ANTHROP 1AA3 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Anthropology, Biological Anthropology, Africa
12 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
ANTHROP 1AA3
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
Lecture 1
Anthropology
Introduction
• Looks at how culture mediates our daily lives and experiences.
• Interested in how learned behaviors (culture) shape how we think and act upon the
world.
• Look at why some sexual behaviors may be deemed immoral by some, why cultural
differences exist.
• 1 midterm 25% May 23rd, multiple choice.
• Final exam 35% June 13th, noncumulative, multiple choice.
• Four assignments worth 10% each.
What is anthropology
• This is not the study of dinosaurs.
• Anthropos = humankind.
• Logia+ study of.
• The systematic study of humankind in the past and the present.
• Cultural anthropologist talk and live amongst people.
• We study people across time and space.
Human culture
• Learned behaviors and beliefs that shape our human experiences.
• All anthropologists are interested in human culture.
• Learned behaviors, things we are taught.
• Things that shape our morality experiences.
• For example, in food, some cultures eat bugs but our culture really does not.
• We can look at how our beliefs are informed by learning, how we are taught.
• We are taught our religion, we are also taught gender roles, and different genders and
how to perceive them.
• We are enculturated to think in certain ways.
• If culture is learned how do we learn this?
• Family, school, mass media.
• This learning can be implicit or explicit.
Natural or biological
• We tend to think of a lot of our behaviors as natural or biological.
• But this is a dangerous mode of thinking.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• Not everything is inborn.
• It is exclusionary way of thinking, it is also learned.
• These are instilled in u.
• We are taught to think of it as something that course through our veins, like it has
genetic value.
• This is a bad way of thinking.
• Nationalism is an example.
Key tennets
• Key terms and instead that underlie that discipline.
Ethnocentrism
• all anthropologists fight against this.
• This is the idea that your cultural and its values are somehow right or superior to
another’s.
• You judge another culture based on standards of your own.
• Racism is a form of ethnocentrism.
• Because of your skin color you should be afforded more privileges.
• How they converted aboriginals to Christianity to save them.
• The idea that I am saving you is ethnocentric.
• I am right, my way of thinking is better than yours.
Cultural relativism
• Trying to adopt that understands another culture in its own terms.
• An ethnocentric approach would say that the belief in witchcraft is dumb.
• A cultural relativist would say I do not believe in it but I am interested in understanding
why you believe it.
• Asking how does this intersect with politics or local economics.
Four subfields of anthropology
• Physical/biological anthropology.
• You may study forensics, paleoanthropology.
• Archaeology.
• Medical, legal anthro, demographic anthro.
• Cultural.
• Linguistics.
• Applied anthropology.
Cultural anthropology
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Introduction: looks at how culture mediates our daily lives and experiences. If culture is learned how do we learn this: we are enculturated to think in certain ways, family, school, mass media, this learning can be implicit or explicit. Natural or biological: we tend to think of a lot of our behaviors as natural or biological, but this is a dangerous mode of thinking. Key tennets: key terms and instead that underlie that discipline. I am right, my way of thinking is better than yours. Four subfields of anthropology: physical/biological anthropology, you may study forensics, paleoanthropology, archaeology, medical, legal anthro, demographic anthro, cultural, linguistics, applied anthropology. Remember: no one anthropologist is an expert in all the fields, they apply the holistic approach, they are interdisciplinary, they study all different aspects of a culture and how they intersect. Definitions: peoepl tend to use the terms fender and sex interchangeably, they mean two idffernt thinkgs.
