Anthropology 411 Final Exam Review Sheet PDF

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Week 1: Anthropology: Study of people, humankind, culture

Holism: the perspective on the human condition that assumes that mind, body, individuals, society, and the environment interpenetrate, and even define one another. Comparative: one compares different social and cultural phenomena between cultures 4 Fields of Anthropology: linguistic, cultural, biological, archaeological Culture: system of beliefs, knowledge, patterns or behaviors, artifacts and institutions that are created, learned and shared by a group of people - Ken Guest Culture: Culture, or civilization, taken in its broad, ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilitie and habits acquired by man as a member of society - E.B Taylor Characteristics of Culture: way of life, contains subcultures and universals, continuously being reworked and created, shared and transgenerational, socially constructed, taught, tells us what is right and normal Enculturation: the gradual acquisition of the characteristics and norms of a culture or group by a person, another culture, etc.

Subcultures: a cultural group within a larger culture, often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture.

Universals: Aspects of culture that a majority of cultures share (ex. language) Week 2: Ethnocentrism: Seeing the world/cultures through your eyes only (ex. eating with your hands is weird), one’s own culture is superior than another, only one way to do things Cultural Relativism: 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. Culture Change: modification of a society through innovation, invention, discovery, or contact with other societies Globalization: intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa Five Scapes of Globalization: ethnoscape, technoscape, ideoscape, financescape, mediascape Syncretism: Two cultures intersecting Types of Violence: Emotional, physical, structural Structural Violence: Systematic—and systemic—ways a social structure or institution harms people or groups of people (ex. powerful few over weaker majority) (ex. Cultural domination, environmental exploitation) Consequences of Progress: Disease, dietary change, teeth decay, malnutrition, depletion of resources

Standard of living: One measure of progress—ethnocentric, not universally applicable Quality of life: Does progress/economic development increase or decrease a give culture’s ability to satisfy the physical and psychological needs of its Population? (ex. Poverty level, working conditions) Armchair Anthropology: Reading books, not doing fieldwork Cultural Evolutionism: Cultural evolution” is the idea that human cultural change––that is, changes in socially transmitted beliefs, knowledge, customs, skills, attitudes, languages, and so on––can be described as a Darwinian evolutionary process Social Darwinism: Theory of evolution that justified hierarchical ranking of social classes within any society, Social classes/inequality based on an innate placing of groups of people and individuals Psychic unity of mankind: all humans share a basic mental framework. Historical Particularism: First american anthropology school of thought, rejected the cultural evolutionary model Cultural Determinism: culture in which we are raised determines who we are at emotional and behavioral levels.

Nacirema: “America” spelt backwards, example of ethnocentrism (ex. Weird traditions actually ended up being American traditions) Emic: within the social group (from the perspective of the subject) Etic: from outside (from the perspective of the observer) John Bodley: “The Price of Progress”, standard of living vs quality of life, SOL does not tell the whole story, consequences of progress (see above), can progress be considered a form of violence? “Then there were none”: Native Hawaiians, “To millions of travelers the world over, Hawai‘i is an alluring picture postcard paradise. But to its Native Hawaiian people, nothing could be further from the truth” Charles Darwin: Suggested all humans have evolved from the simplest to most complex forms of life, cultural evolutionism Louis Henry Morgan: Three progressive stages (see below), studied american indians + romans, psychic unity of mankind, comparative Three Progressive Stages: savage, barbaric (agriculture, domestication of animals), civilized (begins with writing) Franz Boas: father of american anthropology, fieldwork, historical particularism, cultural determinism, led early 1900’s reaction to evolutionary and racist thinking Horace Miner: Nacirema reading, “shown them to be a magic-ridden people. It is hard to understand how they have managed to exist” Week 3 ● Linguistic Anthropology: The study of how people communicate and use language ○ How is language linked to how we see the world?

