UCLA Anthro 3- Yan
Study online at https://quizlet.com/_63n77c
1. Adaptation: A series of beneficial adjustments to a particular environment
2. cultural adaptation: A complex of ideas, technologies, and activities that enables
people to survive and even thrive in their environment
3. Culture: A society's shared and socially transmitted ideas, values, and percep-
tions, which are used to make sense of experience and generate behavior and are
reflected in that behavior.
4. Enculturation: process by which a society's culture is passed on from one
generation to the next and individuals become members of their society.
5. society: An organized group or groups of interdependent people who generally
share a common territory, language, and culture and who act together for collective
survival and well-being
6. Gender: The cultural elaborations and meanings assigned to the biological differ-
entiation between the sexes.
7. Subculture: A distinctive set of ideas, values, and behavior patterns by which a
group within a complex society operates, while still sharing common standards with
that larger society
8. ethnic group: People who collectively and publicly identify themselves as a
distinct group based on shared cultural features such as common origin, language,
customs, and traditional beliefs.
9. Ethnicity: The term for the set of cultural ideas held by an ethnic group.
10. pluristic society: A complex society in which two or more ethnic groups or
nationalities are politically organized into one territorial state but maintain their
cultural differences.
11. Symbol: A sound, gesture, mark, or other sign that is arbitrarily linked to some-
thing else and represents it in a meaningful way
12. social structure: The rule-governed relationships—with all their rights and
obligations—that hold members of a society together. This includes households,
families, associations, and power relations, including politics
13. infrastructure: The economic foundation of a society, including its subsistence
practices and the tools and other material equipment used to make a livinging
14. superstructure: A society's shared sense of identity and worldview. The collec-
tive body of ideas, beliefs, and values by which members of a society make sense
of the world—its shape, challenges, and opportunities—and understand their place
in it. This includes religion and national ideology
15. cultural relativism: The idea that one must suspend judgment of other people's
practices in order to understand them in their own cultural terms.
16. Colonialism: System by which a dominant society politically claims and controls
a foreign territory primarily for purposes of settling and economic exploitation.
1/7
, UCLA Anthro 3- Yan
Study online at https://quizlet.com/_63n77c
17. urgent anthropology: Ethnographic research that documents endangered cul-
tures; also known as salvage ethnography.
18. advocacy anthropology: Research that is community based and politically
involved.
19. multi-sited ethnography: The investigation and documentation of peoples and
cultures embedded in the larger structures of a globalizing world, utilizing a range
of methods in various locations of time and space
20. digital ethnography: An ethnographic study of social networks, communicative
practices, and other cultural expressions in cyberspace by means of digital visual
and audio technologies; also called cyberethnography or netnography
21. ethnographic research: Extended on-location research to gather detailed and
in-depth information on a society's customary ideas, values, and practices through
participation in its collective social life.
22. key consultant: A member of the society being studied who provides informa-
tion that helps researchers understand the meaning of what they observe; early
anthropologists referred to such an individual as an informant.
23. quantitative data: Statistical or measurable information, such as demographic
composition, the types and quantities of crops grown, or the ratio of spouses born
and raised within or outside the community.
24. qaulitative data: Nonstatistical information such as personal life stories and
customary beliefs and practices.
25. informal interview: An unstructured, open-ended conversation in everyday life.
26. formal interview: A structured question-and-answer session, carefully annotat-
ed as it occurs and based on prepared questions
27. eliciting devices: An activity or object that encourages individuals to recall and
share information.
28. culture shock: In fieldwork, the anthropologist's personal disorientation and
anxiety, which may result in depression.
29. Theory: A coherent statement that provides an explanatory framework for un-
derstanding; an explanation or interpretation supported by a reliable body of data.
30. Mentalist Perspective: A theoretical approach stressing the primacy of super-
structure in cultural research and analysis; also known as the idealist perspective.
31. materialist perspective: A theoretical approach stressing the primacy of infra-
structure (material conditions) in cultural research and analysis.
32. self-awareness: The ability to identify oneself as an individual, to reflect on
oneself, and to evaluate oneself.
33. naming ceremony: A special event or ritual to mark the naming of a child.
