UCSP ANTHROPOLOGY
Cards (40)
- Derived from the Greek words anthropos for “human” and logos for “study” is the study of humans, their origins, their development, and contemporary variations both biological and cultural, wherever and whenever they have been found.
- What are the sub-branches of Anthropology?
- It is an interdisciplinary study that combines other academic disciplines—including sociology, biology, psychology, political science, economics, history, and even the humanistic disciplines of philosophy, literature, and arts.
- the study of the human nature as a primate, his biological evolution, pathologies, and his contemporary racial variations.
- the study of complex human language and communication in past and present time. It examines language as a dynamic, arbitrary, symbolic and social phenomenon.
- the study of past cultures through the interpretation of artifacts, features, and ecofacts. It seeks to reconstruct the daily life and customs of peoples who lived in the past; to trace cultural changes and to offer possible explanations for those changes.
- the study of specific contemporary cultures (ethnography) and the more general underlying patterns of human culture derived through cultural comparisons (ethnology).
- What are the making of Anthropology?
- Early anthropology is rooted in the efforts of Western civilization to better understand the lands it was colonizing.
- Belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities.
- Belief that there are cultures or civilizations that are naturally determined to thrive and to go extinct.
- Belief that one's culture is better than other cultures, e.g. Orientalism (from Edward Said).
- Early modern anthropology began with the interest in excavating and discovering remains of ancient and classical civilizations for profit or for collection.
- Modern anthropology began when scholars started to study human societies using the scientific method of research and therefore produce theories about humans.
- Postmodern anthropologists embraced the idea that humans are uniquely diverse and thereby sought to erase the colonial past by rejecting and resisting the Western constructions of ethnocentrism by nativism, and cultural syncretism.
- Father of participant observation or field work in anthropology. He conducted research in the Trobriand Islands and other regions in Melanesia.
- A type of studying Anthropology where researching by sitting at a house's library and reading reports about other cultures written by travelers, missionaries, and explorers.
- A type of studying Anthropology where researching by inviting a native to the verandah or porch of the anthropologist for an interview. All information is coming from one.
- A type of studying Anthropology where researching by participant observation: living with the people for an extended period of time; participating in and observing people’s everyday life; and learning the local language.
- What are the approaches in Anthropology?
- A type of approach that using an insider's perspective, looking at the beliefs, values, and practices of a particular culture from the perspective of the people who live within that culture.
- A type of approach that using an outsider's perspective, looking at the beliefs and practices of a particular culture from objective and standardized measurements or concepts in normative disciplines.
- It is a general statement about how two or more facts are related to one another with an aim to either explain or predict, or both.
- That social events happen due to the will of the gods (hubris against gods, or mandate of heaven and the dynastic cycle), to the development of scientific attitude that produced Nomological Propositions
- laws or natural forces.
- belief that organisms have an innate tendency to evolve in a definite direction towards some goal (teleology) due to some internal mechanism or "driving force".
- A type of evolution by Natural Selection, from Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace: humans came from an earlier species that changed naturally to adapt to its natural environment.
- A type of evolution from Edward Tylor and Lewis Henry Morgan: human society evolved in three different levels: savagery, barbarism, and civilization.
- belief that all major inventions and all cultures can be traced back to a single culture. It believes that all societies change as a result of cultural spreading and borrowing from one another. Thinkers include Grafton Elliot Smith and William James Perry.
- belief that society and culture in general are similar to a biological organism, which parts work to support the operation and maintenance of the whole. It views culture in holism. Thinkers include Bronislaw Malinowski and Reginald Radcliffe-Brown.
- belief that human behavior and ideas as shaped mainly by biological features such as genes and hormones.
- belief that human behavior and ideas are shaped mainly by learning from others.
- belief that each society is a collective representation of its unique historical past. A society's environmental conditions, psychological factors, and historical experiences determine its culture, thus they naturally vary. Thinkers include Franz Boas and Marvin Harris.
- the idea that all cultures are unique and that a person's beliefs and practices should be understood based on that person's own culture.
- the idea that different cultural or racial groups in a society have equal rights and opportunities, and none is ignored or considered unimportant.
- those general cultural traits found in all societies of the world as basic needs: economic system, control system, belief systems, communication system; including universal human rights.
- belief that culture could be understood by studying what people think about, their explanations of their lives, and the symbols that are important to them.
- belief that culture could be understood by emphasizing the material aspects of life, including people’s environment, how people make a living, and differences in wealth and power.
- understand this as part of Allah's concern for humanity.
- see this as brought mainly because of political reason and the objectification of women.