ANTHRO 136K Study Guide - Winter 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Feminism, Black People, Sexual Orientation
12 Oct 2018
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ANTHRO 136K
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
ANTHRO 139K - Lecture 1 - Basics of Cultural Anthropology
Cultural Anthropology
●The comparative study of human cultural diversity among all peoples in all places
throughout history.
●This involves critical, historical contextualization to understand how different cultures
encounter and interact with each other.
●Emphasis is placed on case studies for comparative analyses.
Anthropology is Holistic
●Cultural anthropologists attend to all details of a culture.
●In American anthropology Franz Boas established the four field system to support the
holistic approach:
○Cultural anthropology
○Physical anthropology
○Linguistics
○Archaeology
●Public, applied, and politically engaged anthropology are gaining in importance.
Culture
●A system of meanings embedded in symbols about the experiences that are shared by a
group of people and passed on from one generation to another.
Characteristics of Culture
●Integrated within a bounded, yet malleable, system.
●Articulates human wants and needs.
●Learned
●Shared
●Taken for granted
●Arbitrary
●Always changing
●Always debated
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●Always involves relations of power
Society
●A distinct, relatively autonomous community whose members share social institutions.
●Their social relations are embedded in, and expressed through culture.
●They interact according to social categories that are shaped by culture:
○Roles
○Norms
○Mores
Incommensurability
●The difficulty for members of a culture to communicate with or understand another
culture
Cultural Relativism
●The attempt to understand the beliefs, meanings, behaviors, etc., of other cultures in
the context of their culture, history, and environment.
●The RELATIVISTIC FALLACY: Nothing about a culture is wrong
Ethnocentrism
●The tendency to judge other cultures from the perspective that one’s own culture is
correct and superior.
●The ETHNOCENTRIC FALLACY: Nothing about a culture is right.
Constructionism and Essentialism
●ESSENTIALISM: Human behaviors are unchangeable and rest on bedrocks, origins, or
independent forces that result in individuals or groups of people being different from
others.
●CONSTRUCTIONISM: Human behaviors emerge, are shaped, persist, and change
through continual interactions among the contexts of different social, cultural,
environmental, and historical settings
Ethnography
●The ethnography is the anticipated result of anthropological research.
●It can represent elements of a culture or cultures through text, sound recordings,
photographs, video, film, other digital formats, and any combination therein
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Document Summary
Anthro 139k - lecture 1 - basics of cultural anthropology. The comparative study of human cultural diversity among all peoples in all places throughout history. This involves critical, historical contextualization to understand how different cultures encounter and interact with each other. Emphasis is placed on case studies for comparative analyses. Cultural anthropologists attend to all details of a culture. In american anthropology franz boas established the four field system to support the holistic approach: Public, applied, and politically engaged anthropology are gaining in importance. A system of meanings embedded in symbols about the experiences that are shared by a group of people and passed on from one generation to another. Integrated within a bounded, yet malleable, system. A distinct, relatively autonomous community whose members share social institutions. Their social relations are embedded in, and expressed through culture. They interact according to social categories that are shaped by culture:
