Anthropology [Final Exam]
"Putting Out" System
A means of production, common in the 16th and 17th centuries and surviving today, in which a manufacturer or merchant supplies the materials and sometimes the tools to workers, who produce the goods in their own homes.
Sedentary
A mode of livelihood characterized by permanent or semi-permanent settlements
Industrial Revolution
A period of European history, generally identified as occurring in the late 18th century marked by a shift in production from agriculture to industrial goods, industrialization, and the factory system.
Refugee
A person owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.
Nation-State
A political community that has clearly defined territorial borders and centralized authority.
Drapetomania
A supposed mental illness described by American physician Samuel A. Cartwright in 1851 that caused black slaves to flee captivity
Factory System
A system of production characterized by the concentration of labour and machines in specific places. It is associated with the Industrial Revolution
Multiculturalism
A term that Eva Mackey defines as a Canadian policy in which all hyphenated cultures, such as African-Canadians and French-Canadians, are described and celebrated as part of a "cultural mosaic." Contrast with the "cultural melting pot" image that is used in the United States.
Bands
A term used by anthropologists to refer to egalitarian units of social organization, found mostly among foragers, that usually consist of fewer than 100 people
Clans
A unilineal descent group whose members claim descent from a common ancestor
Nostalgia
A wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time:
Slash-and-Burn (or swidden) Agriculture
A.K.A. Swidden Agriculture A mode of livelihood in which forests are cleared by burning trees and brush, and crops are planted among the ashes of the cleared ground.
The Cherokee Removal
A.K.A. Trail of Tears Forced removal in the 1830s of 125,000 Native Americans from their homes in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the Oklahoma Territory, along the route known as the Trail of Tears. A product of: - the demand for arable land during the rampant growth of cotton agriculture in the Southeast - the discovery of gold on Cherokee land - the racial prejudice that many white southerners harbored toward American Indians.
Structural Violence
Actions of remote government or international agencies that result in denial to the poor of basic rights of food, shelter, or livelihood
Transnational
Involving more than one nation-state; reaching beyond or transcending national boundaries
Lubicon Cree
The Lubicon Lake Indian Nation is a small aboriginal society living in northern Alberta, Canada who have been struggling for over sixty years to gain recognition of their aboriginal land rights to their traditional territory. During the 1970 liquid gold rush, the province of Alberta leased areas of the Lubicon lands for resource exploration and exploitation. The oil, gas, and lumber industry on Lubicon territory has caused damaging repercussions on the natural environment, the Lubicon culture and people
Phenotype
The appearance of an organism resulting from the interaction of the genotype and the environment.
Physiognomy
The art of determining character or personal characteristics from the form or features of the body, especially of the face.
Eugenics
The attempt to identify the most desirable human traits, specify the individuals who possess them, and, through selective reproduction, enhance the number of people possessing those desired characteristics.
Cultural Change
The changes in meanings that people ascribe to experience and changes in their way of life
State
A form of society characterized by a hierarchical ranking of people and centralized political control
Race
A culturally constructed form of identity and social hierarchy, race refers to the presumed hereditary, phenotypic characteristics of a group of people. These physical or phenotypic differences are often erroneously correlated with behavioural attributes.
Irrigation Agriculture
A form of cultivation in which water is used to deliver nutrients to growing plants
Disadvantages of Mixed Genres
- As scholars who focus on narratives note, the stories we tell are not a privileged form of understanding, nor do they offer any intrinsic insight into the world: stories can be perceptive or lead us astray and can either contest or buttress the viewpoints of the most powerful. - While stories are often a way that people attempt to convey their experiences, stories are not direct windows onto these experiences - What we share with each other are our interpretations of our experiences, not the experiences themselves. - not completely objective and academic - Danger of romanticizing personal experiences
Horticulturalists Social Organization
- Emphasis on extended family groups. - Descent important for distribution of wealth and property. - Status distinctions based on wealth are common, but status mobility is usually possible
State Socieites Social Organization
- Emphasis on nuclear family. - Family is strongly patriarchal, with women holding low status. - Strong bonds of inter-generational dependence built on inheritance needs. - Social distinctions between people are emphasized, sometimes based on occupations. - Little or no status mobility.
State Societies Political Organization
- Highly developed state organization with a clear hierarchy of authority. - Often a 2-class society with rulers (landowners) and peasants. - Authority of the elite backed by organized use of force (police or army) - Warfare for purpose of conquest is common - Well-established mechanisms for resolving conflict (e.g., courts) exist side by side with informal mechanisms
Hunter Gatherers Political Organization
- Informal political organization. - Few, if any, formal leaders. - Conflict controlled by limiting group size, mobility, and flexibility of group membership. - Little inter-group conflict.
