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anthro-final
Question | Answer |
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gender | the social classification of masculine or feminine |
metalinguistics | elements of communication beyond verbal speech; includes the use of gesture, personal space, silence, and nonlinguistic sounds |
sex roles | learned social activities and expectations made on the basis of gender |
social networks | an informal pattern of organization based on the complex web of social relations linking individuals; includes factors like kinship, friendship, economics, and political ties |
sociolinguistics | a subfield of anthropological linguistics emphasizing the study of the social correlates to variations in speech patterns |
subculture | the culture of a subgroup of a society that has its own distinctive ideas, beliefs, values, and worldview |
asexual | without sexual desire, or in terms of sexual identity, someone with no apparent sexual drive |
Defense of Marriage Act | A federal US law that states that: the federal government may not recognize same-sex or polygamous marriages for any purpose and no state is obliged to recognize a same-sex marriage conducted or recognized in another state; passed by Clinton |
Berdache | an anthropological term which refers to "two spirit" Native Americans (Native Americans who fulfill mixed gender roles) |
third/fourth gender | third gender typically refers to male and sometimes female berdaches, while fourth gender only refers to female berdaches |
burqa | a head-to-toe veil common in Afghanistan, often made of cotton and covering most of the body, including the face |
Colonialism | the establishment of government of sovereign rules in a territory through political, social, economic, and cultural domination by a foreign power |
cultural relativism | the principle that all cultural systems are inherently equal in value and, therefore, that each cultural item must be understood on its own terms |
ethnocentrism | the assumption that one's own group's lifestyle, values, and patterns of adaptation are superior to all others |
Islam | the religious faith of Muslims who profess belief in Allah as the sole deity and in Mohammad as the prophet of Allah |
Muslim | an adherent of or believer in Islam |
purdah | the Hindu or Muslim system of sex segregation, which is practiced by keeping women in seclusion |
clitorectomy | removal of the clitoris |
FGM | female genital mutilation or female genital modification |
excision | 1 of 3 forms of female circumcision; includes clitorectomy and removal of some or all of the labia minora and labia majora |
infibulation | 1 of 3 forms of FGM; inc. circumcisions and excision, followed by the sewing up of the sides of the vulva so that scar tissue covers the vaginal opening, except for a small gap for urination + menstruation; requiring some surgical opening for sex + birth |
neocolonial | after the age of colonialism, this refers to continued economic and political policies by which a great power indirectly maintains or extends its influence over other areas of people |
sunna circumcision | 1 of 3 forms of FGM; this procedure includes clitorectomy and sometimes refers only to the cutting of the hood; the name sunna relates the practice to Islamic traditions, although most scholars deny Koranic justification |
arable land | land suitable for cultivation |
corvee | a system of required labor; characteristic of ancient states |
fraternal polyandry | an uncommon form of plural marriage in which a woman is married to two or more brothers at one time |
monogamy | marriage between one man and one woman at a given time |
nuclear family | a basic social grouping consisting of a husband and wife and their children, typical of societies with monogamous marriage with the family living at a distance from the parents of the husband and wife |
population pressure | the situation of population growth in a limited geographical area causing a decline in food production and resources and sometimes triggering technological change |
primogeniture | a rule of inheritance in which the homestead is padded down to the firstborn (male) child |
caste | a ranked group, sometimes linked to a particular occupation, with membership determined at birth and with marriage restricted to others within the group |
cultural materialism | the idea, often associated with Marvin Harris, that cultural behaviors are best explained in relation to material constraints (including food-producing technology) to which humans are subjected |
demography | the statistical study of human populations, including size, growth, migration, density, distribution, and vital statistics |
dowry | presentation of goods or money by the bride's family to the bride, the groom, or the groom's family |
ethnology | the study and explanation of cultural similarities and differences |
peasants | rural, agricultural populations of state-level societies who maintain parts of their traditional culture while they are tied into the wider economic system of the whole society through economic links of rent, taxes, and markets |
sex roles | learned social activities and expectations made on the basis of gender |
multiple paternity | the concept, occurring in several South American cultures, that every man who has intercourse with a woman during her pregnancy contributes to the formation of the child; therefore, a child may have multiple fathers |
paleoanthropology | the study of disease patterns in extinct populations, primarily through the examination of skeletal remains |
