Terms
The careful watching of a group, in some cases, living with its members and participating in their culture.
Participant Observation
This research method has 3 forms, depending on how clear the researcher is on their topic. Can be flexible or rigid.
Interviews (structured, semi-structured, unstructured)
This figure's research is often criticized as being too subjective.
Margaret Mead, study of Samoan girls in the 1920s.
Which kind of anthropologist can help us to understand how gendered groups are oppressed?
Feminist Anthropologist
A small group within a larger group that shares a common system of values, beliefs, attitudes, behaviours, and lifestyle distinct from those of the larger group.
Subculture
People willing to share information about their culture and their community.
Informants
This figure proposed cultural relativism to counteract cultural evolution. "We cannot compare two cultures because each culture has its own internal rules that must be accepted."
Franz Boas
A proposed explanation for a phenomenon, in other words, an educated guess.
Hypothesis
The development of writing systems for Native languages, the maintenance and preservation of languages.
Linguistic Reconstruction
The idea that every belief, action, or relationship in a culture functions to meet the needs of individuals & society.
Functionalist Theory
Our brains are predisposed to learn language.
Noam Chomsky's Theory of Universal Grammar
Located in southwestern France, one of the most famous sites for prehistoric cave art.
Lascaux Caves
The process by which we learn to become members of a group through direct and indirect instruction.
Enculturation
Not judging a culture by our own standards of what is right or wrong, strange or normal. Instead, we should try to understand the cultural practices of other groups in their own cultural context.
Cultural Relativism
The study of how sounds are put together to make meaning.
Structural Linguistics
Considered significant because it offers a glimpse into the Ice Age world and the lives of early humans from as far back as 65,000 years ago.
Cave Art
The specific impact on a group's growth or views due to common experiences, like sharing a birth time, place, or historical era.
Cohort Effect
Aims to understand the effects of technological, economic, and demographic factors on moulding societal structure and superstructure through strictly scientific methods.
Cultural Materialism
The theory that almost everything that has not been created by nature is created by societies, which is why different cultures often see them in very different ways.
Culturally Constructed
Evaluating other people and cultures according to the standards of one's own culture.
Ethnocentric