anthro 100

• Gender-exclusive language


  Terms that lump all people under masculine language or within the gender binary (man or woman)
• Gender-inclusive language


  Terms used to be more gender equitable
• TRANSGENDER AND GENDER NON CONFORMING (TGNC)


  Refers to people whose gender identity does not match their sex assigned at birth (e.g., men who were assigned female at birth) or gender expression does not match their gender identity (e.g., masculine women)
• Lived name


  Affirms their identity and/or expression and this is usually different from their legal name (or "dead name")
• Deadnaming


  Being called by one's legal name
• Misgendering


  Being called by pronouns or titles that do not affirm their gender
• Ethnography


  The process of describing a society's customary behaviors and ideas through first-hand experience and participant-observation, interpreting other people's ways of life
• Ethnographer


  A type of ethnologist who spends time living with, interviewing, and observing a group of people to describe their customs
• Anthropology's distinctive strategy


  • Requires field experience, traditionally focusing on small-scale, isolated societies but now also includes larger scales and online communities, examining flows of people, technology, images, and information
• Uses and limitations of ethnography

  Provides essential data for cultural anthropology studies but a single site or source may not suffice to test a hypothesis, necessitating multi-site or varied sources for comprehensive understanding
• Holistic perspective in ethnography

  involves viewing human beings from all angles, understanding culture in its local manifestation and in the wider global context, considering all influencing factors like history, politics, etc.
• Humanistic perspective in ethnography

  
  

  
  

  Focuses on people with the applied aim of reducing suffering and improving human conditions
• Emic Perspective

  
  

  Emic perspective focuses on local thoughts and categories (inside, specific)
• Common ethnographic techniques


  • Direct observation
  • Participant observation
  • Conversations
  • The genealogical method
  • In-depth interviewing
  • Problem-oriented research
  • Longitudinal research
  • Team research
• Methods employed in ethnographic research

  • Participant-observation
  • Ethnographic interviewing
  • Oral history
  • Surveys
  • Analysis of cultural materials
  • Ethnohistory
  • Participatory research
• Significance of fieldwork in anthropology

  • Fieldwork is central to anthropology, providing fundamental understanding and skills through prolonged residence and intimate participation in a community
• Subjective aspects and challenges of traditional fieldwork

  • Challenges include managing culture shock, the dilemma of "going native," and navigating the roles of outsider/insider and participant vs. observer. Ethical considerations include managing engagement and intervention to enhance social justice.
• Franz Boas


  "father" of fieldwork in American anthropology
• Bronislaw Malinowski


  established intensive fieldwork practices
• Chicago School


  pioneered urban ethnography
• Etic perspective 


  considers the anthropologist's broader observations and categories (outside, broader)
• Homo sapiens


  originated between 100,000 and 315,000 years ago from different regions in Africa. They represent a combination of physical and cultural evolution.
• life on Earth


  3.75 billion years
• physical evolution


  cumulative changes in biological makeup
• cultural evolution


  cumulative changes in thought and behavior
• Early Western ideas on evolution of 4th century BC Greek philosophers (Plato and Aristotle)


  animals and plants form a single graded continuum; humans on top of the scale
• Macrobius (Plotinus)


  “chain of being” - beings from God to the lowest of things linked together without break; therefore no species will become extinct
• 18th century (Carolus Linnaeus)  ideas on evolution 


  hierarchical classification of plants and animals – the framework for the idea that humans, apes, and monkeys have a common ancestor
• Jean-Baptiste Lamarck ideas on evolution

  species are not fixed in their form, inherit characteristics and therefore evolve
• Speciation 


  involves the development of a new species and may occur when a subgroup of a species encounters a radically new environment. This challenges earlier creationist views that do not support the emergence of new species through natural processes.
• Pace of divergence


  the traditional view is that evolution occurs very slowly over time; new species emerge gradually
• Creation


  -God created all living things 

  -Natural selection can only produce variation within species (microevolution) but not produce new species (macroevolution)

  -No empirical evidence to support this view
• • Natural Selection


  A process where traits that enhance survival and reproduction become more common in subsequent generations. For example, animals with thicker fur in cold climates are more likely to survive and reproduce, passing on this trait.
• Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913)


  -had a similar theory of “natural selection” at almost the same time

  -rejected the notion that each species was created at one time in a fixed form (thus also rejects biblical ideas of creation)
• Variation


  within each species, there is a great variety of individuals, some of which are better adapted to their environment than others 
• Heritability


  offspring inherit traits from their parents
• Differential reproductive success


  adaptive traits gradually become more frequent in subsequent generations because better-adapted individuals generally produce more offspring over the generations than poorer-adapted individuals
• Chromosomes


  In the nucleus of every cell of an organism (excluding bacteria and primitive plants); genes are located in chromosomes. humans have 23 pairs, or a total of 46 chromosomes
• Mitosis


  cellular reproduction, as each pair of chromosomes duplicates itself
• Meiosis


  when reproductive cells unite; only one member of each chromosome pair is carried by every egg or sperm; in humans, an embryo usually receives 23 separate chromosomes each from the mother and father, adding up to 23 pairs