Key Concepts of Cultural Anthropology

Chapter 1 Perspectives: Introducing Anthropology
Guiding Principles
Holistic Approach
Comparative Method
Fieldwork-Based Data Collection
The Subfields of Anthropology
Biological Anthropology
Archaeological Anthropology
Cultural Anthropology
Linguistic Anthropology
Applied Anthropology
Anthropology, the Sciences, and the Humanities
Positivist Approach
Postmodernism
Chapter Summary

Chapter 2 Fieldwork: Producing Cultural Anthropological Knowledge
From the Armchair and the Verandah to the Tent
Common Fieldwork Situations
Fieldwork Techniques
Participant-Observation
Ethnographic Interview
Key Cultural Consultants
Life History Research
The Genealogical Method
Eliciting Devices
Ethnographic Photography, Ethnographic Filmmaking, Ethnographic Videography, and Ethnographic Audio Recording
Ethnographic Mapping
New Approaches to Ethnographic Fieldwork
Reflexive Ethnography
Critical Anthropology and Multisited Ethnography
Producing Anthropological Accounts
Ethnography
Ethnology
Ethnographic Monographs
Fieldwork and Ethical Considerations
Chapter Summary

Chapter 3 Culture: Distinguishing Human Condition
Cultural Characteristics
Culture Is Learned
Culture Is Shared
Culture Is Symbolic
Culture Is Patterned
Culture Is Dynamic
Culture Is Adaptive
Culture and Its Evolutionary Roots
Culture and Anthropology Subfields
Chapter Summary

Chapter 4 Theorizing Culture: Growth of Anthropological Theory
Social Darwinism
Unilineal Cultural Evolutionism
Empiricism and Cultural Relativism
Structural Functionalism
French Structuralism
Neo-Evolutionism, Cultural Ecology, and Cultural Materialism
Symbolic and Interpretive Anthropology
Critical Perspectives
Chapter Summary

Chapter 5 Language: Encoding and Communicating about Experiential World
Human versus Nonhuman Communication
Nonverbal Forms of Communication
Haptics
Artifacts
Kinesics Cues
Gestures
Greetings
Sign Language
Vocalics
Chronemics and Proxemics
Design Features of Language
Cultural Transmission through Learning
Arbitrariness
Duality of Patterning
Openness
Semanticity
Displacement
Prevarication
Structural Elements of Language
Phonology
Morphology
Syntax
Semantics
Language and History
Language Family
Cognates
Loanwords
Pidgin, Creole, and Lingua Franca
Language and Culture
The Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis
Language, Society, and Power 11
Linguistic Variation and Social Stratification
Linguistic Registers
Dialects and the Privileged Dialect
Heteroglossia
Discourse
Chapter Summary

Chapter 6 Anthropology of Art: Exploring Cultural Manifestations of Symbolic Creativity
The Biological Roots of Art
Defining Art
Aesthetics and Cultural Aesthetics
Cultural Aesthetics
The Anthropological Perspective of Art
Ethnographic Data Gathering
Emic Approach
Cross-Cultural Scope
Primitive Art
Art by Intention
Art by Appropriation
Art World
Art and Globalization
Deterritorialization of Art
Reterritorialization of Art
Sri Lanka’s Kandyan Dance
Bollywood Film Industry
Californication
Urban Youths in Kathmandu, Nepal
Art, Power, and Resistance
Marcelo Brodsky’s Buena Memoria (“Good Memory”)
Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed
Street Theater
Mikhail Bakhtin’s Notion of Carnivalesque
Occupy Wall Street and Carnivalization of Art
Chapter Summary

Chapter 7 Kinship, Descent, and Marriage: Comprehending Relatedness
Diagramming the Universe of Kin
Searching for Kin-Naming Patterns
Kin Term
Distinguishing Relatives
Generation
Gender
Lineality versus Collaterality
Consanguinity versus Affinity
Relative Age
Bifurcation
Gender of the Linking Kin
Constructing Groups of Kin: Descent
Unilineal Descent
Matrilineal Descent
Patrilineal Descent
Cognatic Descent
Constructing Groups of Kin: Marriage
What Is Marriage?
Marriage as a Rite of Passage
Love Marriage
Arranged Marriage
Rules Concerning Sexual Relations and Marriage
Incest Taboo
Exogamy
Endogamy
Forms of Marriage
Monogamy
Polygamy
Postmarital Residence Patterns
Neolocal Residence
Patrilocal Residence
Matrilocal Residence
Bilocal Residence
Avunculocal Residence
Divorce and Widowhood
Levirate
Sororate
Types of Family
Nuclear Family
Extended Family
Blended Family
Single-Parent Family
Transnational Family
Sexual Cohabitation or Living Together
Family of Same-Sex Partners
Constructing Groups of Kin: Kin by Choice
Family and Kin in Global Perspective
Chapter Summary

