Key terms for midterm

Four-field anthropology: Archaeology, Linguistics, Physical Anthropology and Cultural

anthropology
The Crystal Palace: steel and glass plated structure in hyde park during the Great Exhibition to show
technological advances
The age of equipoise: Production of National Consciousness
Sociocultural evolution: The narrative of progress
Denial of coevalness(for primitive people): to stand in as the living history of prehistory of the
European gentlemen
Salvage anthropology
The comparative method of early anthro is the methodology of sociocultural evolution
studies of customs of Ptimititiveppl as they represent various
chronological stages
The historical method of American anthropology : that we should study customs relative to their
culture as a whole, not all people

Fieldwork: going into the field and seeing how the natives their lives , living among them
-participant observation -interviews - -surveys
Ethnography: detailed, qualitative account of the results of filedwork, not only does it describe the
observations but analyzes the meaning
Colonialism and anthropology
Cultural relativism:an individual person's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in
terms of that individual's own culture
Interpretive anthropology: interprate throught their society
What is culture?: system of symbols and meanings, David Schnieder, Culture is learned, shard, and
particular not universal
Race: classification of human groups based on selected criteria that tries to correlate physical forms
with mental, temperaments, and behaviors ; race seems obvious not becsause its natural but because its
socialcultural
Scientific racism:use of scientific and pseudo-scientific techniques and hypotheses to support or

justify the belief in racism, racial inferiority, or racial superiority, or alternatively the practice of
classifying individuals of different phenotypes into discrete races.
Nature v.s. culture
Race as a social construct: made my society
Naturalization: the idea of race being natural because of our society
Anthropology as social critique: critiques how people used
Race as a social construct:
Naturalization :

Cosmology:the science of the origin and development of the universe. Modern astronomy is dominated
by the Big Bang theory, which brings together observational astronomy and particle physics.
Creation myth
Map(s) of the world
Fluidity of space: not all spaces are map-able
Nation-state: to relate one ppl to one place , ie mexicans in Santa Ana
Diminishing circles of influence: the farther away from the king u are, the less influence
Cyberspace
Liminality (Victor Turner): betwix and between, flux and ambiguity, like drinking in college is
socially seen as a given
Temporality: time sense (EP Thompson); how we make sense of time, how we order events
Nuer time (Evans-Pritchard): Ecological Time: time that relates to nuer and their natural
environment
Structural Time: reflects the nuer social structure
Alienation
Cattle time (or cattle clock): task oriented
Task-orientation: orient our time based on daily tasks like cow herding
Clock time: measuting time off of te clock

Family workshop v.s. factory production

family: entire production takes place work and lives inseperable, work is personal
factory: wages based on work/time, work lives seperated, workers alienated
Alienation: seperating from others
Kinship: ppl we consider relatives
Genealogy: family tree based on blood
Consanguinity and affinity: related by blood vs. by marriage/law
Lineal and collateral kin: lineal kin are ancestors that are your direct ancestors or descendents. Your
collateral kin is all other blood relatives
Descriptive v.s. classificatory system: descriptive: all kids of a generation can call each other bro/sis
and all adults from the gen b4 can be called mom/dad
class: only one called mom/dad, others called aunt uncle, cousins
Fijian kinship: kinship in terms that don't have to do with genetics, like the way the bros are fam
Symbolic anthropology: the study of cultural symbols and how those symbols can be interpreted to
better understand a particular society. It is often viewed in contrast to cultural materialism.
Genetic determinism: mechanism by which genes, along with environmental conditions, determine
morphological and behavioral phenotypes. Basically how we appear and are
Socialization: the lifelong process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs, values and
ideologies, providing an individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within their
own society.
Youth culture: Started mid-20th century; rise of compulsory education and consumerism; appear
"rebellious" but often conformity to "in-group"
Fetishization of youth: American culture; Fetish (natural object believed to have supernatural powers
or created object that has power over people)
School culture - school is a site where popular culture is enacted; it is where social constructions of
race, gender, and class are stages and reproduced
Learning and enactment: verb phrases are memorized better if a learner performs the described action
during learning, compared to just getting the verbal information or seeing someone else perform the
action
Eurocentrism:viewing the world from a European perspective and with an implied belief, either
consciously or subconsciously, in the preeminence of European culture.
Egalitarian societies- the idea of egalitarian society, westerners often see classless societies as a model

