Perspectives: An Open Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Exam | Questions &
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Anthropology - the study of humanity, including its prehistoric origins and contemporary
human diversity
Culture - a set of beliefs, practices, and symbols that are learned and shared. Together,
they form an all-encompassing, integrated whole that binds people together and shapes
their worldview and lifeways.
Cultural determinism - the idea that behavioral differences are a result of cultural, not
racial or genetic causes.
Cultural evolutionism - a discredited theory popular in nineteenth century anthropology
suggesting that societies evolved through stages from simple to advanced.
Cultural relativism - the idea that we should seek to understand another person's beliefs
and behaviors from the perspective of their own culture and not our own.
Enculturation - the process of learning the characteristics and expectations of a culture
or group.
Ethnocentrism - the tendency to view one's own culture as most important and correct
and as the stick by which to measure all other cultures.
Ethnography - the in-depth study of the everyday practices and lives of a people.
Going native - becoming fully integrated into a cultural group through acts such as
taking a leadership position, assuming key roles in society, entering into marriage, or
other behaviors that incorporate an anthropologist into the society he or she is studying.
Hominin - Humans (Homo sapiens) and their close relatives and immediate ancestors.
Deductive - reasoning from the general to the specific; the inverse of inductive
reasoning. Deductive research is more common in the natural sciences than in
anthropology. In a deductive approach, the researcher creates a hypothesis and then
designs a study to prove or disprove the hypothesis. The results of deductive research
can be generalizable to other settings.
Inductive - a type of reasoning that uses specific information to draw general
conclusions. In an inductive approach, the researcher seeks to collect evidence without
trying to definitively prove or disprove a hypothesis. The researcher usually first spends
,time in the field to become familiar with the people before identifying a hypothesis or
research question. Inductive research usually is not generalizable to other settings.
Paleoanthropologist - biological anthropologists who study ancient human relatives.
Participant-observation - a type of observation in which the anthropologist observes
while participating in the same activities in which her informants are engaged.
Armchair anthropology - an early and discredited method of anthropological research
that did not involve direct contact with the people studied.
Functionalism - an approach to anthropology developed in British anthropology that
emphasized the way that parts of a society work together to support the functioning of
the whole.
Structural-Functionalism - an approach to anthropology that focuses on the ways in
which the customs or social institutions in a culture contribute to the organization of
society and the maintenance of social order.
Holism - taking a broad view of the historical, environmental, and cultural foundations of
behavior.
Kinship - blood ties, common ancestry, and social relationships that form families within
human groups.
Participant observation - a type of observation in which the anthropologist observes
while participating in the same activities in which her informants are engaged.
The Other - a term used to describe people whose customs, beliefs, or behaviors are
"different" from one's own
Contested identity - a dispute within a group about the collective identity or identities of
the group.
Diaspora - the scattering of a group of people who have left their original homeland and
now live in various locations. Examples of people living in the diaspora are Salvadorian
immigrants in the United States and Europe, Somalian refugees in various countries,
and Jewish people living around the world.
Emic - a description of the studied culture from the perspective of a member of the
culture or insider.
Etic - a description of the studied culture from the perspective of an observer or
outsider.
, Indigenous - people who have continually lived in a particular location for a long period
of time (prior to the arrival of others) or who have historical ties to a location and who
are culturally distinct from the dominant population surrounding them. Other terms used
to refer to indigenous people are aboriginal, native, original, first nation, and first people.
Some examples of indigenous people are Native Americans of North America,
Australian Aborigines, and the Berber (or Amazigh) of North Africa.
Key Informants - individuals who are more knowledgeable about their culture than
others and who are particularly helpful to the anthropologist.
Land tenure - how property rights to land are allocated within societies, including how
permissions are granted to access, use, control, and transfer land.
Noble savage - an inaccurate way of portraying indigenous groups or minority cultures
as innocent, childlike, or uncorrupted by the negative characteristics of "civilization."
Qualitative - anthropological research designed to gain an in-depth, contextualized
understanding of human behavior.
Quantitative - anthropological research that uses statistical, mathematical, and/or
numerical data to study human behavior.
Remittances - money that migrants laboring outside of the region or country send back
to their hometowns and families. In Mexico, remittances make up a substantial share of
the total income of some towns' populations.
Thick description - a term coined by anthropologist Clifford Geertz in his 1973 book The
Interpretation of Cultures to describe a detailed description of the studied group that not
only explains the behavior or cultural event in question but also the context in which it
occurs and anthropological interpretations of it.
Undocumented - the preferred term for immigrants who live in a country without formal
authorization from the state. Undocumented refers to the fact that these people lack the
official documents that would legally permit them to reside in the country. Other terms
such as illegal immigrant and illegal alien are often used to refer to this population.
Anthropologists consider those terms to be discriminatory and dehumanizing. The word
undocumented acknowledges the human dignity and cultural and political ties
immigrants have developed in their country of residence despite their inability to
establish formal residence permissions.
Arbitrariness - the relationship between a symbol and its referent (meaning), in which
there is no obvious connection between them.
Bound morpheme - a unit of meaning that cannot stand alone; it must be attached to
another morpheme.
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