ANT 105 - Cultural Anthropology

1. Compare anthropology with other social sciences to show how anthropology is both different from and similar to them
   1. Explain holism as a characteristic of the discipline and of specific research projects, as well as how holism distinguishes anthropology from other disciplines
   2. Explain the five subfields and how they connect to earth and life sciences and other behavioral sciences
2. Explain the concept of culture
   1. Compare two or more definitions of culture and their implications
   2. Define culture and society as complementary and/or contrasting concepts
   3. Define cultural relativism and ethnocentrism and demonstrate understanding that there are degrees of being relativistic
   4. Use examples to explain universals, generalities and particulars 
3. Discuss the methods of ethnographic field research and acquire the ability to contrast scientific with humanistic approaches and explain how cultural anthropology has focused on qualitative research
4. Demonstrate an understanding of anthropological approaches to communication and language
   1. Define language as anthropologists understand it: a holistic system of verbal and non verbal communications
   2. Define linguistic relativity and discuss the relationships among culture, language and thought
   3. Define semantics and explain how Linguist and anthropologist are concerned with how meaning is communicated, i.e., through metaphors and symbols of various kinds
   4. Describe how languages change over time and specialize uses of language e.g., in ritual settings
5. Understand basic concepts of ethnicity, race and social identity
   1. Explain the relationships between social identity and social power
   2. Distinguish between ethnicity, biological race and socially constructed race, and how race has been used historically for exploitation
   3. Define several different forms for social management of ethnic/social difference: assimilation, genocide, relocation, segregation, accommodation and enculturation
      1. Understand what is meant by adaptive strategy or means of subsistence
      2. Explain what adaptive strategy includes: basic production/distribution/consumption, a division of labor, right of access to and control over resources, limits on population and group size
      3. Distinguish between foraging and food production strategies based on the presence or absence of animal and/or plant domestication
      4. Foraging (gathering and hunting): division of labor, rights, egalitarianism, seasonal mobility
      5. Horticulture (subsistence agriculture), rights, semi-sedentism, slash and burn cycles, and dry land farming
      6. Pastoralism (herding) rights, mobility, contrast with agricultural societies that have livestock and animals for other uses
      7. Intensive agriculture, permanent villages and cities, occupational specialties, stratification, surplus production in contrast to the previous three strategies
      8. Industrialism, urbanization of populations and culture-generating processes, stratification; note post-industrial service economies as a ?later stage?, along with its cultural characteristics
6. Explain economic exchanges as anthropologist approach it, i.e., holistically
   1. Understand how exchange is more than about ?just? the economy; social relations in a holistic sense
   2. Reciprocity: generalized, balanced, negative; associated levels of social obligations and trust
   3. Redistribution: tribute, taxation: public uses of accumulated resources
   4. Market exchange: small scale, and large scale markets; medium of exchange, profit motive
7. Explain social organization as a cultural and social phenomenon, that is, a feature of meaning systems and patterned behavior
   1. Define Incest taboo and be familiar with at least two explanations of it; understand the incest taboo as a cultural universal and as a culture specific understanding
   2. Family; nuclear and extended
   3. Define Marriage in an inclusive way, and define the basic forms of polygyny, polyandry and monogamy
   4. Explain cross-cousin marriage and why it is considered not to be incest
   5. Explain the basic social functions of marriage and family
   6. Identify post-marital residency patterns and preferences, along with their implications for membership in households and kinship groups; avunculocal, matrilocal, neolocal and patrilocal
   7. Define categories of kin: lineal/collateral, affinial, consanguinial, ascending and descending generations
   8. Distinguish major forms of descent: matrilineal and patrilineal, bilateral/bilineal
   9. Explain various forms of organizing kin into larger groups: lineages, clans, moieties, phratries.
   10. Recognize at least two of the most common kinship terminology systems, including the Eskimo and Hawaiian
8. Describe basic anthropological perspectives on gender and sexuality across cultures
   1. Distinguish sex from culturally constructed gender
   2. Discuss how cultural groups manage gender roles, and the expression of sexuality
   3. Discuss differences in the gender division of labor, gender stratification and the associated attitudes toward men and women 
9. Analyze different forms of political organizations, social control, stratification and violence
   1. Define the terms power, authority, leadership and legitimacy
   2. Distinguish the basic forms of political organization: band, tribe, chiefdom and state, and distinguish archaic and modern states, and associate forms of leadership: situational leaders, headmen, big Men, chiefs, divine rulers and secular leaders
   3. Differentiate between informal and formal means of social control, using examples of gossip, witchcraft, legal codes and religious authority
   4. Integrate and understanding of forms of stratification: egalitarian, rank, caste and class, with political forms, kin-and place-based identify and adaptive strategy
10. Understand anthropological approaches to explaining and describing religion
    1. Contrast an inclusive definition and an exclusive definition of religion and understand the problems of definition
    2. Define and describe examples of the basic concepts mana, magic, sorcery, witchcraft
    3. Differentiate between several kinds of ritual: rights of passage, calendrical ritual and crisis rituals, and associate the prevalence for one or another with different adaptive strategies
    4. Associate forms of religious organization with adaptive strategy and political organization
    5. Define revitalization movement
11. Understand the basic features of globalization and the world economic system
    1. Define globalization and compare/contrast it as a historical period with the colonial period
    2. Assess the conditions of nations, small cultural groups and individuals in a stratified global society, suing at least one major theory of globalization
12. Describe major trends in the global/post-colonial period regarding migration, ethnic warfare, multinational corporations, economic development and poverty