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| Liminality | (Related to Rites of Passage) The period between states, during which the participants have left one place or state but have not yet entered or joined the next= Is when a specific person exists apart from ordinary distinctions and expectations, or is in a transition between two roles. An example given in the book is of a tribe in Zambia, when the chief underwent a right of passage before taking office, he was in the liminal period because he had virtually no social status. Children ideally could tease or humiliate him because he was of no higher status than them. Once he took office though, he would have the highest social status. |
| Signs/Symbols | Something, verbal or non-verbal, that arbitrarily and by convention stands for something else, with which it has no necessary or natural connection. =SYMBOLIC ANTHROPOLOGY was supported by Clifford Geertz |
| Gender | Is not the same thing as sex. Gender is the gender role in which one mentally and emotionally resonates with, whereas sex is the physicality one is born with. Sex is determined by genitals, hormone levels, and things like that. In the video with the history teacher, we saw that there is the heart, the brain, and the physicality. Who you love, who you feel you are, what you physically are. |
| Plàstica | Is the aesthetic surgery used in Brazil for operations like breast augmentation/reduction, nose job, and liposuction. Edmonds spends his time in the field (Brazil) learning why so many people in Brazil use plastica, and what beauty really means to them.= Plastica is used as therapy for people’s psyche, who become depressed because of their “ugly” appearance. Plastica comes in both cosmetic (estetica) and reconstructive (reparadora) surgeries, and surgeons have a hard time distinguishing the difference. Plastica has racial connotations, and is considered a “right” for many women in Brazil, although that is highly controversial. |
| Fieldwork | Is a method of anthropology, also called ethnography, where the anthropologist closely observes, records, and participates in the daily life of another culture, and then writes descriptions of the culture. The most important part of fieldwork is participant observation, which is taking part in the events one is observing and recording. We have read two ethnographies in class, one was from Kelantan, and one from Brazil. |
| Horticulture | Is a nonindustrial system of plant cultivation in which plots lie fallow for varying lengths of time. Unlike agriculture, it does not make intensive use of land, labor, capital, or machinery. In horticultural societies people stay in one place until the soil is depleted. Because of the trend of moving once the soil is depleted, horticulture is also called shifting cultivation because the relationship between people and land is not permanent. Horticulturalists tend to have tribal organization, are organized by village life and/or membership in descent groups, and live in small villages with low population density and open access to resources. |
| Agriculture | Is a nonindustrial system of plant cultivation characterized by continuous and intensive use of land and labor. Agriculture is more labor intensive because of its use of domesticated animals, irrigation, and/or terracing. The main advantage of agriculture is that its long-term yield per area is far greater and more dependable. Chiefdoms and nonindustrial states usually have agricultural economies. |
| Big Man | Refers to a highly influential individual in a tribe (found in many societies of the South Pacific). He had supporters in several villages and thus was a regulator of regional political organization. Leadership is not ascribed, but rather gained through action and competition. Big man's achieved status rested on certain characteristics that distinguished him from others: wealth, generosity, eloquence, physical fitness, bravery, and supernatural powers. Although one of the main regulatory officials, he has only limited authority, as he lacks the means of enforcing his decisions. Big man thus must be generous with his supporters and work hard to create a surplus to give away to maintain his position. |
| Chiefdom | Is a form of sociopolitical organization intermediate between the tribe and the state, was kin-based like bands and tribes, but characterized by a permanent political structure and differential access to resources (some people had more wealth, prestige, and power than others did). In chiefdoms, social relations are mainly based on kinship, marriage, descent, age, generation, and gender.Chiefdoms and nonindustrial states usually had agricultural economies, although herding was important in some Middle Eastern chiefdoms. |
| Incest | Refers to sexual relations with a close relative. Exogamy is practiced to prevent incest. The incest taboo is a cultural universal, however there is no simple or universally accepted explanation for the fact that all cultures ban incest. It has been argued that the incest taboo is universal because incest horror is instinctive. However, cultural universality doesn't necessarily entail an instinctual basis. What constitutes incest varies widely from culture to culture. |
