to class and status differences and think about how your actions and relationships could be viewed by others because not everybody perceives the world the way you do. 5. The student allows her own naive realism to interfere with her understanding of the culture, leading her to violate local norms.

Answer the following questions about "You@Work: Jobs, Identity, and the Internet": 1. What is meant by the term personal social identity? 2. What ways do employers use the Internet to screen job applicants? 3. What ways can job seekers use the Internet to brand and manage their online identities?

1. People have personal identities consisting of their own styles of interaction (direct, shy, positive, humorous, for example) that color their performance no matter what status they assume. Their personal identities also include their life histories such as other statuses they have held or hold, groups they have belonged to, and their past actions. 2. Employers accept online applications only, limit online sites where applications are accepted, use Internet search engines (Google, Indeed) and social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) to find out more about applicants, scan online resumes submitted by applicants, use online databases to check criminal record and review credit history of applicants, require applicants to register before access to job listings and the application process. 3. Job seekers can google themselves frequently, use a professional-sounding email address, keep social networks private, keep resume updated, create a profile on a networking site like LinkedIn, avoid responding to or posting salary history or requirements.

Answer the following question about "Eating Christmas in the Kalahari". 1. What was the basis of the misunderstanding experienced by Lee when he gave an ox for the Christmas feast held by the !Kung? 2. Construct a model of cross-cultural misunderstanding, using the information presented by Lee in this article. 3. Why do you think the !Kung ridicule and denigrate people who have been successful hunters or who have provided them with a Christmas ox? Why do Americans expect people to be grateful to receive gifts?

1. The bushmen ridiculed and insulted Lee by saying that the ox he bought was worthless. However, they were being facetious because they knew that the ox was actually considered a good size. Lee took their comments literally and thought that the ox wasn't good enough. In reality, it was part of their culture to ridicule successful hunters. 3. The Bushmen do this to teach young hunters humility. They discourage arrogance and boasting, saying that a man's pride will make him kill someone someday. They believe that there are no totally generous acts. All "acts" have an element of calculation. In America, we are taught not to be skeptical of good intentions and to always be thankful.

Ethnohistory

20. Ethnohistory involves working with archives, archaeological materials, oral histories to trace the history of cultures that have no written record.

Frame

A frame is a social construction of a social phenomenon. Social frames are often constructed by media sources, political movements, or other social groups to present a particular point of view about something. People can construct frames to advance a particular message they want listeners to hear. Framing is prevalent in advertising and politics. For example, in the phrase "war on poverty", the word war is used to emphasize the importance of winning the fight against poverty. This phrase became a model for naming other important policy initiatives, like the "war on drugs" and the "war on cancer". Another example of framing is the the naming of military operations by members of the U.S. armed forces in order to generate public support for military actions. Operations naming changed from a secret code to a positive statement designed to generate public support by 2001. Naming came to be seen as a form of public relations.

Kindred

A kindred is defined as a family group bound together by their kinship ties to one person, who is referred to as the ego. The ego's kindred consists of all of the people who are related to him or her. Based on bilateral descent. The kindred as a unit doesn't own any land or property, so it's not a corporate descent group, which means kindreds don't have continuity through the generations as do corporate kin groups based on a rule of descent

Icon (Metaphor)

A metaphor (Icon) is an analytical concept in which one idea stands for another b/c of some similarity they seem to share. It refers to its referent through resemblance or similarity. Ex: the American flag refers to the 13 original states through its 13 stripes; the cross represents Christianity because it refers to the cross Jesus was nailed to; games are often used as metaphors for life because both life and games involve competition and struggle; the Kwakiutl marriage ritual is a metaphor for warfare; eating is a metaphor for sexual activity

Index (Metonym)

A metonym (Index) refers to its referent through proximity. It refers to a part of something standing for a whole. Ex: The American flag mounted on a building may indicate that the building is a governmental office or the home of someone who is patriotic. Ex: The crown stands for the political authority of the Queen of England.

