Core Concepts in Anthropology: Midterm Study Notes and Definitions

Posted on Dec 7, 2025 in Early Childhood Education

ANT100 Midterm Study Notes Sheet

Name: [Your Name]

Fieldwork Definitions and Key Anthropological Ideas

  • Anthropology: The holistic, comparative, field-based, and evolutionary study of all humans across all times and places.
  • Ethnocentrism: Holding one’s own beliefs, values, ideas, ideals, assumptions as the only true or proper ones. Often described as “a prison for the mind,” limiting growth and change.
  • Cultural Relativism: The antidote to ethnocentrism. Understanding others’ ideas relative to their own culture, requiring the suspension of judgment for empathy. (Note: This is not moral relativism; one can empathize without sympathizing.) E.g., Boas used the insider/emic view to combat racism and colonialism.
  • Participant Observation: The hallmark anthropological method. Involves joining activities, not just observing, to gain depth, detail, and emic understanding. (“You can’t think yourself into a new way of living; you live yourself into a new way of thinking.”)
  • Culture Shock: Anxiety resulting from foreign immersion, potentially leading to a complete loss of self. Stages of disorientation typically include: honeymoon, frustration, and adjustment.
  • Looking Glass Self (Cooley): The concept that “I am what I think you think I am.” The self is shaped by others’ perceptions, which can be lost in an unfamiliar culture without familiar reflections.
  • Berry’s Model of Acculturation: Defined by two dimensions (heritage maintenance high/low + new culture contact high/low), resulting in four strategies:
    • Integration: High heritage maintenance, high new culture contact.
    • Assimilation: Low heritage maintenance, high new culture contact.
    • Separation: High heritage maintenance, low new culture contact.
    • Marginalization: Low heritage maintenance, low new culture contact.
    The process often follows a U-curve: Euphoria → Shock → Acculturation → Stable Adjustment.
  • Ideology: A systematic set of ideas from a particular point of view that shapes identity (e.g., gender or success).
  • Wesch PNG Fieldwork Example: Ethnocentric arrival (judged dance boring) → shock/depression (nightmare, alone) → empathy breakthrough (cry with brothers) → integration (join dance/garden).
  • Human Potential Examples: Tarahumara 400-mile run, Moken underwater vision/control, Inuit ice hunting, !Kung desert foraging, Jenna Kuruba elephant ties.

Culture Definitions and Core Anthropological Concepts

  • Culture: An immersive system of learned and shared behaviors, symbols, and ideas that shapes perception. It is “like water to a fish”—invisible until contrasted; contingent and could be otherwise.
  • The Art of Seeing: A four-part approach:
    1. Own Seeing: Recognize and set aside assumptions.
    2. See Big: Analyze cultural, social, economic, historical, and political forces.
    3. See Small: Focus on details and nuance via thick description.
    4. See All: Holistic integration.
    Benefits: Learning (perception change—Postman), better relationships (empathy boundaries), and finding the sacred in the mundane (never bored).
  • Barrel Model (Prins): Culture is structured in three levels resting on an environmental base:
    • Infrastructure: Economy and technology (e.g., PNG gardens).
    • Social Structure: Organization and relations (e.g., egalitarian clans, gift exchange).
    • Superstructure: Worldview and values (e.g., relational worldview, jealousy).
    These levels are in Mutual Constitution (shaping and being shaped by each other, represented by dynamic double arrows).
  • Thick Description (Geertz): Detailed contextual interpretation that reveals meanings and dynamics, contrasting with thin description (superficial, divorced from context). Example: Describing a wink not just as a twitch, but as a flirtation or a parody.
  • Nacirema (Miner): A satire making American culture strange through an outsider/etic view. Examples: Bathrooms as shrines, dentists as torturers. (Activity: Thick description of holidays like Christmas as a family bond ritual with pagan symbols).
  • Mutual Constitution: The interconnected process where elements shape each other (e.g., capitalism ↔ individualism). Fragility arises when these systems are examined (Foucault).
  • Wesch PNG Culture Example: Witchcraft is logical in a relational context. Illness is attributed to jealousy or broken ties, fixed by gifts and repentance. Kodenim (“beautiful death”) emphasizes peace and soul cleansing over medical cure.

