Anthropology & Culture
What are the four major subfields of anthropology?
Cultural anthropology, biological anthropology, archaeology, and linguistic anthropology.
What research method involves participating in community activities while systematically observing them?
Participant observation.
What is a subsistence system?
The practices a society uses to obtain food.
What term refers to the ability to influence or control the behavior of others?
Power.
In cultural anthropology, is race understood as a fixed biological division of humanity or a social construction?
A social construction, rather than a set of discrete biological divisions.
What term describes judging other cultures by the standards of your own culture?
Ethnocentrism.
What is the difference between emic and etic perspectives?
Emic emphasizes participants’ own meanings and categories; etic uses analytical perspectives developed by researchers.
What subsistence strategy centers on raising and managing domesticated herd animals?
Pastoralism.
What is the difference between achieved and ascribed status?
Achieved status is acquired through actions or accomplishments; ascribed status is assigned, often at birth.
What is ethnicity?
A sense of shared identity based on cultural connections such as history, language, ancestry, or traditions.
What does cultural relativism ask anthropologists to do?
Understand beliefs and practices within their cultural contexts rather than judging them using outside standards.
What does informed consent require in anthropological research?
People receive understandable information about the research and voluntarily agree to participate.
What is generalized reciprocity?
Giving goods or assistance without expecting a specific or immediate return, often among close relatives or friends.
What is a lineage?
A descent group whose members trace their relationships through a known common ancestor.
What is racialization?
The social process of assigning racial meanings or categories to people, groups, or practices.
What is enculturation?
The process through which people learn the beliefs, practices, and expectations of their culture.
What is code-switching?
Using more than one language or language variety within an interaction or across social contexts.
How does redistribution differ from reciprocity?
Redistribution gathers resources at a central point and then distributes them; reciprocity involves exchange between individuals or groups.
How do matrilineal and patrilineal descent differ?
Matrilineal descent traces membership through the mother’s line; patrilineal descent traces it through the father’s line.
How is prejudice different from discrimination?
Prejudice involves attitudes or judgments; discrimination involves actions or practices that treat people unequally.
An anthropologist examines marriage alongside religion, law, economics, and family networks. What approach does this illustrate?
Holism: examining how different aspects of social life are interconnected.
An ethnographer explains not just what happens in a ritual, but the meanings and context participants attach to it. What concept describes this approach?
Thick description.
A household produces goods, but its choices are shaped by kinship obligations, values, and unequal access to resources. Why is a purely profit-based explanation incomplete?
Economic anthropology examines production, exchange, and consumption in their social and cultural contexts, including power and relationships.
Why should an anthropologist avoid assuming that marriage and family take the same form everywhere?
Marriage, kinship, and family are culturally shaped institutions with different rules, meanings, and obligations across societies.
Why can racial categories change across time and place even though human biological variation exists?
Racial classifications are produced by historical, political, and social processes; they do not map neatly onto discrete biological human groups.