-
Anthropology
4 of 5 Major Areas of Research
Cultural
Biological
Linguistical
Archaeology
- Anthropology - the academic discipline that studies all of humanity
- Cultural - (also called social anthropology, sociocultural anthropology and ethnology) - Differences and similarities in contemporary and historically recent cultures; causes and consequences of sociocultural change; impacts of globalization and contacts on the world's peoples.
- Biological - (also called physical) - Comparisons of human anatomy and behaviour with other primate species; physical (genetic) variation among human populations; biological evolution of Homo sapiens
- Linguistical - General relationship between language and culture; rold of language and speaking in cultural and social life of specific peoples; how language might shape perceptions and thoughts.
- Archaeology - Excavation of material remains in prehistoric sites to reconstruct early human ways of life; study of remains in historic sites to learn more about historic, literate people.
-
Areas of Specialization within Research Focus:
Primatology - The study of primates, including monkeys and apes; subfield of biological anthropology - researchers study the evolution anatomy, adaptation, and social behaviour of primates, the taxonomic order to which humans belong.
Paeleonathropology - The specialization of physical anthropology that investigates the biological evolution of the human specices.
Molecular Biology
Osteology - (The study of bones)
Forensic Anthropology - A specialization of physical anthropology that identifies and analyzes human skeletal remains; forensic anthropologists usually work for or consult with law enforcement agencies.
- Areas of Specialization within Research Focus:
- Medical Anthropology - The subfield that researches the connections between cultural beliefs and habits and the spread and treatment of diseases and illnesses
- Human Variation - Physical differences among human populations; an interest of physical antrhopologists. Physical/genetic similarities far outweigh the differences.
- Human Evolution
- Ethnography - A written description of the way of life of some human population (a group of people). Implied understanding that field work has been conducted.
- Ethnology - The study of human cultures from a comparative perspective; often used as a synonym for cultural anthropology. (Cross cultural comparison of either a particular/single aspect of culture or of entire cultures (in general) in order to arrive at some generalization about human behaviour.)
-
Areas of Specialization within Research Focus:
Ecological Anthropology -
Historic Archaeology - Field that investigates the past of literate peoples through excavation of sites and analysis of artifacts and other material remains.
Marine Archaeology -
- Areas of Specialization within Research Focus:
- Social Uses of Speech -
- Origins of Language -
- Biology of Verbal Communication -
-
Culture - The set of standards, values, beliefs, behaviours, and material products that are transmitted through learning and responsible for, or reflected in, the behaviours of the members of a society.
Characteristics of Culture
1. Learned
2. Shared
3. Symbolic
4. Patterned
5. Integrated
6. General and Specific
7. Imposes Itself on Nature
- No aspect of culture stands alone. Culture is learned. The cores, values, norms, what and how, ways we are expected to behave.
- 1. Learned - Enculturation - Process of transmision of culture from one generation to the next, from one group to another, one person to another.
- 2. Shared - We share various aspects of one culture with another culture, and vice versa. ex. Kwakitutl custom of help in the kitchen.
- 3. Symbolic - ex. No smoking - sign of cigarette with circled slash, in another culture Image of Puffin (bird) with circle slash "No Puffin"
- 4. Patterned - social organizations, political, laws and rules, groups, kinships
- 5. Integrated - certain aspects are influenced by other aspects. One custom can be taken on by another culture, and over time can be integrated to be part of that cultures customs.
- 6. Both General and Specific - ex. Various aspects of Marriage. General - formal change of status, union. Specific - Group Marriage, Monogomy, Polygamy, Polygyny (Male - multiple spouses; most preferred), Polyandry (Woman - multiple spouses), Sororal Polygyny (male with multiple wives who are sisters), Fraternal Polyandry (female with multiple husbands who are brothers).
- - Polygenous nuclear family - Men, Wives, Children all in one household.
- - Nuer - "social male" biological female - can have wife, encouraged to have partners outside of relationship to conceive, born child (if son) is biological heir.
- - Nyer - woman woman marrage polygyny - woman takes on a social male female for home.
- 7. Imposes itself on nature - Survival Needs - Air, Food, Water, Shelter (individually), and Reproduction (as a culture).
-
World View - The way people interpret reality and events, including how they see themselves relating to the world around them.
Values - Shared ideas or standards about the worthwhileness of goals and lifestyles.
Norms - Shared ideals and/or expectations about how certain people ought to act in given situations.
Classification of Reality - (cultural constructions of reality) - Ways in which the members of a culture divide up the natural and social world into categories, usually linguistically encoded.
Symbols - Objects, behaviours, sound combinations, and other phenomena whose culturally defined meanings have no necessary relationship to their inherent physical qualities.
- Language -
- Semantic Domain - a set of words that belongs to an exclusive class. ex. furniture = chair, cabinet, table, ottomon, etc. Color=blue, red, green, indigo, and even further, Blue=various shades, tones.
- Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis - (linguistic relativity hypothesis) The idea that language influences the preceptions and thought patterns of those who speak it, and thus conditions their world view.
- Lexicon -
-
Theoretical Orientations
Evolutionism - E. B. Tylor, Lewis Henry Morgan - Later cultures were, in some "objective" sense, superior to earlier cultures. As human cultures evolved, they passed through a series of stages.
Diffusionism
Functionalism - Bronislaw Malinowski, A. R. Radcliffe-Brown - social and cultural features should be explained mainly by their useful functions to the people and to the society , the benefits the confer on individuals and groups.
Ethnosemantics
Historical Particularism - Franz Boas (Father of American Anthropology) - Each culture has own separate past and "one of a kind" culture, each culture affected by almost everything that had happened to it in the past, because different things had happened to each culture in the past, different things happened to different cultures, each culture is unique.
French Structuralism
Interpretive anthropology
- Theoretical Orientations
- Ecological Anthropology
- Fieldwork
- Holistic Approach
- Ethnocentrism
- Objectivity
- Preparations for Fieldwork
-
Methods of Gathering Data:
Participant Observation
use of Key Informants
Constructing a Geneology
Interviews
Open-Ended Conversation
Life History
Questionnaires
- Interpretations of Data:
- Emic
- Etic
- Combination
- Writing Ethnography
|
|