| Mestiçagem | Though the term literally refers to “mixed offspring” in Brazil, as is the majority of the population, the concept is a key way Brazil manages its cultural diversity and mixed heritage. This notion of mixed heritage (European, African, and indigenous) also serves as Brazil’s beauty ideal in that it idealizes different physical traits from different heritages, some of which include “white facial features”, “African smaller breasts and larger ‘bundas’”, tanned (though not too dark) skin tones, and blonde hair. |
| Achieved Status | Social status that people achieve through talent, actions and accomplishments. These statuses may be positive or negative, and some of them include renowned politician, famous musician, convicted mass-murderer and terrorist leader. |
| Ascribed Status | Social status that arises due to factors generally out of a person’s control. Some of these factors include age, nobility of birth, race/ethnicity, gender and other social categories in which a person remains their whole life. |
| Communitas | (Related to Rites of Passage--and thus Liminality) The intense community spirit that arises in the form of a feeling of social solidarity and togetherness. This sensation is characteristic of people experiencing liminality together (see previously posted definition), and an example of communitas is the collective emotional intensity that worship and religion can often generate. |
| Exogamy | Seeking a mate outside of ones own group. This is adaptive because 1) it allows people to reproduce with a more diverse array of members outside of their kin groups, leading to more diverse genetics, 2) it expands personal and group networks, which leads to alliances between groups and can facilitate the trade of goods and ideas. |
| Mana | Mana is a sacred force in Melanesian cultures. Mana can reside in people, animals, or objects and can be transferred by being near an object with mana. It is very much like our notion of good luck and similar beliefs are found in many cultures. |
| Life History | An ethnographer can write down the life story of a single person, usually a cultural consultant, in order to form a better picture of an entire society. Their life history could show the way a culture is changing in someone’s lifetime and inform the ethnographer about different coming of age rituals. |
| Ethnography | An ethnography is a work, usually written by an anthropologist, that gives a detailed account of a culture from the standpoint of an outsider. An ethnography can introduce a wider audience to a culture and allow for a better understanding of that culture. |
| Historical Particularism | Historical particularism is the viewpoint that a culture can only be studied by understanding the specific environmental, psychological, and historical factors under which the cultural traditions were formed. |
| Periphery (nation) | A periphery nation is one that is not privileged in terms of power or resources. Periphery nations have the least amount of economic power and are often called “third-world.” Periphery nations come from an imperialist system in which certain countries were able to dominate others, thus creating stark differences between the colonized and the colonizers and the periphery and core nations. |
| Core (nation) | Dominant structural position in the world system; consists of the strongest and most powerful states with advanced systems of productions. Core nations monopolize the most profitable activities, especially the control of world finance. |
| Plural Marriage | Marriage of a man to two or more woman (polygyny) or marriage of a woman to two or more men (polyandry) at the same time. Polygyny is more common, and polyandry is rare. |
| Prejudice | Devaluing a group because of its assumed behavior, values, capabilities or attributes. People are prejudiced when they hold stereotypes about other groups and apply them to the individuals belonging to those groups. When people hold expectations based on stereotypes, they interpret behaviors as evidence of stereotype, therefore confirm it. |
| Privilege | A right, benefit or advantage that is granted to an individual or a group. Having privilege can create gaps between different social groups. |
| Racial Classification | The attempt to assign humans to discrete categories based on common ancestry. Usually categorized by skin color. Race is created by culture although it is commonly conceptualized in biological terms. |
| Sororate | Custom by which a widower marries the sister of the deceased wife. |
| Sodality | A non-kin based group that exists throughout a tribe, spanning several villages. |
| Susi Olodum | A dark skinned doll that is marketed as representing Yoruba fashion/culture. The doll went into production during the time a number of corporations began marketing products for a perceived "black-consumer" market in Brazil. This included products like darker toned make-up, band-aids, and advertising aimed specifically to that "niche." = [Doll highlighting the issues of racial inequality within Brazil. Through its sales (or lack thereof), Susi Olodum is shedding light on the myths of “racial democracy” in a country that accustomed to discriminate people by skin color.] |
| Embranquecimento | As the new sciences of man, including anthropology, took root in Brazil in the end of the nineteenth century, the elite had to confront "evidence" that racial mixing endangered the moral and physical health of the population (Stepan 1991, Fry 2000). The influence of such ideas obviously presented a problem to nationalist aspirations to turn Brazil into a modern republic. In response, Brazilians developed the ideology of embranquecimento, or "whitening": a hope that European immigrants would gradually lighten the population and enable Brazil to join the ranks of modern nations (Skidmore 1974).= [Term closely related to mestiçagem—highlighting the issues of racial inequality that continues to exist within Brazil. Refers to the “whitening” of the skin. Was one of the earlier methods of changing one’s appearance in order to fit in with the white “elites.” Theory: lighter skin=modern nation.] |