Evolution: Timeline, Adaptation, and Modern Mismatches

  • Evolution: Change in species over time. It is both a fact (observed) and a theory (explanation). It is compatible with faith (a guided process; Gould noted it is “confirmed to a degree,” Miller expressed awe at God’s greatness).
  • Evolutionary Timeline Highlights:
    • Universe: 14 billion years ago (bya)
    • Earth: 4.5 bya
    • Life: 3.8 bya
    • Fungi: 1.5 bya
    • Sex: 1.2 bya
    • Animals: 600 million years ago (mya)
    • Mammals: 200 mya
    • Monkeys: 40 mya
    • Apes: 20 mya
    • Hominins (Bipedalism): 6 mya
    • Homo Erectus (Tools/Fire/Migration): 2 mya
    • Homo Sapiens (Africa): 300 thousand years ago (kya)
    • Creative Explosion (Language/String/Art/Tools): 50–60 kya
    • Cave Art: 30–40 kya
    • Agriculture/Temples: 10 kya
  • Persistence Hunting (Lieberman): Endurance running used to exhaust prey via sweat, fat reserves, and cooling mechanisms. Examples: Bushmen hunting kudu 20 miles in the hot sun; Raramuri running 100–435 miles (elders often fastest); barefoot short strides/forefoot striking leads to low injury and joy.
  • Positive Feedback Loop (Human Development): Better food and tools led to larger brains and bodies, which in turn led to better survival and expansion. Examples: Spears (500 kya) allowed throwing at 90 mph with imagination; Fire (400 kya) provided cooking, warmth, and social storytelling opportunities.
  • Mismatch Diseases: Illnesses resulting from the conflict between the modern environment and our evolved biology. Examples: Obesity from excessive sugar/fat intake; back pain from lack of movement; anxiety and addiction from new stressors and media.
  • Supernormal Stimuli (Tinbergen): Exaggerated cues that exploit evolved instincts. Examples: Junk food, pornography, and social media, which lead to dopamine desensitization, behavioral addictions, weakened willpower, and a vicious cycle.
  • Delayed Maturation: Prolonged childhood selected for empathy, care, and cooperation under social pressures, as long learning periods require strong social bonds.
  • Language Origins Theories:
    • Bow-wow: Imitation of animal sounds.
    • Pooh-pooh: Expression of emotions (e.g., “ouch”).
    • Musical: Used for bird-like charms or social bonding.
    • Social: Used for coordination and grooming replacement.
    • Physical: Linked to bipedalism and brain reflection (babies are microcosms—walking accelerates language development).
    • Tool-making: Linked to lateralized brain function.
    • Genetic: Result of an innate mutation.
  • Wesch PNG Evolution Example: Locals demonstrated barefoot agility and load carrying (evolved light step) contrasted sharply with Wesch’s struggle in boots, prompting questions about modern human capabilities.

Language: Structure, Relativity, and Cognitive Impact

  • Language: A system of arbitrary symbols and sounds with structure (phonetics, morphology, syntax, semantics). Origins ~35 kya (Yule). It embeds assumptions and is contingent.
  • Phoneme: The smallest sound unit that distinguishes meaning (approximately 40 per language, out of 400 possible). Example: Korean ‘pul’ (fire) vs. ‘phul’ (grass), distinguished by aspirated ‘p’.
  • Tones: Pitch changes that alter meaning. Example: Vietnamese ‘ma’ can mean ghost, but, mother, horse, rice, or grave, depending on the tone.
  • Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: The idea that language shapes thought.
    • Determinism (Strong Whorf): Language determines thought.
    • Relativity (Weak Whorf): Language influences habits and perception.
  • Linguistic Relativity: Languages differ in what they must convey, shaping views. Examples (Boroditsky): Time (Kuuk Thaayorre east-west flow); Space (Tzeltal directional/dead reckoning, no left/right); Numbers (Piraha no exact); Color (Berinmo boundaries); Gender (Spanish/French objects); Agency (English agents in accidents). Hopi Example: No tenses, time cyclical (“getting later”).
  • Frame Substitution: Tweak phrases to reveal underlying grammar or assumptions. Example: PNG Tok Pisin variations of “I go garden” reveal directions (uphill/downhill).
  • Metaphors (Lakoff/Johnson): Pervasive linguistic structures that shape perception. Example: Argument is War (attack/defend/claims indefensible); alternative might be Argument is Dance (collaboration).
  • Conduit Metaphor: Ideas are objects, and words are containers (“get across,” “fill with content”). This frames education as filling minds (lecture halls are often designed based on this assumption).
  • English “Thingy”: The tendency to process abstract concepts as concrete things (e.g., time, love as objects), which has implications for thought.
  • Motherese (Fernald): Universal high-pitch, repetitive baby talk, often characterized by four “songs”: approval, warning, comfort, and question.
  • Strengthness: The idea that a weakness can be a strength in a specific context or over time. Example: Gillian Lynne’s fidgeting/ADHD channeled into choreography and dance expertise.
  • Pidgin vs. Creole:
    • Pidgin: A simplified contact language with no native speakers.
    • Creole: A full language developed from a pidgin (e.g., Tok Pisin in PNG, English-based; Wesch learned it, reshaping his habits).
  • Evidentials: Grammar that requires the speaker to specify the source of evidence. Example (Matses): Requires markers for direct observation (“see”), inference (“deduce”), conjecture (“guess”), or report (“hear”).
  • Wesch Ildefonso Case Study: Ildefonso (deaf, no prior language concept) initially copied signs. His breakthrough in naming led him to “enter the universe of humanity/communion of minds.”