Quiz 1 Study Guide

Four Field Approach to Anthropology

Physical Anthropology

Cultural Anthropology

Linguistic Anthropology

Archaeology

Culture

Ethnocentrism

Cultural Relativism

Diversity

Culture as way of life

Culture as human trait

Eurocentrism

Afrocentrism

Culture Shock

Elements of culture:

Symbols

Language

Values

Beliefs

Culture is shaped by technology

Hunter/gatherer

Pastoralism

Horticulture

Agricultural

Industrial

Post industrial

Cultural Changes

Invention

Discovery

Diffusion

Subculture

Counterculture

Multicultural

Participant Observation

Armchair Anthropology

Folklore

Unofficial vs. Official History

Oral Traditions

Folkways: a mode of thinking, feeling, or acting common to a given group of people

Legends/Folktales

Artifacts

Rituals

Urban Legends

Key People:

Bronislaw Malinowski

Franz Boas

Ruth Benedict

Margaret Mead

Bounded Theory

     Unbounded Theory

    Scientific Theory: An observable, testable and correctable explanation for an observable phenomenon.

    Religious Belief: unbounded, not testable, do not uncover new knowledge

    Lamark: Inheritance of acquired characteristics

    Darwin

    Evolution

    Natural Selection

     Struggle for existence: Competition for scarce resources

 Survival of the Fittest

 Sexual selection: traits exist to attract a species to the opposite sex

 Group selection/Altruism: sacrificing oneself for the good of the group

Adaptation

Bipedalism

Out of Africa Theory

Childhood Development in humans

Importance of cataclysmic events

 

Definition of Folklore:

Folklore is an integral part of being human. The discipline of folklore studies the unofficial, the spoken, and the traditional forms of expressed culture, such as legends (including urban ones), myths, folk music, jokes, festivals, and more.

It is often contrasted with the printed word, yet the recent growth of the internet and digital communications has brought the realms of popular culture increasingly closer to folklore as well. Thus the field of folklore and popular culture encompasses more than two hundred different genres such as folktales, myths, legends, proverbs, jokes, games, folk medicine, and ethnomusicology.

Folklore, everyday cultural forms of expression, are communicated, enjoyed, replicated, passed on, modified, deployed and interpreted by all of us. We weave folklore effortlessly into our daily lives, using folklore to shape and understand our world and our place in it. We are all experts. So much so that most of the time our use and reception of folklore goes unnoticed.
Folklore operates in the realm of the obvious, taken for granted, self-evident, and thus is not designated as being open to interpretation. Thus, Folklore has been described as “quotidian” – the stuff that makes up everyday life, ordinary. But in the potential to convey meaning, create boundaries, constitute identity, and create sense out of nonsense, Folklore is anything but ordinary. Folklore, that stock of knowledge brought into specific situations, “…substantiates our belief in the connectedness and orderliness of the larger context of the everyday lifeworld.” (S. Stewart, Nonsense, pg. 11)
At the same time, as a construct, when we self consciously address the concept of folklore, it is laden with the historical legacy of 19th century European Romanticism, and much of what is recognized as “legitimate folklore” is derived from such concepts, which ultimately relegate folklore to “old wives’ tales” – falsehoods and superstitions that are grounded in anti-modern premises. Thus the term Folklore has come to encompass both subject and object, “theory” and data, “folk-wisdom” and disciplinary construct. Because Folklore is at once seen as both marginal and central to our daily endeavors, it is the object of “heritage preservation” and the salvage work of archives as well as being derided as old-fashioned, irrational, nonsense.