Anthro week 1 flashcards:
Define anthropology
The study of humans (culture, biology ect)
Anthro Inside/ outside North America:
Inside- includes human biology and past/present
Outside- Focases on contemparary cultures
How does anthro distingish itself from other disaplines?
Focased on the study of humans by its use of evolutionary, comparative, field based and holistic prespectives
What is culture?
Ideology/ behaviour as well as the product of those thoughts and actions (what we call material culture)
The learned and shared things that people do and have as members of a society
Many components of culture are dynamic and not static
Define Cultural Relativism (essential for anthro)
Self awarness that your own terms of analysis, understanding and judgement are not universal and cannot be taken for granted
Define Ethnocentrism:
Belief that our own ways of customs and ways of undertsanding something are "normal" while other peoples practices are "weird, wrong or disgusting"
What are the 4 subfields of anthro?
Cultural/social
Archaeology
Biological
Linguistic
What is cultural/social anthro?
Study of cultures of the present and recent past
Often involves immersion in a culture for an extended peroid of time
Results in a ethnography (written description of a culture or an aspect of culture)
What is Linguistic Anthro?
Study of human languages using the framework of anthro
Includes:
Classifying/studying launguages to help determine migration patterns and intercations
Studying launguage change
Influence of launguages on other elememts of culture
What is Biological Anthro?
Study of human biology (past or present)
Includes the study of other primates
Includes palaeoanthropology (study of fossilized remains of early humans)
What is Archaeology?
Study of humans through the evidence of their past activities (artifacts and archaeological sites)
Very ancient times up to modern day (approx 50 years ago)
3 brief facts on the hustory of Anthro
1) Anthro emerged as a disapline in the 19th century
2)Colonialism played an important role in the development of anthro
3) Anthopological (adjacent exporations had occured before the 1800s)
Who is Lewis Henry Morgan?
Believed that humans went from savagery---barbarism----civilization
Cultural variations explianed by some societies moving up the ladder of cultural evolution quicker than others
What was the Burreau of American Ethnology?
Created to collect info on the various indigenous peoples living in the continent through ethnological and archaeological reserch
Reserch of Indigenous peoples was popular because of the idea that their cultures were rapidly dissapearing
What was the golden age?
Late 1800/early 1900
Anthropolists would collect, buy, steal objects from Indigenous peoples for museums
Who was Franz Boas?
Did lots of work on the Indigenous peoples of the Pasific Northwest
He was critical of Morgans model of evolution
Contributed to the development of cultural relativism and historical particularism which became central components of North American anthro
Who was Margret Mead?
-Wrote the book "The coming of age in Samoa" which was a study of adolecents in Samoa and shocked many people on her conclusions about sex amoung Samoan girls
Who was Ruth Benedict?
Wrote the book, "Patterns of Culture"
Compared three differnet cultures to demonstrate that each was a intergrated cultural unit that made sence on its own terms
Popularized the concept of "Cultural Relativism"
Also worked for the US governmnet to provide reccomendations on treatement of post-war Japan
Who was Edward Sapir?
Established "Anthropoligical Divison in the geological survey in Canada"
Major contribution to linguistics, ecpecially with Indigenous launguages and also advocated for Indigenous rights