Window on Humanity
Terms
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- Anthropology
- a comparative science that examines all societies, ancient and modern, simple and complex; offers a unique cross-cultural perspective, constantly comparing the customs of one society with those of others
- AN is holistic
- it studies the whole of the human condition: past, present, and future; biology, society, language and culter.
- society
- organized life in groups
- Culture
-
distinctly human;
traditions and customs, transmitted through learning that play a large role in determining the beliefs and behavior of the people exposed to them
Learned by growing up in a particular society
Culture is not biological - hominids
- members of the zoological family that includes fossil and living humans
- adaptation
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the process by which organisms cope with environmental stresses;
involves interplay between culture and biology - general anthropology
- academic discipline of anthropology
- 4 main subdisciplines of AN
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1. sociocultural
2. archaeological
3. biological
4. linguistic anthropology - cultural anthropology
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study of human society and culture;
describes, interprets and explains social and cultural similarities and differences - ethnography
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provides an account of a particular community, society, or culture;
ethnographer gathers data, organizes it and describes, analyzes and interprets it to build and present an account - ethnology
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examines, analyzes, and compares the results of ethnography--the data gathered in different societies;
uses datato compare and contrast and to make generalizations about society and culture - ethnologists
- focus on more general
- archaeology
- reconstructs, describes, and interprets human behavior and cultural patterns through material remains
- biological (physical) anthropology
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studies human biological diversity in time and space
incl:hominid evolution, human genetics, and human biological plasticity, primatology - linguistic anthropology
- study of languages of the present and making inferences about those of the past
- 2 dimensions of anthropology
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1. theoretical/academic anthropology
2. practicing or applied anthropology (public health, family planning, economic development) - public archaeology
- includes activities as cultural resource management, contract archaeology, public educational prprograms and historic preservations
- cultural resource management
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decised what needs saving, and to preserve significant information about the past when sites cannot be saved;
typically work for federal, state or county agencies - cultural anthropologists
- work with social workers, businesspeople, advertising professionals, factory workers, nurses, physicians, georontologists, mental-health professionals and economic development experts
- ethnocentricism
- believing your culture is superior and app.ying one's own cultural values in judging the behavior and beliefs of people in other countries
- proper roles for applied anthropologists
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1. identifying needs for change that local people perceive
2. working with those people to design culturally appropriate and socially sensitivie change
3. protect local people from harmful policies and projects that threaten them - Bronislaw Malinowski (1929)
- proposed that "practical anthropology" should focus on Westernization, the diffusion of European culture into tribal societies
- antohropological theory
- body of findings and generaliztions of the subdisciplines
- Anthropology and Education
- refers to anthropological research in classrooms, homes, and neighborhoods
- Urban anthropology
-
has theoretical and applied dimensions;
the cross-cultural and ethnographic study of global urbanization and life in cities - Medical anthropology
- both academic/theoretical and applied/practical; it includes biological and sociocultural anthropologists; examines questions such as which diseases affect different populations, how illness is socially constructed, and how one treats illness in effective and culturally appropriate ways
- disease
- scientifically identified health threat
- illness
- condition of poor health perceived or felt by an individual
- Schistosomiasis (bilharzia, liver flukes)
- fastest-spreading and most dangerous parasitic infection now known
- "disease-theory systems"
-
system used by a society to identify, classify and explain illness;
1. personalistic
2. naturalistic
3. emotionalistic - personalistic disease theory
- blame illness on agents: sorcerers, witches, or ancestral spirits
- naturalistic disease theory
- biomedicine-aims to link illness to scientifically demonstrated agents which bear no personal malice toward their victims
- emotionalistic disease theory
- emotional experiences cause illness
- health care systems
- beliefs, customs, specialists, and techniques aimed at ensuring health and at preventing diagnosing, and curing illness
- curer
- emerges through a culturally defined process of selection and training and are certified by older practitioners and acquire a professional image
- scientific medicine
- pathology microbiology, biochemisty, surgery, diagnostic technology and applications
- Key features of anthropology in Business
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1. ethnography and observation as ways of gathering data
2. cross-cultural expertise
3. focus on cultural diversity
4. establishing how consumers use products