34. Personality: The distinctive way a person thinks, feels, and behaves
2/7
Study online at https://quizlet.com/_63n77c
1. Adaptation: A series of beneficial adjustments to a particular environment
2. cultural adaptation: A complex of ideas, technologies, and activities that enables
people to survive and even thrive in their environment
3. Culture: A society's shared and socially transmitted ideas, values, and percep-
tions, which are used to make sense of experience and generate behavior and are
reflected in that behavior.
4. Enculturation: process by which a society's culture is passed on from one
generation to the next and individuals become members of their society.
5. society: An organized group or groups of interdependent people who generally
share a common territory, language, and culture and who act together for collective
survival and well-being
6. Gender: The cultural elaborations and meanings assigned to the biological differ-
entiation between the sexes.
7. Subculture: A distinctive set of ideas, values, and behavior patterns by which a
group within a complex society operates, while still sharing common standards with
that larger society
8. ethnic group: People who collectively and publicly identify themselves as a
distinct group based on shared cultural features such as common origin, language,
customs, and traditional beliefs.
9. Ethnicity: The term for the set of cultural ideas held by an ethnic group.
10. pluristic society: A complex society in which two or more ethnic groups or
nationalities are politically organized into one territorial state but maintain their
cultural differences.
11. Symbol: A sound, gesture, mark, or other sign that is arbitrarily linked to some-
thing else and represents it in a meaningful way
12. social structure: The rule-governed relationships—with all their rights and
obligations—that hold members of a society together. This includes households,
families, associations, and power relations, including politics
13. infrastructure: The economic foundation of a society, including its subsistence
practices and the tools and other material equipment used to make a livinging
14. superstructure: A society's shared sense of identity and worldview. The collec-
tive body of ideas, beliefs, and values by which members of a society make sense
of the world—its shape, challenges, and opportunities—and understand their place
in it. This includes religion and national ideology
15. cultural relativism: The idea that one must suspend judgment of other people's
practices in order to understand them in their own cultural terms.
16. Colonialism: System by which a dominant society politically claims and controls
a foreign territory primarily for purposes of settling and economic exploitation.
1/7
, UCLA Anthro 3- Yan
Study online at https://quizlet.com/_63n77c
17. urgent anthropology: Ethnographic research that documents endangered cul-
tures; also known as salvage ethnography.
18. advocacy anthropology: Research that is community based and politically
involved.
19. multi-sited ethnography: The investigation and documentation of peoples and
cultures embedded in the larger structures of a globalizing world, utilizing a range
of methods in various locations of time and space
20. digital ethnography: An ethnographic study of social networks, communicative
practices, and other cultural expressions in cyberspace by means of digital visual
and audio technologies; also called cyberethnography or netnography
21. ethnographic research: Extended on-location research to gather detailed and
in-depth information on a society's customary ideas, values, and practices through
participation in its collective social life.
22. key consultant: A member of the society being studied who provides informa-
tion that helps researchers understand the meaning of what they observe; early
anthropologists referred to such an individual as an informant.
23. quantitative data: Statistical or measurable information, such as demographic
composition, the types and quantities of crops grown, or the ratio of spouses born
and raised within or outside the community.
24. qaulitative data: Nonstatistical information such as personal life stories and
customary beliefs and practices.
25. informal interview: An unstructured, open-ended conversation in everyday life.
26. formal interview: A structured question-and-answer session, carefully annotat-
ed as it occurs and based on prepared questions
27. eliciting devices: An activity or object that encourages individuals to recall and
share information.
28. culture shock: In fieldwork, the anthropologist's personal disorientation and
anxiety, which may result in depression.
29. Theory: A coherent statement that provides an explanatory framework for un-
derstanding; an explanation or interpretation supported by a reliable body of data.
30. Mentalist Perspective: A theoretical approach stressing the primacy of super-
structure in cultural research and analysis; also known as the idealist perspective.
31. materialist perspective: A theoretical approach stressing the primacy of infra-
structure (material conditions) in cultural research and analysis.
32. self-awareness: The ability to identify oneself as an individual, to reflect on
oneself, and to evaluate oneself.
33. naming ceremony: A special event or ritual to mark the naming of a child.
34. Personality: The distinctive way a person thinks, feels, and behaves
2/7