Nuclear family

A nuclear family consists of a husband, a wife, and their unmarried children

Give several examples of the ethnographic method from the readings.

Imagine an Inuit woman setting out to learn the culture of Macalester College. What would she have to do in order to understand the culture of Macalester college students, faculty, and staff? How would she avoid imposing her Inuit culture on everything she saw? First, she has to be reflexive. She would have to set aside her belief in naive realism and adhere to the idea of cultural relativism when observing and participating in the campus culture. This Inuit woman would have to begin by learning the language spoken by people at the college. She could stroll the campus paths, sit in classes, and attend special events, but only if she consciously tried to see things from the native point of view would she grasp their perspective. She would want to observe secretaries typing, janitors sweeping, and maintenance personnel plowing snow from walks. She would attend faculty meetings to watch what went on, recording what professors and administrators said and how they behaved. She would visit departments to watch faculty advising students. She would need to observe and listen to students around campus. She would sample various courses, attend "keggers" on weekends, and listen to students discussing things like their "relationships," the "football team," and "work study." She would want to learn the meanings of all these things. She would have to listen to the members of this college community, watch what they did, and participate in their activities to learn such meanings.

Salvage anthropology

In Boas' time, salvage anthropology referred to the gathering of ethnographic info about disappearing and threatened cultural practices. The aim of the anthropologist was to record as much of the traditional culture as possible before it disappeared.

Compare the Kwakiutl marriage with the American marriage given in Tapestry of Culture.

In the American wedding, the emphasis is on the bride and groom, which echoes the importance in American culture of the newly formed family as autonomous and separate from other families. The Kwakiutl wedding, on the other hand, was a total social phenomenon, which overshadowed the purpose of the wedding - to establish a new family. Religion was involved in the American wedding, as a priest officiated and Roman Catholic vows were exchanged. Similarly, the Kwakiutl marriage involved the recitation of myths linking people to their ancestors, a cornerstone of Kwakiutl religious belief. In a Kwakiutl marriage the whole underlying structure of Kwakiutl society is played out. In contrast, in America, where there has been more institutional separation, an entire wedding industry exists. In both Kwakiutl and American societies, all weddings are public ceremonies witnessed by guests. In both instances, the guests who attend the ceremony and communally eat the food perform the function of publicly witnessing a rite of passage. In both societies, prestige is determined by the size of the outlay, which, in turn, relates to the social status of the families involved. The more lavish the display, the greater the standing and renown of the participants and their families.

Incest taboo

Incest taboo is the term for the cultural rule that prohibits sexual intercourse and marriage between specified classes of relatives.

Informants

Informants are individuals w/in a fieldwork setting who provide cultural info to an anthropologist. Informants are native to the culture being studied and help the anthropologist to learn how to view things from the native's point of view

Key symbols

Key symbols are those symbols that are widely understood and carry a great deal of significance. For example, in American culture, "money," "freedom," "the individual," and "apple pie" are all key symbols.

Kinship

Kinship is defined as the complex system of social relationships based on marriage (affinity) and birth (consanguinity).

Kinship terminology

Kinship terminology refers to a set of terms used to refer to relatives.

Discuss the symbolism of gift-giving in several cultures.

Kwakiutl marriage potlach American gift-giving traditions Bushmen attitude toward gift-giving

Define langue and parole

Langue (language) refers to language and its grammatical rules. Parole (speech) refers to individual speech.

Linguistic Imperialism

Linguistic Imperialism refers to a situation in which a dominant group imposes its language on minority speakers of other languages. This decreases the amount of linguistic diversity, leading to monolingualism and language death

Linguistic relativity

Linguistic Relativity refers to a pov that emphasizes the uniqueness of each language and the need to examine it in its own terms. All languages are equally complex.

Linguistic universals

Linguistic universals refer to the properties that all languages have in common. They examine the similarities between different languages. For example, there are marked and unmarked categories in every language

Markedness

Markedness refers to the process whereby a category (the marked category) is distinguished from a larger, more inclusive category (the unmarked category) by the presence of a single attribute.