for egalitarian societies, however this model ignores gender equalities. Engalitarian society is that in
which all people are equal , completely; all humans are equal in fundamental worth or social status
Gender inequalities- inequality based on sex. Biological sense/social sense
Naturalization- biological, given, innate, supposed to be. This is the process by which the formation of
power-laden gender relations are based on biological origins, as discussed in the article "The Egg and
the Sperm" by Emily Martin.
Neutralization: a coping technique to justify, deny, or rationalize deviant behavior.
Achieved status: a social position that a person can acquire on the basis of merit; it is a position that is
earned or chosen
Ascribed status: the social status a person is assigned at birth or assumed involuntarily later in life. It
is a position that is neither earned nor chosen but assigned.
Mind-Body separation- separation of mind from physical body. Spirit different from body. Example is
when someone believes they are sick when they actually are not
Body image- how we seem what we see, and what we do to our bodies. In representations of the boy,
as in life, multiple points of view contribute to a truth that is constantly rewritten.
Body-Self -body as self-lived. Anthropology studies the lived experience of the body self. Instead of
presupporting body as biological entity, the study of the body-self focuses on bodily experiences and
techniques of the body.
Body politic- refers to the regulation, surveillance, and control of bodies (individual and collective) in
reproduction and sexuality, work and leisure, in sickness and other forms of deviance and human
difference
Social body -rather than fixed, knowable biological object, the body is understood in diverse ways by
various medical and traditions. The body is used representationally as a natural symbol with which to
think about nature, society, and culture
Embodiment: a tangible or visible form of an idea, quality, or feeling
Commodity fetishism: is the collective belief that it is natural and inevitable to measure the value of
useful things with money.
Panopticon : a circular prison with cells arranged around a central well, from which prisoners could at
all times be observed
sovereign power - massive force, repression; power as held or wielded; bodies to be oppressed or
liberates; bodies as objects to be acted upon
disciplinary power - Productive power of surveillance and visibility; suffuses each/every relationship;
bodies as inventions of technology that make body and person visible, analyzable, and manipulable

Biopower: self regulation/control- produces certain kinds of bodies

Subjectification: the construction of the individual subject.
Commodification: the transformation of goods, services, ideas and not least people into commodities
or objects of trade. A commodity at its most basic, according to Arjun Appadurai, is "any thing intended
for exchange," or any object of economic value.
One-kidney communities: Pallipalayam village and Villivakkam are two major centres of kidney
supply and sales. Extreme poverty and indebtedness have pushed hundreds of their residents to sell
their kidneys.
Material culture: the physical evidence of a culture in the objects and architecture they make, or have
made. The term tends to be relevant only in archeological and anthropological studies, but it
specifically means all material evidence which can be attributed to culture, past or present.
Food taboo: not all edible things considered food
Politics of traveling: Anthro as product of traveling 2. relation between who can't and who can travel
3. mobility as question of power
The Silk Road: Trade route; silk, spices, religion, camels/horses/people
"Free Trade" (British and Chinese) : (unrestrained?) trade under and after colonialism; from luxury
goods to everyday commodities; transforms taste and produces national culture; irreversible changes on
producer nations
Nationalism: formation of collective identity- one people, territory, culture, and language
Nurture: Cultural influences (as opposed to nature- biological influences); how we "learn" to become
who we are
Global cities: NY, London, Tokyo
Fordism: is a term widely used to describe (1) the system of mass production that was pioneered in the
early 20th century by the Ford Motor Company or (2) the typical postwar mode of economic growth
and its associated political and social order in advanced capitalism.
Flexible accumulation/flexibility: the shift that both intensified the capitalist processes and opened
new spaces to the penetration of capital
Postmodernism: articulates that the world is in a state of perpetual incompleteness and permanent
unresolve
Cultural contestation: The process whereby values and meanings of social actions are disputed, rather
than merely accepted, often referring to aspects of class struggle

Opium Wars: two wars in the mid-19th century involving Anglo-Chinese disputes over British trade in
China and China's sovereignty. The disputes included the First Opium War (18391842) and the
Second Opium War (18561860). The wars and events between them weakened the Qing dynasty and
reduced China's separation from the rest of the world