○ How does language change over time? And for what reasons? ○ How do we use language? ■ To make meaning, create, maintain, denote identify, and/or represent or invoke power relations? ● Archaeology Anthropology: Study of human cultures, those of the past ○ How can we learn about past people? ○ Look for clues! Artifacts, remains of structures, burials, Sites’ ■ Archaeology is NOT… ● Treasure hunting ● Adventure seeking ● Interested in dinosaurs (paleontologist) ● The Archaeological Cycle:

● Kinds of archaeology ○ Prehistoric ○ Classical ○ Historic ○ Underwater ● Physical/ Biological Anthropology ○ Evolution of primates and hominins from fossil records, comparative anatomy, studies of social structure and behavior ○ Skeletal Biology: ■ Studies anatomically modern humans from archaeological contexts ■ Understand diseases and conditions experienced by past people

○ Human Biology and adaptation: ■ Study anatomy, physiology and reproduction of contemporary humans to understand effects of social status and other factors on growth/ development ■ Ex: ● How do humans cope with low oxygen pressure at high altitudes? ○ Three cultural case studies with unique biological adaptations (above 8000 ft/2500m) – all examples of long-term physiological adaptation and in hostile/challenging environments: ■ Andean Altiplano, South America ■ Tibetan Plateau, Asia ■ Ethiopian Highlands, east Africa ● Long term physiological effects ○ Andeans ■ More hemoglobin in red blood cells-- allows them to carry more o2 ■ “Hematological route” ○ Tibetans ■ Increase oxygen intake, more breaths per minute ■ “Respiratory route” ■ Also have expanded blood vessels ○ Ethiopians ■ Higher hemoglobin levels, variation in gene controlling mitochondrial function ( production of ATP chemical) ● Socio-Cultural anthropology ○ How do people live? ○ What are their beliefs? How do people understand and explain the world around them? ○ How can we begin to understand and explain the diversity of opinions and perspectives and types of knowledge? Week 4 Ethnography: the scientific description of the customs of individual peoples and cultures. Ethnology: traditionally written work but now includes film, audio and photography. Includes all aspects from field work (ex. Process of entering, methods, data, ethical questions or issues)

Fieldwork: intense long term research, total immersion in culture and language, separates pros from amateurs, both scientific and objective. “Equipped principally with a way of looking at things, the fieldworker is expected somehow to seize on all the essentials of a strange way of life and to bring back a record that will make this comprehensible as a whole to others who very likely will never see this people in their living reality” (Mead, 24). Anthropologists must learn the culture without embodying it in order to become its accurate chroniclers (Mead, 25) Longitudinal study: Intense long-term study (Mead, Malinowski) Participant observation: living among other people, learning language, eating native food, participating in daily life, brings first hand knowledge and experiences, which leads to deeper insights, real vs. ideal behavior Native point of view: the goal is to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world”, what is important to the native people? Imponderabilia of daily life: routine happenings, real substance of social fabric Culture shock: The experience of stress and confusion resulting from moving one from culture to another; the removal or distortion of familiar cues and the substitution of strange ones, can occur both entering and existing a culture Key informant: people who know you the best, an expert source of information. Cultural Barriers: language, gender, race, religion, age, Gate Keepers: people who help you get into a culture/ community, refer to persons who are able to arbitrate access to a social role Qualitative: interviews and stories, thick description (ex. Life stories, focus groups) Quantitative: numbers and measurements Informed consent: permission granted in the knowledge of the possible consequences, typically that which is given by a patient to a doctor for treatment with full knowledge of the possible risks and benefits. Field Notes: qualitative notes recorded by scientists or researchers in the course of field research, during or after their observation of a specific phenomenon they are studying. The notes are intended to be read as evidence that gives meaning and aids in the understanding of the phenomenon. Ethical considerations: 1. Does the presence of the anthropologist affect behavior? 2. Are anthropologists “using” their informants for info and data? 3. Are informants “using” anthropologists (to gain $$ or prestige)?