Horticulturalists Political Organization
- More formalized political organization, often with well-established leaders or chiefs. - Increased population density and wealth result in increased potential for conflict - Inter-group warfare, motivated by desire for wealth, prestige, or women, is common.
Hunter Gatherer Social Organization
- Small family groups whose purpose = economic cooperation. - Few status distinctions other sex and age. - Marriage for economic partnership and inter-family alliance
Class
A form of identity informed by perceptions of an individual's economic worth or status. It is also a form of social hierarchy
Advantages of Mixed Genres
- Telling personal stories = looking inward but turning self outward & tracing the links and relationships that shape and define who we are as individuals & broader social worlds we are a part of. - Raw and personal account can shatter dominant or stereotypical narratives - countering the dominant narrative - stories form a potential meeting ground - personal experience (creates theory) and analysis (makes sense of experiences) are equally recognized - Storytelling about our lives forces acknowledgement of our social position in world - Personal narratives = good for showing people and class in motion.
"Axes of Continuity" in Euro-American Ideals
- The Dualist Axis - The Control Axis - The Gender/Power Axis Susan Bordo related these axes to anorexia
Linear Time
- time is seen as linear - movement through time is seen as progress. - Peoples who seem to live in the same ways as our ancestors, without changing, are understood to be primitive, and stuck in the past.
Nation
A collection of people who share a common language, world view and ancestry
Caste
A form of social stratification and identity in India where individuals are assigned at birth to the ranked social and occupational groups of their parents
Agroecological Approaches
Agricultural methods that incorporate indigenous practices of food production along with contemporary agricultural research yet preserve the environment
Sherry Ortner
Americans often use other social categories such as gender and race as surrogate ways of thinking and talking class.
Neoliberalism
An economic philosophy that argues for minimal government involvement in the economy and greatly accelerated economic growth. Well-being, neo-liberals argue, is best served by liberating individual entrepreneurs to operate in a framework of strong property rights, free markets, and free trade - often synonymous with globalization
Factory Model
An energy-intensive, ecologically damaging form of agriculture intended to grow or raise as many crops or livestock as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Ethnicity
An ethnic group; a social group that shares a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like.
Achieved Status
An identity that is believed to be in flux and that is dependent upon the actions and achievements of an individual
Ascribed Status
An identity that is perceived as fixed and unchanging because a person is believed to be born with it. In Canadian society, race is often assumed to be ascribed at birth
Paul Farmer
Anthropologist and MD whose work in Haiti addresses health problems among the poor of that country from a joint medical/cultural perspective (medicine, human rights, and anthropology) Example of applied anthropology - knowledge of anthropology critical for solving health problems in Haiti. - Liberation theology is a powerful rebuke to the hiding away of poverty. - health is a human right and medical workers & social scientists are able to address problems of structural violence & engage w/ poor in the spirit of pragmatic solidarity.
Applied Anthropology
Anthropology that applies anthropological data, perspectives, theory, and methods to identify, assess and solve contemporary social problems. -often, but not always, done outside of the academy
Dualist Axis
What's wrong with bodies? - Treats body as something alien - Body becomes a confinement or a limitation - Body and mind have conflicting needs - Body threatens us with a loss of control
Max Weber
Class is cross-cut with other social categories that are not reducible to economic relations (status, prestige, honour, religious affiliation, educational status, etc.) - therefore, multiple factors could bring about historical change. - class has as much to do with what people think about it as it does with actual economic status who is higher class: a factory owner or an office worker? a police officer or a professor? Weberian perspectives don't do enough justice to the internalized effects of class.
Karl Marx
Class is understood to be based primarily on one's economic location within the relations of the capitalist mode of production. - inter-class conflict is the prime mover of history. Marxist perspectives don't take into account anything but economic status
Market Externalities
Costs that are not included in the prices people pay, such as health risks, waste disposal and environmental degradation.
Samuel Morton
Craniometry (measuring skull shape and size) and intelligence. Persons intelligence is related to the size of their brain; the larger the brain, the more intelligent the person. He concluded that whites were not only socially superior but also biologically superior.
Gender
Culturally constructed ideals of behavior, dress, occupations, roles and comportment for particular sexes.
Walley and Class
Historically social classes have been determined in economic terms - overlooking other forms of individual and collective identity, like race and gender. Can't focus definition of class exclusively on culture, ethnicity and identity without covering economic relations of inequality. - this would take away critical edge of class Argues we need to join both forms of definition. By defining class through culture and economics - this would allow class to be a critical analytical tool for understanding the world and a frame of action necessary for changing it. Revitalization of concept of class = necessary to replace self-destructive with constructive anger among some groups within the U.S., while challenging disengagement or self-interestedness among others, and to find anyway forward at all. "Ties that bind" as theoretical and ethnographic framework
Stephen Jay Gould
Debunked Morton's work Concluded that Morton had simply selected or rejected certain data to ensure that the results confirmed what he most and most other Americans "knew": that whites were naturally more intelligent than the people they called Indian or black. Discovered there was no difference between difference races skulls.
