The Anthropological Perspective
These are the four main subfields of anthropology.
What are biological anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology, and socio-cultural anthropology?
In his ground-breaking study on the Nacirema, Horace Miner managed to "estrange" this otherwise familiar practice by referring to it as "the private mouth rite."
What is brushing one's teeth?
_______ _________ involves the study of how culture shapes human perceptions and uses of the physical environment (and vice versa).
What is cultural ecology?
These are the two main forms of unilineal descent.
What are patrilineal and matrilineal descent?
This term refers to the principle according to which goods are exchanged (or a gift given) without expectation of immediate return.
What is generalized reciprocity?
This term refers to the tendency to apply one's own cultural values in judging the behaviours and beliefs of people in other societies.
What is ethnocentrism?
This term refers to the proposition that 'cultural differences should not be judged by absolute standards', and involves an attempt to understand specific cultural beliefs, practices, and values according to the terms of the culture being observed.
What is cultural relativity?
Nomadism is a common settlement pattern found among peoples who practice these forms of subsistence.
What are foraging and pastoralism?
What is filial piety?
This # movement among Inuit (and other) peoples, is a response to anti-sealing protestors.
What is the #sealfie movement?
Because the discipline of anthropology considers all dimensions of social life together, as interrelated parts of a whole, we can say that the anthropological perspective is this.
What is wholistic?
Knowing when to haggle or simply pay an advertised price in a marketplace is a form of cultural knowledge at this level.
Who is tacit cultural knowledge?
Land is perceived as private property in societies defined by this mode of production.
What is intensive agriculture? (And industrialism).
This is the most common form of cognatic descent, in which kinship is traced more or less equally through both parents' ancestral lines.
What is bilateral descent?
This is a type of social stratification whereby there is a certain degree of social mobility (i.e. where an individual can change her class status over the course of her lifetime).
What is an open class system?
This is the primary research method used by socio-cultural anthropologists.
What is participant observation (i.e. the ethnographic method)?
The opposite of etic, this is often considered to be an 'insider' perspective.
What is emic?
This is the belief that human beings have greater intrinsic value than other lifeforms.
What is anthropocentrism?
This term refers to a type of marriage pattern whereby one man can legitimately be married to several women simultaneously.
What is polygyny?
During her research in the Brazilian shantytown of Bom Jesus, Nancy Scheper-Hughes observed this practice, whereby parents neglect the needs of infants and children who appear too sickly to survive.
What is passive infanticide?
This term refers to the process by which an individual learns and accepts the values and practices of the cultural community to which they belong.
What is enculturation?
This belief system suggests that all living things are animated by spirits, not just humans.
What is animism?
This is the action or practice of moving livestock from one grazing ground to another in a seasonal cycle, typically to lowlands in winter and highlands in summer.
What is transhumance?
This term refers to a residence pattern whereby married couples live close to, or in the same household of the wife's family.
What is matrilocality?
Tibetans who practice fraternal polyandry explain the practice in these terms.
What are economic? (That practicing polyandry provides a higher quality of life for all people involved).