4. Is publishing personal stories potentially damaging? 5. Can an anthropologist get too close? What is the danger of “going native? AAA’s code of ethics: 1. Do No Harm 2. Be Open and Honest About your Work 3. Obtain Informed Consent and Permissions 4. Weigh Competing Ethical Obligations 5. Make Results Accessible 6. Protect and Preserve Records Claire Sterk: research methodology, ethical dilemmas, “Tricking and Tripping” (fieldwork on prostitution in the era of aids) Malinowski: participant observation, founder of ethnography + fieldwork, Trobriand Islands in the South Pacific, studied economic transactions and kinship, forced to stay in South Pacific for a long time Margaret Mead: participant observation, longitudinal studies, 5 decades 7 trips, Papua New Guinea (Manus Island), returned to community time after time, most publically know anthropologist, studied how teen evolved, had the best native point of view for people who will never witness this culture. Richard Lee: “Christmas Ox” story, bought a culture a skinny ox, native people shit on him for it, Lee was confused as to why people were shitting on him so he began to ask questions to key informants and gatekeepers “Doing Anthropology”: ? Week 5: Applied anthropology: ● Use of anthropological skills, knowledge, resources, and experience to help in the solution of human problems ○ AKA: practicing anthropology, engaged anthropology, public anthropology ■ What are some of these skills? ■ Types of knowledge? ■ Types of experience and/or resources? ● Murray- wood in Haiti ● Hormel & Spam- how to thrive in a “kale and Quinoa” world ● What does anthropology offer the “real” world

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○ It is essential, in seeing like an anthropologist, to be willing to understand other people’s perspectives and respect their ideas. As an anthropologist, I am not required to believe in Gumzanjela. However, my training and education prepare me to understand and to begin to see the world from a perspective founded in that belief. My ability and willingness to see reality from perspectives other than my own are essential skills—the ability to see what some people do not see and hear what some people do not hear. Anthropology can connect the activities of international development efforts to cultural values so they work together instead of against each other. The identification of the comprehensive belief system in which the food taboos were embedded, for example, opened up new avenues for practical, culturally respectful solutions to the problem of poor nutrition for women and children. (Cochrane, 9) Example of applied anthropology at work? ○ Cultural anthro ■ Development anthro, medical anthro, corporate anthro(intel) and (red associates) ○ Archaeology ■ Cultural resources management(CRM), Contract archaeology ○ Bio/Physical anthro ■ Forensic anthro in guatemala and forensic anthro on the border ○ Linguistic anthro ■ Preserving endangered languages (Oaxaca) Gerald Murray, anthropologist ○ Had done ethnographic fieldwork on land tenure in haiti ○ Understood the economic system and culture ○ Was able to design a variable forestry development project Issues with projects ○ Others didn't understand land tenure system ○ Haitians feared govt run systems 3 main strategies of Murray’s project? ○ technical ■ Fast growing trees ■ Lightweight seedlings ■ Border planting and intercropping methods ○ Benefit flow ■ Make wood trees one more cash crop for the peasants ■ Shorter delay of profit with 4 year trees ■ Wouldn't interfere with crop planting ■ Govt wouldn't own-each would get 500 seedlings to do with as they wished

○ institutional ■ Put money in everyone/anyone but the govts hands ■ Major region to each of 3 agro-foresters ■ Document in creole, not french ■ Involved villagers to help with trains ● Results of Murrays project: Original goal

Actual outcome

3 mil trees

20 mil trees

6000 peasants

75000 peasants

4 years

4 years

● Harvesting is slower than expected ○ Trees are becoming the “bank” for the peasants )leaving the trees for future emergencies)

● In what parts of the project can we see an anthropological influence? ○ In-depth knowledge of culture and history ○ Development with communities in mind ○ Time spent in the field ○ Language ○ Trust ● In hormel’s own words:.. ○ “We forget that food is sometimes one of the most emotional parts of our life. She is really able to sense that emotional connection and the role that food plays for people. You will never find that in any focus group.” ○ “For us, it wasn’t necessarily about trying to drive for the business solution as much as it was trying to have her help us understand the unarticulated need.” ● Medical anthropology ○ Rests on the belief that medicine and illness are also impacted by culture ● An anthropological approach.. ○ Distinct from other social sciences of medicine: ■ Grounded in ethnographic methods: Long-term participant observation research, ethnographic interviews, “native’s point of view” ● Biocultural approach