Globalization
Defined by Anthony Giddens as the intensification of worldwide social relations that link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away, and vice versa Economic and cultural effects on interconnected locales and people
Public Anthropology
Demonstrates the ability of anthropology and anthropologists to effectively address problems beyond the discipline -often, but not always, done from within the academy
Bourdieu
Distinction and social capital. We tend to experience class not just in terms of money, but in terms of preferences, experiences, emotions, dress, styles of talk, etc., that distinguish us from other classes, and which are hard to change, regardless of social mobility.
Samuel Cartwright
Drapetomania Inventor of the 'disease' of drapetomania and an outspoken critic of germ theory
Sex
Hormonal, chronosomonal, or physical differences between men and women.
Hutterites
Example of a complex yet mostly non-stratified society - Hutterite communities developed during the Protestant Reformation in Europe - Believe in communal living and what they deem "proper" Christian practice (avoid violence, competition, pride, envy & individual property ownership) - Everyone contributes to work the land, and everyone shares in the profits. - very rich - can compete w/ other farms cause they don't pay for labour - Society is ranked by age and gender—not completely egalitarian
Nancy Sheper-Hughes
Example of public anthropology
International Monetary Fund
Formed in 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference to regulate currency transactions among countries. The IMF now makes loans and regulates the economies of lending countries.
Francis Galton
Founder of modern statistics and eugenics. Race, class and intelligence Main argument was that mental and physical features are equally inherited—a proposition that was not accepted at the time.
Anthony Giddens
Globalization is "the intensifiction of worldwide social relations in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away, and vice versa"
Richard Lee
Helped provide a good description of Ju/'hoansi foraging activities. - Ju/'hoansi are constantly on a quest for food. But Ju/'hoansi never exhausted their food supplies. - Found that the Ju/'hoansi's environment provided ample readily accessible food. - Conducted a careful study of Ju/'hoansi work habits. Concluded that contrary to the stereotype that foragers must struggle with limited technology to obtain the food they need for survival, they do not have to work very hard to make a living.
Modes of Livelihood
Hunter Gatherers: Hunting, gathering, and fishing. Horticulturalists: Slash-and-burn agriculture with mixed livestock herding. State Societies: Plough or irrigation agriculture
Durkheim
Individuals tend to choose to act according to their social identity.
Great Chain of Being
It details a strict, religious hierarchical structure of all matter and life, believed to have been decreed by God.
Structure
Larger forces such as political economy, institutions, ideologies, etc.
How does Walley challenge dominant narratives of the relationship between globalization and deindustrialization?
Lazy narrative: US industries were able to compete globally, they were more profitable than Japan before they were closed - even though Japan was subsidized. - US industries forced to compete internally, not as profitable as high finance industry or technology industry. deindustrialization & globalization = inevitable economic process leading to globalization: There were many things that the government did which led to deindustrialization, it could have been prevented. - US deregulation of corporate activity & high finance - lack of antitrust enforcement - rewriting of bankruptcy laws the changes brought about by deindustrialization were not only economic - changes to social classes - pressure to increase short-term profits rather than long-term stability Globalization benefits all: - massive human cost that affected only a specific part of population - the poor or working class. - deindustrialization has hurt large parts of the population - Restricted social mobility (much harder for working class to move up to middle class) - goal of globalizing companies not to leave particular regions, but rework labour relations between management and workers in ways that benefit company shareholders.
Susan Bordo
Links modern consumer culture directly to the formation of gendered bodies Traces the connection between culture and female disorders and emphasizes the fact that disorders such as anorexia and bulimia cannot simply be defined from medical and psychological standpoints but must be viewed from within a cultural context, as "complex crystallizations of culture"
Precautionary Principle
States that if a product or process poses risks to health or the environment, scientific certainty is not necessary in order for other countries to prohibit or control that product or process.
Marshall Sahlins
Suggested that foraging represented the "original affluent society" with minimal work and plenty of leisure time.
Leslie White
Technology provided more efficient ways to get food, and societies evolved accordingly
Disaster and its "doubles"
The 'double' refers to the social and political responses to the catastrophe that amplify its disastrous effects to the extent that is it difficult to say which is worse—the killer hurricane or the national response to it
World Bank
One of the institutions created at the Bretton Woods, New Hampshire meeting in 1944 of Allied nations. The World Bank (or the Bank for Reconstruction and Development) functions as a lending institution to nations largely for projects related to economic development
Racial traits as arbitrary and Subjective
Physical traits are inherited independently. - the presence of dark skin doesn't always correlate with curly hair, much less with, say, intelligence. Divisions of biological populations by physical traits are arbitrary and subjective. Mixed race (black/white) would be: - black in U.S. and Canada - Moreno (brunette) in Brazil - coloured in South Africa during apartheid.
