Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (212)

Critical Concepts & Issues in Cultural Anthropology

Keyed to Readings, Films, and Lectures

Page Table of Contents

·         First Segment

·         Second Segment

·         Third Segment

 

Below is a list of important concepts presented to you in the lectures, web readings, films, and texts.  As such, they represent a guide to structure learning.  If you fully understand these concepts, know their implications, and can provide concrete examples of how they work then you will have mastered the material for the first segment of the course.

First Segment

Culture

Culture and Genes or Gene-Culture Interaction

Cultural Evolution

Evolution

·         Descent with modification or change in frequency of genes in a gene pool

·         Adaptation

·         Natural selection

·         Mutation

·         Not all traits are adaptive (consider the chin)

·         Individuals designed to be reproductively selfish

Evolutionary Ecology

·      Lootka-Volterra Logistic

·      Limiting factors

·      Carrying capacity

·      Environmental resistance

·      Intensification

·      Innovation

·      Population regulation and infanticide

·      Myth of the ecologically noble savage

Energetic Ecology

·      Energy flow

·      Plant and animal levels

·      Interconnectedness

·      Energetic efficiency

Energy Extraction

·         Foraging, gardening, pastoralism, agriculture, and industrial agriculture

·         Intensification

·         Landscape modification and biodiversity loss

·         Increased input

Eskimo Environmental Problems and Solutions (adaptations)

·         Cold stress

·         Lack of plant resources

·         Complex technology

·         Seasonal variation in resource availability and movement to resources

Yanomamö Environmental Problems and Solutions (adaptations)

·         Gardening in the context of poor soils

·         Difficulties in acquiring wild plants and animals

·         Pathogen stress

Yanomamö Ethnography

·         Significance of warfare and its reflection in many cultural domains

·         Alliances

·         Moves (macro and micro)

·         Economy: gardening, hunting, gathering, and fishing

·         Division of labor

·         Genealogies and the problem of personal names and ethical issues

·         How an ethnographer adapts to another culture and achieves rapport

·         Simple technology

·         Protein and warfare

·         Bellicose and refugee strategies

Netsilik Ethnography

·         Ethnography and historical reconstruction

·         Stone, bone, snow, and skin complexes

·         Clothing manufacture and food preservation as important kinds of technology

·         Lack of vegetable materials

·         Technology in action

·         Infanticide

 

Zapotec Ethnography

 

·         Men, women, and culture: different views

·         Interdependence of the sexes

·         Homosexuality and first edition

·         Informal & formal and public & private roles

·         Zapotecs, a conquered people in a state

·         The myth of ancient matriarchy

·         Lack of culture as perceived by Mexican nationals

·         Land tenure: private and ejido (communal land)

·         Sexual patterns of inheritance

·         Methods of saving

·         Sexual division of labor: agricultural production, vending, and wage labor

·         The market and selling

 

 

Critical Concepts for Segment 2

 

Lecture Topics

 

Modes of Reciprocity (exchange):

•   generalized

•   balanced

•   negative

 

Marriage:

•   socially imposed monogamy

•   ecologically imposed monogamy

•   polygyny

•   polyandry

•   burden of marriage

•   endogamy/exogamy

•   •conjugal fund

 

The incest taboo

•   proximate versus ultimate causes

•   Westermarck effect

•   inbreeding depression

•   sim pua and parallel cousin marriages

•   Biblical and Western incest prohibitions

 

Family Forms and Dynamics:

•   nuclear

•   extended (stem and joint)

•   matrifocal

•   sororate

•   levirate

•   decay of the nuclear family

•   function of the family

•   causes of divorce as revealing the functions of marriage

 

Marriage Transactions:

•   dowry

•   exchange of females

•   bride price

•   indirect dowry

•   bride service

•   gift exchange

 

Kinship and Descent

•   sociocentric and egocentric status terms

•   kinship diagrams

•   kin terminological systems: bifurcate merging and lineal

•   unilineal descent

•   bilateral descent

•   characteristics of corporate descent groups

•   kindreds, lineages, and clans

•   prescribed patterns of kin behavior (avoidance, joking, respect)

Films:

Ø Dadi’s Family (film): family and marriage in a male farming system

Ø The Mende  family and marriage in a female farming system

Netsilik

Social Organization

•   dyadic relationships

•   spouse exchange

•   bilateral descent and focus on the family

•   Netsilik divorce

•   patrilocal residence in relation to hunting

•   father-children and mother-children relationships

•   domestic cycle: development and break-up of extended families

•   extended family ilagiit and leader inhumataq

Yanomamö

Social Organization

•   patrilineal descent

•   weak lineages

•   sister exchange

•   brother-in-law relationships

•   name taboos

•   contrasting styles in leadership

•   nuclear family decay (roles of divorce and mortality)

•   patrilocal marriage in relation to warfare

Warfare and Politics

•   alliance formation: purpose and process

•   levels of violence

•   feasts and peacemaking

Miscellaneous

•   yöbömou female puberty ceremony

•   child betrothal

•   Shamatari and Namoweiteri contrasts in to relatedness and social cohesiveness

•   following marriage rules

•   village size and warfare

•   village fissioning

•   rule breaking in marriage

•   kin relations and solidarity

•   sister exchange and double cross-cousin marriage

Zapotec

The Life Cycle: from birth to marriage

•   birthing practices and role of mid-wife and husband

•   the problem of weaning

•   permissive child rearing and tristeza

•   preferential treatment of boys

 

