Cultural/Social Anthropology Final Exam

Transgender

A gender identity or performance that does not fit with cultural norms related to one's assigned sex at birth.

Descent Group

A kinship group which primary relationships are traced through consanguine ("blood") relatives.

Affinal relationships

A kinship relationship established through marriage and/or alliance, not through biology or common descent.

Asexuality

A lack of erotic attraction to others.

Shaman

A part-time religious practitioner with special abilities to connect individuals with supernatural powers or beings.

Martyr

A person who sacrifices his or her life for the sake of religion.

Gender Stereotype

A preconceived notion about the attributes of, differences between, and proper roles for men and women in a culture.

Monogamy

A relationship between only two partners.

Pilgrimage

A religious journey to a sacred place as a sign of devotion and in search of transformation and enlightenment.

Rite of Passage**

A ritual that enacts a change of status from one life stage to another, either for an individual or a group. First stage, separation (physically, psychologically, or symbolically) from the normal day-to-day activities of the group. Second stage, liminality, a period of outsidership during which the ritual participant is set apart from normal society to gain a new perspective on the past, present, and future. Final stage, reincorporation where the ritual participant reintegrates into the community, transformed by the experience of liminality.

Religion

A set of beliefs based on a unique vision of how the world ought to be, often revealed through insights into a supernatural power and lived out in community

Marriage

A socially recognized relationship that may involve physical and emotional intimacy as well as legal rights to property and inheritance.

Clan

A type of descent group based on a claim to a founding ancestor but lacking genealogical documentation.

Lineage

A type of descent group that traces genealogical connection through generations by linking persons to a founding ancestor.

Family of Orientation/Family of Procreation

Although people are born into a Family of Orientation (in which they grow up and develop life skills), when they reach adulthood they are expected to detach from their nuclear family of orientation, choose a mate, and construct a new nuclear Family of Procreation (where they reproduce and raise their own children).

Ritual

An act or series of acts regularly repeated over years or generations that embody the beliefs of a group of people and create a sense of continuity and belonging.

Anomie

An alienation that individuals experience when faced with physical dislocation and the disruption of social networks and group values.

Intersexual**

An individual who is born with a combination of male and female genitalia, gonads, and/or chromosomes.

Saint

An individual who is considered exceptionally close to God and is exalted after death.

Gender Stratification

An unequal distribution of power and access to a group's resources, opportunities, rights, and privileges based on gender.

Symbol

Anything that signifies anything else.

Arranged versus Companionate Marriage

Arranged marriages are orchestrated by the families of the bride and groom to ensure reproduction and continuation of the kinship group and build alliances with other kin groups. Companionate marriages are marriages built thinking of love, intimacy, and personal pleasure -not social obligation- as the foundation to build families and kinship relations.

Heterosexuality

Attraction to and sexual relations between individuals of the opposite sex.

Homosexuality

Attraction to and sexual relations between individuals of the same sex.

Bisexuality

Attraction to and sexual relations with members of both sexes.

Gender Violence

Forms of violence shaped by the gender identities of the people involved.

How and when was heterosexuality constructed as the western cultural norm

Heterosexuality was not talked about until around 1892 after translation of German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebbings work Psychopathia Sexualis. Before then, sex was considered just for procreation in America. Sex for pleasure went against God's ideals.

Sacred

Holy

The Egg and the Sperm (gender ideologies influencing science)

In 1991 Emily Martin discusses how reproduction in taught in stereotypical ways. The egg acts "femininely" and the sperm behaves in a "masculine" way. The egg "is transported" or "swept" along the Fallopian tube while sperm are "streamlined" and very active. They "deliver" the genes to the egg and "activate the developmental program of the egg".

Marx: "Opiate of the Masses"**

Karl Marx warned that religion was like a narcotic: it dulled people's pain so they did not realize how serious the situation was. Marx argued religion played a key role in keeping the proletariat (working class) from engaging in the revolutionary social change that he believed was needed to improve their situation.

Sex work

Labor through which one provides sexual services for money.

Machismo and Sexuality in Nicaragua

Machismo is the strong, sometimes exaggerated performance of masculinity. This idea shapes relationships between men and women, but also between men and other men.

A story reflecting/creating gender ideologies

Man the Hunter, Women the Gather

Endogamy

Marriage inside the group.