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○ Considers the cultural, environmental and biological aspects of health issues and how these interact within and across populations ○ adaptive and maladaptive traits… Health ○ Absence of disease ○ Presence of physical, mental, and social well-being disease ○ Medical condition ○ Definable and identifiable ○ Can be observed, measured ○ Treatable by health professional Illness ○ Patient’s experience of sickness ○ How one feels, thinks, talks about it, experiences it ○ Culturally defined ■ Understanding of diseases ● Ex: culture-bound syndrome, somatic Types of medicine? ○ Bio-medicine- “western medicine” ■ Apply principles of biology/natural sciences to diagnosing and treating disease ■ Illnesses are a result of identifiable agents ● medication , surgery, invasive treatments ● Pathogens, malfunctions, failure of body/systems ■ (past) assumptions of biomedicine: ● Tends to separate mind and body (and body from social experiences, ex:headache story) ● Knowledge of biomedicine is based on objective fact ● Biomedicine is universally applicable ○ Ethno-medicine ■ Comparative study of cultural ideas about wellness,illness, and healthy ● Medicinal practices and beliefs of a particular group of people ● Local systems of health and healing ■ Ethno-etiology: Cultural explanations for the underlying causes of health issues ● Personalistic vs. naturalistic

(all medical systems = ethnomedicine because they develop from a “particular, local cultural reality”)

● Does ethno-medicine work? ○ yes , often because: ■ Over 90% of illness is self-healing ■ There is a powerful connection between mind and body ■ “Placebo effect”: response to treatment that occurs because the person receiving the treatment believes it will work, not because the treatment itself is effective ● Thinking like an anthropologist: ○ Healthy bodies are produced by a complex interaction between genetics, the environment and cultural (Biocultural perspective) ○ Keep asking yourself- as you think about your own health and illness, and that of other: ■ How does culture shape our ideas of health and illness? ■ How can anthro help solve health care problems ■ Why does the distribution of health and illness mirror that of wealth and power? ■ How does globalization change the experience of health/illness and the practice of medicine around the world?

Week 6: ● Animal vs human capacity for language? ○ Can animals communicate like humans? ■ Chaser the border collie ■ Alex the parrot ■ Koko the gorilla meets mister rogers ● Language, symbols, culture, and communication ○ Human culture is a system of symbols and meanings ○ Language is a key system of symbols■ Organized by certain rules, to convey info ● Various rules and aspects of language ○ Phonemes ■ “C” or “B” ○ morphemes ■ “cat “ ■ Or “bat” ○ Syntax ■ “My cat” vs “gato Mio” ○ Kinesics and paralanguage

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○ Paralanguage = nonverbal communication (ex. Voice tone, facial expressions) Socio-linguistics ○ The study of the ways in which culture shapes language, language shapes culture, and particularly the intersection of language with cultural categories/systems of power like race, gender, class and age. Gender communication ○ What a difference gender makes?? ■ Friends episode Keith Basso, “to give up on words..” ○ Cultural and linguistics anthro ■ University of NM ○ Communications across cultural boundaries can lead to many misunderstandings and uncertainties ○ Can a lack of language- or silence- also shape the way we see the world? Silence among the western apache ○ According to Basso, what are the six ways silence is used in apache culture? ○ What is the critical factory in an apaches decision to be silent? ○ How might an outsider, analyzing from an etic perspective, interpret their actions? Sapir-whorf hypothesis ○ Language is a shaping force which predisposes people to see the world in a certain way, guides their thinking behavior ○ Different languages = different ways of thinking ■ Ex: hopi verb tenses and ideas about time Zuni ○ A language of the American southwest exhibits two terms that we might translate as “yellow” Benjamin Lee whorf “science and linguistics” ○ “The background linguistic system [in other words, the grammar] of each language is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather is itself the shaper of ideas. . . . We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native language. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds —and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds.” ○ Language shapes the world/cultures around us Our own digitized vocabulary: ○ Mouse

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Modem Download Attachment Email Text Tweet google ■ Recent creations that facilitate communication in our digital world

● Pidgin ○ Simplified, makeshift ○ Pidgin english: Gullah ● Creole ○ When pidgin becomes mother tongue ○ Haiti...