Intro to Cultural Anthropology - Final
What is E.B. Tylor's influential definition of animism?
"Belief in spiritual beings.
What does the term religion mean, as we defined it in class?
"Religion includes three components: beliefs about the nature of supernatural powers, myths (stories) about the historical actions of such powers and culture heroes and symbolic rituals intended to influence them"
What are the three most common, culturally-valued reward categories that anthropologist talk about?
- Wealth - ownership or access to material goods - Power - ability to make others do what you want based on legitimate or illegitimate authority. - Prestige - approval of other group members to "worthy" individuals.
How do social scientists classify class status in the United States?
- Wealth is more measurable than other indications of class membership. - Wealth is the single biggest indication of benefits citizens are receiving. - Extremely high wealth is correlated with ownership of productive resources. - Wealth determines people's access to political power.
What percentage of annual income is received by the richest 5 percent of American families?
21.3
How is one more or less complex than the other?
A band is small and kingdoms are a lot bigger. In bands people tend to work more together.
What does the terms mana mean?
A diffuse power that exists in the universe. It can become "embodied" in objects or people, or, be an influence on its own.
What are Tylor's three stages of religion?
Animism - The most primitive Polytheism Monotheism - occurs in most complex, advanced societies.
What are the four main types of political organization and how do they structurally differ from one another.
Bands - Least complex form, Earliest form of human political structure Tribes - A political unit encompassing a number of distinct, geographically scattered communities. Formal leadership positions with limited authority, access based on inheritance and/or achievements. Chiefdoms - Centralized political systems with authority vested in formal, usually hereditary, offices or titles. Stratified society. States - Centralized, multilevel political unit characterized by the presence of a bureaucracy that acts on behalf of the ruling elite
About how many people are in a band, tribe, chiefdom and average state, as described in the lecture?
Bands - Probably a family size like 10-15 Tribes - Number between 1,000 to 20,000 people. Chiefdoms - Number from a few thousand up to about 30,000 States - Usually numbering tens of thousands to several million
According to the lecture, what was the change in the CEO to worker ratio from 1973 to 2002?
CEOs get richer: o 1973 getting 45x more o 1991 getting 145x more o 2002 getting 500x more
What are the three types of power discussed in class?
Coercive, hegemonic, and persuasive
What are different ways in which anthropologists classify rituals (hint - conscious)?
Conscious purposes - the reasons people themselves give for the rituals Timing - Calendrical, and Crisis
The bungee jumping men of Vantu represent an example of what type of ritual?
Conscious ritual It represents masculinity and celebration of the yam harvest
Who are the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert and what type of ritual do they signify?
Crisis ritual The healing dance - All-night events to cure individual or social illness.
What's the difference between calendrical and crisis rituals.
Crisis rituals - performed whenever an individual or group needs, wants or asks for them (good hunting, funerals, supernatural curing) Calendrical - Planned or scheduled - Jewish Calendar - Passover
Which of these three is the oldest?
Egalitarian
What's the difference between the egalitarian, ranked, and stratified societies
Egaltarian: - Little inequality in access to culturally valued rewards - Bands must move frequently. - Mobility makes it difficult to transport possessions. - Therefore there is little accumulation of possessions or wealth - High value placed on generalized reciprocity - Prevents individual persons from becoming more wealthy than their band mates. - Mobile foraging families are not tied to specific territories but have to visit and exploit the resources of many areas. - People can leave at any time. Ranked: - Limited number of formal social positions (offices, titles) that grant authority - Access to prestigious titles determined largely by family ties - Rights to resources allocated by those of higher rank. Stratified - Enduring inequalities between strata in access to all three kinds of rewards: wealth, power, and prestige. - Inequality may last through generations. - Inequalities are based primarily on unequal access to productive resources like land and tools. - Stratified = caste and class societies Caste: - Stratification system in which membership in stratum is in theory hereditary. - Strata are endogamous and relationships among members of different strata are governed by explicit norms and prohibitions. - Little to no movement between - Typically "locked in" - Preserved through formal law and culture - Marry in your class - Work determined by class - Social worth is caste bound Class: - System of stratification in which membership in a stratum can (theoretically) be altered and intermarriage between strata is allowed - Social stratification based primarily on access to resources, therefore, a person's status can change - Social mobility: the ability to change classes
What is the type of economic exchange that occurs in egalitarian societies?
Generalized reciprocity
Who in the world is Morton Fried?
He identified three types of societies based on their level and kinds of inequality by creating the inequality continuum: Egalitarian, ranked, and stratified.
Which one is most effective for social control?
Hegemonic power
What is the difference between the two types of stratified societies?
In caste societies there is no social mobility but in class societies it is allowed.
From the lecture, what has happened to the distribution of yearly income in the U.S. over the past few decades?
Income in the U.S. has divided rich and poor more
What is the self-help legal system?
Informal legal systems in societies without centralized political systems, in which authorities who settle disputes are defined by the circumstances of the case
What is the difference between a court of mediation and a court of regulation?
Mediation: Court systems in which the judge attempts to reach compromise solutions based on the norms, and values of the parties involved, which will restore the social cohesion of the community Legal concepts based on the reasonable person model. How would a reasonable person have acted under similar circumstances? Formal judges who have the authority to hear cases and impose sanctions Regulation: Courts systems that use codified laws, with formally prescribed rights, duties and sanctions
How were rituals defined in class?
Patterned, symbolic actions intended to connect with the sacred.
Why do anthropologists argue that the historic roots of global inequality reach all the way back to the 1500s?
Phase one began with European conquest of the Americas and established direct trade with Asia and Africa
What is the importance and unique structure of the multi-national corporation, particularly in regards to the nation-state?
Profit driven, for stockholders or investors
Who is Sir James Frazer and what was his bold, not-so-accurate, idea?
Science is a superior system of knowledge and it will replace magical and religious beliefs
What is the importance of "myths" and how anthropologists define them, in contrast to the common, everyday use of the term?
Sometimes myths explain how the entire universe was created. They may recount how and why people, animals, plants, and natural features originated. Myths may explain how a people acquired their tools and customs and how they came to live where they do. They often tell why people should or should not act in certain ways, and what happened to someone in the past who did something people are forbidden to do. Myths are not always false.
What is a court legal system and how does it differ from the self-help legal system?
Systems in which authority for settling disputes and punishing crimes are formally vested in a single individual or group. Self-help is informal and court is formal
How did we define inequality in class?
The degree to which individuals, groups, and categories differ in their access to culturally valued rewards
What does it mean that they exist on a "continuum"?
The system continues to repeat itself
What is the role of social mobility in stratified societies?
You can move classes based on factors other than heredity