Exogamy

Marriage outside the group.

Harris: Cultural Materialism**

Marvin Harris believed that cultural materialism, including technology and the environment, determine patterns of social organization. Like in India where eating cows is prohibited because of Hinduism. Harris believed this is because cows and oxen are essential to India's agriculture. Oxen are the tractors and cows dung is used as fertilizer and cooking fuel. Religious dedication protects this resource no matter the economic situation.

Weber: Protestant Ethic and Secularization**

Max Weber believed that ideas, religious or not, are equally powerful. Weber suggested that Asian religious beliefs and ethical systems had stood in the way of capitalist economic growth and had kept Asian economies from developing along the western European path.

Human sexuality compared to other mammals

Most other mammals live individually and meet only to have sex, most mammals engage in public sex, most mammals only have sex while the female of the species ovulates, all human women go through menopause but other mammals are fertile throughout their lives, and humans, dolphins, and bonobos are the only mammals to have sex for fun.

Transnational Adoptions

Rise in transnational adoptions offers insights into the influence of globalization on the construction of kinship across national borders.

Polygyny**

Several marriages between one man and two or more women.

Polyandry**

Several marriages between one woman and two or more men.

Caster Semenya case

South African Olympic gold medalist in the 800-meter August, 2009. Stripped of her medal and prize money and barred from international competitions when Australian track and field association filed charges against her saying she was not a woman. Birth certificate showed designation as female, but her powerful physique, vocal quality and running power elicited questions. After investigation, medal and prize money was returned and was allowed to compete internationally again. Results of investigation were not released.

Assisted Reproductive Technologies

Technologies such as artificial insemination, surrogacy, and cloning that make implications for cultural constructs such as family and kinship progressively more complex.

Boy-inseminating rituals in Papua New Guinea

The Sambia of Papua New Guinea believed that adult men needed to supply boys with semen to ensure their development into manhood. Ceremonies took place in men's ritual lodges, boys performed fellatio on older men to receive their semen. This ceremony created masculinity, made young men warriors, and prepared them for marriage with women.

Sexuality

The complex range of desires, beliefs, and behaviors that are related to erotic physical contact and the cultural arena within which people debate about what kinds of physical desires and behaviors are right, appropriate, and natural.

Gender

The expectations of thought and behavior that each culture assigns to people of different sexes.

Dowry

The gift of goods or money from the bride's family to the groom's family as part of the marriage process.

Bridewealth

The gift of goods or money from the groom's family to the bride's family as part of the marriage process.

Nuclear Family

The kinship unit of mother, father, and children.

Medical Migration

The movement of disease, medical treatments, and entire healthcare systems, as well as those seeking medical care, across national borders.

Sex

The observable physical differences between male and female, especially biological expressions related to human reproduction.

Sexual Dimorphism

The phenotypic differences between males and females of the same species.

Kinship

The system of meaning and power that cultures create to determine who is related to whom and to define their mutual expectations, rights, and responsibilities.

Magic

The use of spells, incantations, words, and actions in an attempt to compel supernatural forces to act in certain ways, whether for good or for evil.

Gender Performance

The way gender identity is expressed through action.

Cultural Construction of Gender**

The ways humans learn to behave as a man or woman and to recognize behaviors as masculine or feminine within their culture context.

Sex Tourism

Travel, usually organized through the tourism sector, to facilitate commercial sexual relations between tourists and local residents.

Profane

Unholy

Rite of passage and communitas

Victor Turner believed that the universal practice of and experience of ritual reveals an underlying desire for community and connection.

Sexual Violence

Violence perpetuated through sexually related physical assaults such a rape.

Mati Work in Suriname

Women in Suriname engage in Mati Work, establishing relationships of mutual support, obligation, and responsibility with other women. Could live together or not, may share a child in rearing, may engage in sexual relationships with both men and women simultaneously or consecutively. Relationship with men may center on having children or receiving economic support, but Mati generally prefer "visiting" relationships over marriage with men to maintain their independence.

Critical Medical Anthropology

analyzes impact of inequality and stratification. There are connections between poverty, disease and health

Medical Anthropology

studies health inequalities, epidemiology (study of disease and pathogens) and interpretation (how do different cultures understand health and sickness)

Illness and health are more than just biological states

they are experienced differently by individuals, and also understood differently via cultural diversity.