Chapter 8 Subsistence: Strategizing Sustenance
Mode of Production
Subsistence Strategies
Foraging
Domestication of Plants and Animals
Pastoralism
Horticulture
Intensive Agriculture
Industrial Agriculture
Sustainability of Agriculture
Chapter Summary

Chapter 9 Distribution: Probing the Aspects of Exchange and Processes of Circulation
Economic Anthropology
Formalist versus Substantivist Debate
Reciprocity
Generalized Reciprocity
Balanced Reciprocity
Negative Reciprocity
Redistribution
Leveling Mechanism
Market Exchange
Commodities
Commodity Fetishism
Money as Means of Market Exchange
Gift
The Spirit of the Gift
The Paradox of the Gift: Keeping While Giving
The Enigma of the Gift
Spheres of Exchange
Commodity Flows and Singularization
The Paradox of Debt: Morality and Menace
Chapter Summary

Chapter 10 Stratification: Exploring Culturally Institutionalized Inequality
Egalitarian Society
Rank Society
Stratified Society
Caste
Social Grouping Based on Ritual Purity: Jaati (“kind”)
Occupational Grouping Based on Ritual Purity: Varna (‘colors’)
Caste and Its Economic Links: The Jajmani System
Purity, Pollution, and Caste Hierarchy
Critical Perspectives on Caste Studies
Caste and Contemporary Politics in India
Social Class
Alienation
Class-in-Itself versus Class-for-Itself
Two Primary Classes in Capitalism: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat
Other Classes: Landowners, Petty Bourgeoisie, Peasantry, and Lumpen Proletariat
Race
Colorism
Racism
Ethnicity
Sexuality and Gender
Sex and Sexuality
Gender
Chapter Summary

Chapter 11 Political Anthropology: Probing the Exercise of Social Power
Types of Political Systems
Band, Tribe, and Chiefdom
State
Origin of the State
Nation-State
Social Power and State
Hegemony
Neo-Gramscianism
Governmentality
Chapter Summary

Chapter 12 The World System: Examining the Growth of Modern World Order
The Growth of Modern World Order and the Colonial Legacy
Plunder
Cash Cropping
Forced Labor
Joint-Stock Companies
Colonialism and Its Legacy
Anticolonial Struggles, Decolonization, and Neocolonization
Critiquing the Modern World Order: Dependency Theory and the World-System Analysis
The Dependency Theory
The World-System Analysis
Fernand Braudel’s Approach to History
Immanuel Wallerstein’s Analysis of the Modern World-System
Eric Wolf’s Critique of the “Atomization of the World”
Chapter Summary

Chapter 13 Globalization: Making Sense of the Culture of Capitalism
Cultural Dimensions of Globalization
Cultural Homogenization
Cosmopolitanism
Cultural Imperialism
The New Means of Consumption
George Ritzer’s Model of Fast-food Restaurant: “McDonaldization”
Cultural Heterogeneity
Indigenization
Cultural Hybridization
Creolization
The Complexity of the New Global Cultural Economy
Arjun Appadurai’s Model of Global Cultural Flows: “Landscapes”
Disjunctures
Production Fetishism
The Fetishism of the Consumer
Deterritorialization
The Weakening Role of the Nation-State
Globalization and Changing Modalities for Governance
Graduated Sovereignty
Flexible Citizenship
The Disciplinary Regimes of Citizen-Subjects Making Friction: Awkward Interconnection across Difference
Chapter Summary

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

Key Concepts of Cultural Anthropology is an excellent introduction to sociocultural anthropology that allows instructor and student to have a stimulating entry to a scholarly field that has lent a hue to the ways of looking at our modern world. It is up to date, balanced, well-sourced, critically alert, the principle qualities we would wish to have as support to the classroom experience.
Mahir Saul Professor of Anthropology University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign