Anthropology Glossary

• Acculturation


  Cultural change due to contact with another culture.
• Agency


  Human capacity to act meaningfully, influenced by various factors.
• Agency-centred


  Anthropological research emphasizing human capacity to influence events.
• Alterity


  Concept of 'otherness' in anthropology, highlighting cultural differences.
• Analytical categories


  Outsider's classification of traits in a culture, providing cross-cultural understanding.
• Authority


  Exercise of power with the consent of others.
• Belief and knowledge


  Convictions and viewpoints shared by a social group, supported by cultural experience.
• Biomedicine


  Conventional western medicine in medical anthropology.
• Biopsychosocial model


  Interactions of biological, psychological, and social factors in wellness and disease.
• Capitalism


  Economic system controlled by private owners for profit.
• Causation


  One cultural feature's capacity to influence another.
• Change


  Modification of cultural or social elements in a society.
• Class


  Social division based on economic and social status.
• Classification


  Assigning common knowledge to describe people or things in a system.
• Cohesion-centred


  View emphasizing cohesion and consensus for society's proper functioning.
• Colonization


  Acquiring political control over another country for economic exploitation.
• Commodification/commodified body


  Transforming goods, services, or concepts into commodities of value.
• Communication


  Language's influence on social life, identity, beliefs, and cultural representation.
• Community


  Group sharing common interests, ecology, locality, or social system.
• Comparative


  Comparison of diverse ways people make sense of their world.
• Conflict


  Disagreements arising from differences in interests, values, or actions.
• Consensus


  Assumption of shared cultural values and beliefs across a society.
• Consumption


  Meaningful use of objects associated with individuals.
• Contextualization


  Making sense of anthropological data in its obtained location.
• Cosmology


  Perception of the universe and relationship description by social groups.
• Cosmopolitanism


  Community living with cultural differences.
• Cultural boundaries


  Fixed or redefinable cultural identity views.
• Cultural capital


  Knowledge acquired through socialization for successful interaction.
• Cultural relativism


  Understanding different cultures without value judgments.
• Culture


  Organized systems of symbols, ideas, beliefs, and material production.
• Development


  Economically advanced societies assisting less developed ones.
• Diachronic


  Understanding society and culture development through time.
• Dialectic


  Discussion and reasoning through dialogue for intellectual investigation.
• Diaspora


  Peoples dispersal to establish new communities in other places.
• Discourse


  Intellectual communication or debate in disciplines like anthropology.
• Embodiment


  Incorporating the social and material world biologically.
• Empirical


  Anthropological data acquired through first-hand observation.
• Enculturation


  Acquisition of characteristics and norms of a culture.
• Environment


  Complex relationship of communities with their physical setting.
• Essentialism


  Reducing social group description to limited characteristics.