Race vs. Ethnicity
Race insists on "natural" or biological explanations Ethnicity is based on a shared sense of identity, and a relationship to other groups
Essential Concepts of Race Vs. DNA distribution
Races, as discrete biological categories, do not exist. Race is not a biological category, but it is an important social category. - 94% of DNA differences occur within so-called racial groups - conventional racial groupings differ from each other in only about 5% of their genes. - there is more genetic difference within "races" than between them.
Racisms
Racism is plural - racisms - modes of exclusion, inferiorization, subordination, exploitation. Racism has many forms and guises that are socially and historically specific. Thinking of racism as plural allows us to think about how race overlaps with ethnicity, nationality, gender, class, etc.
Racism
Refers to the discrimination and mistreatment of particular 'racial' groups
White Privilege
Refers to the fact that in many societies, "white" people have access to greater power, authority, and privileges than non-white people. • Positioning of white people at the top of racial hierarchies
Indigenism
Ronald Niezen A term used to "document the international movement that aspires to promote and protect the rights of the world's first peoples"
Henry Lewis Morgan
Societies chose an easier, less dangerous, more productive way to get food, and in doing so, "evolved" from savagery to barbarism to civilization.
Progress
The idea that human history is the story of the steady advance from a life dependent on the whims of nature to a life of control and domination over natural forces
Population Density
The number of people in a given geographic area
Social Stratification/Hierarchy
The ordering and ranking of individuals (and groups) within society. Those at the top of the hierarchy are generally afforded more power, wealth, prestige, or privileges in a society. Hierarchies can be based on race, gender, class, caste, ethnicity, national affiliation, or other factors. Normally based on pervasive systems of inequality that privilege particular groups over others. Often closely linked to the division of labour but not tied to it.
Agency
The power of individuals to choose what to do, how to act, based on intention (there must be alternatives in order to have agency) - Agency suggests people make poor choices. - But people also have agency to resist, manipulate, or negotiate within structures.
Free Trade
The removal of barriers to the free flow of goods and capital between nations by eliminating import and export taxes as well as subsidies paid to farmers and business people. It may also mean reducing environmental or social laws when they restrict the flow of goods and capital.
Economic System
The rules, mechanisms, and systems of relations through which goods and services are distributed and people get what they want.
Economic Development
The term used to identify an increase in level of technology, and by some, standard of living of a population. Others view it as an ideology based on three key assumptions: (1) that economic growth and development is the solution to national as well as global problems; (2) that global economic integration will contribute to solving global ecological and social problems; and (3) that foreign assistance to undeveloped countries will make things better.
Scientific Racism
The use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to support or justify the belief in racism, racial inferiority, or racial superiority, or alternatively the practice of classifying individuals of different phenotypes into discrete races. Classification of natural order • Applied to human 'races' • Humans can be broken down into four distinct groups
"Crystallization of Culture" in Body Ideals
The way that various cultural logics and values come together and sustain each other, in "real" embodied form through body ideals. E.g. fatness as beauty for Azawagh Arabs or the tyranny of slenderness in North America
Mark Cohen
When population density in a given geographical area reached a point where different groups began to bump into one another, or when groups found they had to travel farther and farther to get enough food to feed a growing population, they began to cultivate their own crops The historical transition from foraging to simple agriculture was a necessary consequence of a discovery or invention that was adopted because it made life better. Cohen and others argue that agriculture didn't make life better at all; in fact, it made life worse
Gender/Power Axis
Why Women? - Involves our social norms that relate to the meaning of the body - Includes our understanding of gender norms and our beauty norms - The anorectic's distorted image of her body indicates common female misperceptions
Control Axis
Why here and why now? - Follows off of dualist axis - Need to re-establish control through domination of the body and its desires - Bordo thinks that contemporary era is more obsessed with the control of the unruly body than the previous eras
Deindustrialization
a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially heavy industry or manufacturing industry. It is the opposite of industrialization.
Dominant Narratives of Relationship Between Globalization and Deindustrialization
•When the steel mills began closing in Southeast Chicago, many people attributed deindustrialization to global competition and the supposed inability of US industries to keep up. - workers were overpaid and lazy, outworked by global competition, - U.S. steel industry & other heavy manufacturing couldn't keep up w/ foreign competition (i.e. Japanese) •Globalization framed as inevitable process - US businesses have to restructure to compete globally - have 2 make hard choices, like shutting down unprofitable & inefficient manufacturing facilities - although painful in short run these changes would benefit all workers by keeping US economy dynamic - Deindustrialization = positive. Part of the process of creating a more advanced & global economy. •The future for the US, as business observers saw it, lay in a knowledge- and service based economy, or one that emphasized high finance.