Courtship and Marriage

•   chaperoning

•   civil and church weddings and elopement

•   mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationships

•   importance of virginity

•   a woman's status: from motherhood to mother-in-law

Death

•   supernatural causes of death

•   curanderas, pharmacists, and doctors

•   mourning for the death: family and kin obligations

Avoiding Danger and Misfortune: consequences of land poverty and high levels of physical aggression:

•   avoid arousing envy

•   household fortification

•   use of protective and preventative magic

Social Relations and an Insecure Environment

•   Strong and relatively egalitarian husband-wife relationships

•   The moral superiority of women and marianismo

•   kindreds and sibling relationships may be mistrustful

•   compadre relationships

Critical Concepts: 3rd Segment

Films

Sex

War

Dispute Settlement

Religion

Acculturation

Web Readings

Films

Some Women of Marrakech

•   Religious teaching about male dominance

•   Separate lives of men and women

•   Restrictions on women (purdah)

•   Rural-urban contrasts

The Ax Fight

•   The hidden role of women

•   Maintenance of honor

•   Control of violence

 

Kingdom in the Jungle

· Brazilian and Venezuelan economic contrasts

· Change will come but give them a choice

· The expanding frontier

Sex

Male and Female Differences

•Warnings (mean & variation, fallacy, destiny)

•What does a mean difference mean (variance issues)

•Are universal difference biological differences

•Biology and destiny

•Naturalistic fallacy

Major Areas of Focus

•Anatomical

•Physiological

    Morphological and Physiological Differences: exploring dimorphism

    Muscle and fat proportions

    Aerobic differences

•Psychological (cognitive)

•Developmental

•Behavioral (especially sexual behavior)

•Division of labor

•Institutional (status)

Sexual Selection

•Intrasexual

•Intersexual

•Male and female differences in terms of

    · Standards of attractiveness

    · Attitudes towards sex

    · Bases of sexual jealousy

Important Similarities in Desirable Characteristics

·  kindness

·  understanding

·  intelligence

· Theoretical Views

Promiscuity (it takes two to tango and the problem in questionnaire research)

Focus on youth or status

The double standard

 

Homosexuality

Causes of sexual orientation is the fundamental issue

·  Biological and genetic causes

·  Recent research on 2d:4d ratios and birth order (each additional brother increases probability by 33%)

·  Heritability

·  Environmental causes: prison living

·  Politics and the science you believe

·  Zapotecs and the third sex (muxe): a culturally validated status

 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder?

Averageness

Neotenous characteristics

Waist to hip ratio

Fluctuating asymmetry

    Correlations with health and reproductive capacity

Arbitrary cultural standards (foot binding, tatooing, tanning, & surgery)

 

Warfare (back)

 

“Primitive” and modern warfare

Embers’ findings: resource competition & fear and mistrust

Proximate causes of Yanomamö warfare

Warfare and blood revenge

The Third World War: nations of the fourth world

Netsilik aggression

A tale of two Zapotec villages: La Paz and San Andres

 

Conflict Resolution (back)

Gossip, ridicule and song duels among the Netsilik

The Kpelle house palaver and neighborhood justice – a focus on reconciliation

Yanomamö dueling

 

Religion (back)

 

Functions of religion

·  Explanation

·  Sense of purpose

·  Moral code

 

General conceptions of forces

·  Animism

·  Animatism

 

Magic

·  Sympathetic

·  Contagious

 

Yanomamö Religion

 

·         Four-layered conception of the world and heaven and hell

·         Creation myths

·         Jaguar myths and invention of social traditions and relations

·         Complex conception of the soul

·         Endocannibalism: dead relatives are buried in the bodies of the living

·         How to become a shaman and divining and curing

 

Zapotec Religion

 

·         Catholicism with some traditional beliefs

·         Family centered fiestas revolve around rites of passage

·         Community-Centered fiesta revolve around patron saints and status achievement

·         Participation as sponsor or paying guest important for social status

 

Netsilik Religion

 

·         Complex nature of the human soul and the importance of animals souls.

·         Powerful gods are largely dangerous or indifferent to humans.

·         World view (cosmology)

·         Creation myths

·         Tunrit beliefs

·         Beliefs about their position in the world and the afterlife:

·         life is a struggle for food and clothing and must deal with bad luck in hunting and terrible weather

·         Complexity of the taboo system, especially in relation to hunting

 

 

Intellectual Property and Tribal People

Many of the innovations we use were invented or developed my native peoples

With the advent of biological prospecting they fear their inventions will be stolen

Patenting living things including human genes

Call for collaboration between scientists, pharmaceuticals, and nations

The difficulty of enforcement

 

Acculturation (back)

 

The Process of Contact

· Disease

· Depopulation

· Dependency (tools)

· Development

    · Ethnocide

    · Further loss of autonomy

· Degradation

 

Web Readings (back)

 

Biased Focus? A New Interpretation of the Upper Paleolithic Venus Figurines

    Venus figurines: male pornography or celebration of female achievement and status?

    Assumptions: made by men, gross features as the focus, and expression of male interest.

    Examination of fine features showing weaving and plaiting of hair and garments.

    Theories can help us see and they can blind us.

 

Intellectual Property

A new mode of colonialism

The value of native knowledge

The difficulties of compensation