Anthropology Study GuideNotesFall 2013Week of Identities & Personhood I: Race, Class & Caste Identities: religion, race/ethnicity, language, nation, gender, sexuality, class, caste, indigenous Each one of those is a cultural construction designed to create categories aroundone or another “imagined community”o None maps onto distinct biological divisions, although they are used to invoke nature to reaffirm their legitimacy Social identity: o Social statuses are the categories of different kinds of people who interact. o Social roles are the rules for action associated with particular statuses. The American public tends to combine status and role under one term, role. There is a distinction between status (the position) and role (the appropriate behavior related to the position)  Social stratification is any form of inequality characterized by regularly experienced unequal access to valued economic resources and/or prestige. o Caste is a system of stratification that ranks people on the basis on their birth. People are born into a caste system at birth and cannot move to a higher rank. o Class is a kind of social stratification that restricts individuals’ access to valued resources and prestige within a partially flexible system. In class systems, social mobility is possible although usually difficult. Position in society is defined primarily by economic terms. o Stratified societies are marked by unequal access both to prestige and valued economic resources. Stratified societies are defined by the presence of class and/or caste inequality. o Gender inequality assigns unequal access to prestige and economic resources on the basis of sexual identity. It usually confers a lower rank on women. o Social stigmatization is the assignment of low rank to individuals who are associated by members of society with things that are considered polluting.  Anthropology of race: race is not real or objective category but a social construct. Race is a modern concept. o This does not mean that race does not exist. Belief in racial difference canshape perception. o The media re-present out reality to us. Representation is therefore a version of reality.o Race representation in the media has been criticized on stereotyping, under-representation of minorities on prime time TV, few racial role models depicted.  Identities: media representations of American Indians as primitive or savage Edward Curtis images: ideas about ethnicity. 1491’s comedy making fun of perceptions of Indians. Week of Identities & Personhood II: Gender & Sexualities Sex refers to biological characteristics that refer to men and women Gender refers to socially constructed roles, behaviors and activities that society deems appropriate for men and women.  Bodies composed of genes, hormones, and of culture and history. Some cultural historians argue that in Western culture the two-sex system is relatively new, before that there was just MALE.  Intersex: describes congenital conditions where development of chromosomal, gonadal, or anatomical sex is “atypical”. Historically referred to as “hermaphrodite”, that often had corrective surgery at birth and parents expected to treat them as that gender.  Alternative gender cross-culturally o Hijra (India): neither man nor woman, most known for musical performances at weddingso Travesti (Brazil): female-like physical features, often associated with malesex work. Not transsexuals- they do not perceive themselves as women. o Kathoey or lady boy (Thailand): males who exhibit varying degrees of femininity  Gender as Performance: gender as identity created through performance- including language, clothing, actions, etc.. In our society gender is now marked inthe womb through fetal sexing and gendering of infants.  Anthropology of women: gender as category of analysis. Submergence of racial and cultural differences in women.  Colonizing gender: gendered experiences are not universal.  Structural violence in Dopefiend: political-economic organization of society harms ‘vulnerable’ people (women). Institutionalized forms of racism; classism; sexism; ethnocentrism; nationalism; heteronormativity Intersectionality: various social and cultural categories interact on multiple and simultaneous levels. Categories of oppression do no operate independently, instead “intersect” and reflect multiple forms of discrimination.  Engendering anthropology: Studying men as men. Studying men in relation to women and other men. Masculinity.  Masculinity: male gender identity just as culturally defined as female. Masculinity is what men think or do to be men.  Cross-culturally, men are often “made” while women are “born”. Week of Kinship & Families Kinship: diverse ways people arrange into family groups and assign groups both tasks and meaning. Can also structure such things as wealth, property, inheritance, residence, identity, reproduction, and alliances.  A kinship system is a culture’s rules about who are kin and the expected behavior of kin. Based on 3 interconnected principles: marriage, residence, and descent.  Formal kinship analysis is based on finding out who was to related to whom and in what way. A kinship diagram shows this, genealogy.  Marriage: There is an incest taboo. Preference rules of endogamy, exogamy, hypergyny, and hypogyny. o Gifts: Bride wealth or bride price- gifts from groom’s family to the bride’s family. o Bride service- groom service for bride’s family. o Dowry- gift from bride’s family to groom’s family.  Polygamy: monogamy (union between two people), polygamy (more than 2 partners), polygyny (1 husband and many wives), polyandry (1 wife but many husbands). Outlawed in America but it is still practiced.  Residence: Who makes up a household? o Patrilocal (husband’s parents) 70%o Matrilocal (wife’s parents) less than 15%o Avunculocal (near maternal uncle) 4%o Ambiolocal (both or neither) 9%o Neolocal (totally separate) 5% Unilineal: descent only recognizes descent through 1 parent. Patrilineal or Matrilineal Bilineal Descent: traces kinship from both parents equally to the child. This is onethird of all cultures and mainly hunter/gatherer or industrialized societies.  Clans: groups of people that united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. The founding ancestor can be a person, mythical spirit, or animal. In some cases, clan membership/loyalty can