| Nation | Once a synonym for "ethnic group," designating a single culture sharing a language, religion, history, territory, ancestry, and kinship; now usually a synonym for "state" or "nation-state” |
| (Rites of Passage) | Rites of passage are customs associated with the transition from one place or stage of life to another (e.g. Native American vision quests).= Have 3 phases: Separation, Liminality, Incorporation |
| *Prestige | The basis of social status-refers to esteem, respect or approval for acts, deeds or qualities considered to be exemplary. Prestige gives people a sense of worth and respect, which they may often convert in economic advantage. The second of Sociologist Max Weber’s Three Dimensions of Stratification, which is one of the key distinguishing features signifying the transition from chiefdom to state.= (Example of prestige without wealth or power; Mother Teresa, her philanthropic acts, deeds and opinions are respected worldwide, helped to shape foreign and domestic policy in multiple countries and continues to guide personal choices even after her death.) |
| *Agency | Refers to the actions that individuals take, both alone and in groups, in forming and transforming cultural identities. Agency is the power to affect change, and structure is the way that people have agency. Agency lends credence to the cultural change the individual or group deems necessary.= (Example of individual agency: Katy Perry with her self-described “weirdness” uses the universal language of music to give a voice to people that feel alone and isolated as they come to terms with their unique personality. Example of group agency would be her entourage and her legions of fans that find inspiration to be the person they were born to be by finding strength and courage in her music.) |
| *Language | Spoken and written is transmitted through learning, based on arbitrary, learned associations between words and the things they stand for. Unlike the communication systems of other animals, language allows us to discuss the past and the future, share our experiences with others and benefit from their experiences.= (This is important to culture as a whole in shaping our belief and value systems. The use of language, especially in learning a language foreign to us, allows us to communicate with people of other cultures, strengthening bonds and giving both participants a richer human experience, in a way similar to exogamy.) |
| *Calendar | A system for fixing the beginning, length, and divisions of the civil year and arranging days and longer divisions of time (as weeks and months) in a definite order; an orderly list= (This is important to human learning and sociology so that we have a way to catalog our achievements, to document important cultural events and to help us decipher whether the Mayans were telling us the world will end this week, or simply ran out room on the stone) |
| *Eugenics | A science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed= (This is important to the human race at large to be aware of the attempts to create a dominate race through arranged marriages and mating, and the sterilization of people who are insane, retarded, or epileptic citizens. Eugenics was used to justify the mass murder of Jews, blacks, and homosexuals by the German Nazis.) |
| Mental Health | Describes a level of psychological well-being, or an absence of a mental disorder. Relates to self-esteem and justification for providing plastica in public hospitals in Brazil, i.e. a patient receiving plastica will, in theory, have higher self-esteem after the part of their body that made them self-conscious is altered to their liking/ acceptance. |
| Ivo Pitanguy | Non-human inputs used in production—both infrastructural capital and natural capital…In nonindustrial societies the relationship between the worker and the means of production is more intimate than it is in industrial nations. Means, or factors, of production include land (territory), labor, and technology. |
| Means of Production | Premier plastic surgeon in Brazil; regarded as the "top designer" in the plastic-surgeons-as-designer-label hierarchy many patients believe in/create by comparing plastic surgery results |
| Ethnology | Ethnology examines, interprets, analyzes, and compares the results of ethnography— the data gathered in different societies. It uses such data to compare and contrast and to make generalizations about society and culture. |
| Patriarchy | Describes a political system ruled by men in which women have inferior social and political status, including basic human rights. Barbara Miller (1997), in a study of systematic neglect of females, describes women in rural northern India as “the endangered sex.” Societies that feature a full-fledged patrilineal–patrilocal complex, replete with warfare and intervillage raiding, also typify patriarchy. Such practices as dowry murders, female infanticide, and clitoridectomy exemplify patriarchy. |
| Racial Democracy | A concept that relates to Gilberto Freyre’s concepts of racial mixing being superior to a "pure" race. It is a belief that Brazilians do not make distinctions, social or otherwise, about race; racial discrimination is considered irrelevant. |
| Etic | (scientist-oriented) Approach shifts the focus from local observations, categories, explanations, and interpretations to those of the anthropologist. The etic approach realizes that members of a culture often are too involved in what they are doing to interpret their cultures impartially. |
| Family of Orientation | Anthropologists distinguish between the family of orientation (the family in which one is born and grows up) and the family of procreation (formed when one marries and has children). In Brazil, the family of orientation predominates, whereas in the United States it is the family of procreation. |
| Caste | Stratified groups in which membership is ascribed at birth and is lifelong. Indian castes are grouped into five major categories, or varna. Each is ranked relative to the other four, and these categories extend throughout India. An extreme example of endogamy. |
| Interview Schedule | The ethnographer talks face-to-face with people, asks planned questions, and writes down the answers. Questionnaire procedures tend to be more indirect and impersonal; often the respondent fills in the form. |
| Semi-Structured Interview | Unlike a more formalized interview with a concrete interview schedule, a semi-structured interview allows for new questions to be posed, depending on where the responses of the interviewee take the discussion. the interviewer has a specific set of topics that they intend to cover, but how the topics are addressed is flexible. these interviews can generally be thought of as more casual than formal interviews. |
| Masculinity | The social constructed qualities that are considered to be typical of a man. the idea of masculinity is not static, and can change over time and also among cultures. not necessary the opposite of femininity (which is also a blurry term.) |
| Sexual Orientation | A person's habitual sexual attraction to, and sexual activities with, persons of the opposite sex, same sex, or both sexes. people can also exhibit asexuality, where there is no attraction to either sex. |
| Globalization | A series of processes that promote change in a world in which nations and people are increasingly interlinked and mutually dependent. can be regarded as either fact or ideology. in the factual sense, it is defined as the spread and connectedness of production, communication, and technologies across the world. in the ideological sense, it is the efforts by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and other international financial powers to create a global free market for goods and services. |
| Creole (language) | Languages that develop from pidgins. unlike pidgins, these languages have grammatical rules and native speakers. an example of a creole is gullah, spoken by african americans on coastal islands in south carolina and georgia. |
| Pidgin | Mixed language that develops to ease communication between members of different cultures in contact (e.g. trade, colonialism)= From where Creole languages developed= Were languages that form in situations of acculturation, when different societies come into contact and must devise a system of communication= (there are some pidgins based on english and native languages)= Eventually, after generations of being spoken, pidgins may develop into CREOLE LANGUAGES (these are more mature languages, with developed grammatical rules and native speakers...with this language serving as their primary language)= Related to Noam Chomskey's idea of a UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR (thought human brain contains limitied similar rules of grammer...thus can learn other languages) |
| Biological/Physical Anthropology | The branch of anthropology that studies human biological diversity in time and space—for instance, hominid evolution, human genetics, human biological adaptation; also includes primatology (behavior and evolution of monkeys and apes). Also called physical anthropology. |
| Sardinia | Related to the "Bread as World" article=This paper uses bread as a lens for analyzing contemporary social and economic change in the town of Bosa in the peripheral Italian region of Sardinia.= Aruges that Bosa's situation is characteristic of "modernization without development", and that this leads to an increasing atomization of social relations |
| Carnaval | Edmonds is quick to point out that to mention Brazil to foreigners is to evoke clichéd notions about beauty (and bodies), samba (and carnaval), and soccer. The “beauty, samba, and soccer” triad shares one obvious commonality: the “(mixed-race) Brazilian body.” In the international arena, Brazil is associ- ated not only with sensuality, but also with mixed-racedness. This national body—which Edmonds’ renders “ethnographiable”—is constructed in contrast to its historical connections to both Europe and Africa.= "Intrigued by a Carnaval parade that mysteriously paid homage to a Rio de Janeiro plastic surgeon, the anthropologist Alexander Edmonds conducted research that took him from Ipanema socialite circles to glitzy telenovela studios to the packed waiting rooms of public hospitals offering free cosmetic surgery"= "Carnaval has become such a commercial showcase of siliconadas—women with breast implants—that a local plastic surgeon is recognized for his talent during the festivities." |
| Authority | ???? |