affinal | related by marriage (as opposed to biology) |
kinship | a network of culturally recognized relationships among individuals, either through affinial or consanguineal ties |
blended family | a non-traditional family that may include step children, adopted children, foster children, step parents, step grandparents, and fictive kin |
marriage | a culturally constructed institution through which interpersonal and usually intimate relationships are sanctioned and recognized by social, religious, and/or government authority |
hierarchy | the categorization of a group of people according to status, whether it be ascribed at birth or achieved. A hierarchy refers to a group organized in this way |
meritocracy | a system in which advancement is purportedly based upon ability or achievement of the individual |
privilege | a special advantage, immunity, permission, right, or benefit granted to or enjoyed by an individual, class, caste, or race. Such advantage may be held consciously or unconsciously and exercised to the exclusion or detriment of others |
AIDS | acquired immune deficiency syndrome, a fatal disease caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and usually transmitted through semen or blood |
epidemic | higher than normal occurrence of a disease in a particular area |
HIV | the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS |
medical anthropology | the study of health and medical systems in a cross-cultural perspective; includes the study of biocultural adaptations to disease, ethnomedical systems, and cultural factors in health-seeking behavior |
seropositive | testing positive for a given disease (such as HIV infection) based on a blood test |
SIDA | the Spanish, French, Italian, and Haitian Creole acronym for AIDS |
seroprevalence | the prevalence (proportion of people infected in a population) of a given disease based on blood tests |
transmission | passing of an infectious agent to an uninfected person from an infected group or individual |
consumable commodity | something that can be bought or sold, and then used up |
microeconomics | small-scale or individual economic decisions and patterns, such as the ways that individuals budget their cell phone expenditures |
micropolitics of social inequality | small-scale patterns of power between individuals or small groups, the ways that inequalities between people are played out on a personal level |
reciprocity | a system of mutual interaction involving the regular exchange of goods or services (for example, inviting someone over for dinner because they previously had you over for dinner) |
social status | a person's level of prestige in society. social status is associated with factors like education and employment as well as higher and lower levels of wealth or power. In the US, for instance doctors tend to have higher of this than cooks at McDonald's |
tribe | a relatively small, usually horticultural, society organized on principles of kinship, characterized by little social stratification and no centralized political authority and whose members share a culture and language |
socialization | the development, through the influence of parents and others, of patterns of thought and behavior in children that conform to beliefs and values of a particular culture |
commodity | products such as food or fuel which can be traded for money or for other products |
globalization | a contemporary cultural, political, and economic process involving world capitalism by which production and consumption are expanded to be worldwide in scope or application |
symbol | a sign that consistently but arbitrarily represents an object or meaning; the basis of communication within a culture |
status | position in a social system that is characterized by certain rights, obligations, expected behaviors (roles), and certain social symbols |
cultural pluralism | the simultaneous existence of two or more cultural systems within a single society |
role | dynamic aspect of status, customary performing of the rights and duties associated with a status |
ideology | formal, articulated system of meanings, values, and beliefs that back up power |
domination | rule by coercive force |
hegemony | rule by persuasion |
Kshatriya | warriors |
vaishya | merchants |
race | a folk category of the English language that refers to discrete groups of human beings who are uniformly separated from one another on the basis of arbitrarily selected phenotypic traits |
ethnic group | a group of people within a larger society with a distinct cultural or historical identity; ethnicity is a common mechanism of social separation in complex, heterogenous societies |
class | an economically, politically, and socially similar group of people |
apartheid | a political system giving particular privileges to those of European origin |
agency | an organization acting as the representative agent of a person or another company |
structure | the way in which different parts of something link or work together or the fact of being linked together |
gender ideology | system of thoughts and values that legitimize certain gender roles, statuses, and customary behavior |
sacred | unquestioned, ritualized values |
anthropology of religion | see it as a system of symbols that surrounds everyday life and fills, corrects, and completes it and can give ultimate meaning to the situations and changes in peoples' lives |
usufruct rights | the legal right to use and enjoy the advantages or profits of another's property |
marginalization | to take or keep somebody or something away from the center of attention, influence, or power |